The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

First, I`m glad you found a copy; I was under the impression that it was out of print. Obviously, it`s essential if you were missing any of the A&M albums (and you probably were since few of them were ever transferred to CD) and didn`t feel like drug-smuggling to pay for a Japanese import. There...

I have to partially disagree. Leaving aside the lyricists` comparative qualities, I haven`t heard anything since Isn`t She Great and Painted From Memory that is as melodically inventive. Those certainly were "throw-backs" to Burt`s `60s style.The more recent efforts have, to my ear, been l...

I can see I`m also becoming a bit dense in my old age as well, having blithely ignored your smiley graphic. Burt has always seemed to me to be his own sub-genre of pop regardless of what other influences he employs. Fusion I take to be the hybrids of rock and jazz or classical and rock that enjoyed ...

Steveo, Do I read your above post correctly as a ringing endorsement of "fusion"? Or do you mean you DON`T need classical music with a rock beat nor rock with classical or pop trimmings? I`ve become something of an aesthetic conservative in my dotage (57 this year) and prefer genres uncont...

Am I alone in opining that these unfinished Gershwin compositions should be left undisturbed? How would Burt like someone (say,Marvin Hamlisch) to come along and "complete" his unfinished work posthumously? Would Brian Wilson authorize Bono to polish up his incomplete tapes? Let sleeping g...

Yeah! Screw Barbra Streisand; get Burt into the Vanguard for a night ...or two...or ten!
Okay, the sightlines are awful from a lot of seats, but the acoustics are unparalleled.
Someone with Burt`s ear really ought to bug him about this.

I believe this was first used in the Isn`t She Great soundtrack, a trove of self-reference and allusion.

Are all those Scepter albums that were re-issued only a couple years ago out of print again? I figured we all had them by now; and that,anyway, they would remain available again for a while. What `s going on? Did Dionne herself have a hand in remaindering them? These are classics of American pop ( n...

I`ve often thought that it`s too bad for purposes such as this that the internet wasn`t around forty or so years ago when there was so much new work to absorb and share. All we really CAN do now is, in effect, keep saying. "Wasn`t this great?" I especially am frustrated in that I`m old eno...

Given how well Burt was able to slyly imitate and allude to his own compositions on the "Isn`t She Great" ST, I`m willing to entertain the idea that the melody is all Burt`s and that the lyrics were Brian`s contribution. I don`t know how willing a collaborator Burt is when it comes to comp...

I receved my copy today. Let me say that, as glad as I am to have recordings of these songs, I doubt that I (or anyone else) will spend many hours listening to them. I made it all the way to track #27 (out of a total of 32) before I remembered why I ordred this thing in the first place. The chorus o...

I recall Thomas telling Johnny Carson contemporaneous with the "Raindrops" success that he was doing a lot of speed, and also that he was recovering from the flu during the recording sessions resulting in takes (some final) which satisfied neither him nor Burt. Whatever difficulties pertai...

In fact, Mr. Zimmerman recorded a double album of others` material back in(I believe )1970 , ironically entitled "Self Portrait". It included, among other atrocities, Bobby`s version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Yes, it sucked...supposedly on purpose to rid himself of the ado...

Has it ever been confirmed or definitively laid to rest that Bob Dylan was the first to be offered "Raindrops..." for the Butch Cassidy ST? That Ray Stevens took a pass I can believe. That Burt would offer one of his songs to someone whose talent lay...well, outside the hitting of notes ma...

I tried posting this on the home page with ambiguous results, so I`ll try again here. There is, in addition to the three collections highlighted, the UK release: The First Book of Songs: 1954 - 1958 on the El / Cherry Red label. Sorry if this is this note`s third appearance on the forum but I appare...