The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Sara D wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 07, 2021 5:34 am

........if Bacharach hadn't prevented him from adding those grace notes in two or three places.

I'm with Bacharach on this. Far from adding anything to the song I think that BJ Thomas's grace notes actually detract from it.

One of the things I most admired about Chick Corea was that he was no jazz snob, often expressing his love for melodic pop music in press interviews and in fact the first time I saw his name credited on a record sleeve was in the late 60s as the pianist on seven of the eleven tracks of Stan Getz's B...

Perhaps in the future when music historians write about how Bacharach's music was revitalised late in his career through his various collaborations with the likes of Billy Mann, Melody Federer and Daniel Tashian, these two songs won't be among the several they might reference.

Because of the brilliantly executed vocals I think the record by The Renaissance works a whole lot better than the much more well known 'Bacharach Baroque' album by the 18th Century Corporation, which once you got over the novelty of hearing Bacharach's music played by a small chamber group perhaps ...

Despite its status as a bonus track 21st Century Man is probably my favourite song on the EP alongside Bells Of St Augustine. However, until the ending gave it away, I don't think I would have guessed it was a Bacharach composition had I not known because of its relative simplicity.

That's helpful and it's a shame it's not accompanied by the complete lyrics as I still can't make out much in the line of the second verse that comes between "Gotta cool the anger down" and "See the truth through others eyes". Judging by the video footage the recording must have taken place before t...

It must be a breath of fresh air for Bacharach to just occasionally be presented with a lyric which isn't about Love and in this instance it seems to have really inspired him. However, maybe it's just me but I can only make out about 80% of the lyric.

That Bacharach is still composing at all in his nineties is noteworthy enough, that he's composed songs of the quality of 'With A Voice', 'Bells Of St. Augustine' and 'Blue Umbrella' in the last two years I'd say is nothing short of remarkable. Re Bacharach's impressive longevity, I've done some ch...

Blair, in referring to 'Bridges' I'm sure you must have meant 'Bells' as in the 'Bells Of St. Augustine'. That's still my particular favourite but I also like at least two of the others.

I don't think it's that controversial, Blair. Looking at it on purely artistic grounds, I think the partnership with Carole Bayer Sager represents the nadir of Bacharach's career. To my knowledge, no one has yet to record a 'Sings the Songs of Bacharach and Bayer Sager' album and I can't imagine tha...

In the last twenty months we've lost composers of the stature of Francis Lai, Michel Legrand, Johnny Mandel and now Ennio Morricone, all utterly irreplaceable.

His score for the movie 'I Want To Live' from the late 50s was very jazzy and featured baritone sax virtuoso Gerry Mulligan. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w-icBrcfNhs&list=OLAK5uy_kIHMbw_UNnqUknarOW-yCh4RCuxIC_2wI&index=1 Hearing that score just makes me want to see the movie. I'd almost forgotten ...

We've discussed 'Any Old Time Of The Day' quite a bit on here and the general consensus was that Bacharach didn't put enough emphasis on the "Call me and I'll be there" refrain on the original recording by Dionne Warwick. Stan Getz obviously thought along the same lines because his version puts it c...

While I was initially put off by the ridiculous "First new music in 15 years" hype surrounding its release, I found the song itself to be immediately attractive and also quite haunting once I'd listened to it a few times.

I forgot to mention in my post that I really enjoyed listening to the wonderfully named Bambi McCormick and her recording of Knowing When To Leave. She sings bang in the middle of the range I like to hear a woman's voice and I hope that more tracks from her album become available on the net, particu...