BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

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Sara D
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BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by Sara D »

I posted this before and for some reason it disappeared without trace a few hours later:

Next Friday the 27th BBC4 are dedicating two hours of their evening schedule to Bacharach with a repeat of the 'This Is Now' doc preceded by a compliation of videos taken from TV shows from the last 40 years of various artists performing Bacharach & David songs. Here's the blurb from BBC4's webpage regarding the latter show:

The BBC have raided their remarkable archive once more to reveal evocative performances from Burt Bacharach and Hal David's astonishing songbook. Love songs from the famous songwriting duo were a familiar feature of 1960s and '70s BBC entertainment programmes such as Dusty, Cilla and The Cliff Richard Show, but there are some surprises unearthed here too. Highlights include Sandie Shaw singing Always Something There to Remind Me, Aretha Franklin performing I Say a Little Prayer, Dusty Springfield's Wishin' and Hopin', The Stranglers' rendition of Walk on By on Top of the Pops, The Carpenters in concert performing (They Long to Be) Close to You and Burt Bacharach revisiting his classic Kentucky Bluebird with Rufus Wainwright on Later...with Jools Holland.
nowmedical
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by nowmedical »

Well spotted Sara. Sky box has been duly set :D
The smiley face is from my middle daughter Eva who was at the same Cadogan Hall concert as you.
pljms
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by pljms »

For those who can't watch or record them on Friday evening the two shows are broadcast back to back again next Sunday night/Monday morning from 01:45am. The 'This is Now' doc was produced by the BBC in 1995 and was made in reaction to Bacharach being 'rediscovered' on the back of the so called Easy Listening boom. I've not seen it for about ten years and it will be interesting to see how well it stands up.
Paul
Peter Greenhill
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by Peter Greenhill »

Have just set my dvd recorder!!!
pljms
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by pljms »

The BBC TV compilation featured no less than 20 videos, 18 artists and 19 different B&D songs, although 3 of those songs cropped up twice. I should imagine most of the clips are on YouTube, but new to me were Mel Torme's 'What's New Pussycat', Sandie Shaw's 'Trains and Boats and Planes', Cilla Black and Cliff Richard's very effective merging of 'Walk on By' and 'The Look of Love', Englebert's 'A House is Not a Home' and Val Doonican and Billie Jo Spears' 'What the World Needs Now'. I hadn't seen Rufus Wainwright's appearance with BB on 'Later' since it was first broadcast in 2005 and I'd forgotten just how nervous he appeared, fluffing the lyrics near the end of 'Message to Martha' despite having the words in front of him. Some of the text info accompanying the videos was a little bit suspect to say the least, like stating that Keely Smith never recorded 'One Less Bell to Answer', and laughably referring to the Velvet Fog himself, Mel Torme, as the "velvet frog"!
Last edited by pljms on Sat Apr 28, 2012 10:10 am, edited 2 times in total.
Paul
nowmedical
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by nowmedical »

There were hours of good viewing on Beeb4 - even the appetiser hour from Frank Sinatra was superb including some studio footage of him recording It Was A Very Good Year.

Best moment without doubt, though, is when Burt, in concert, stands up to conduct the orchestra during Captives Of The Heart - a sublime piece of orchestration, quite beyond any lyric except the apt "it's magic" uttered by Dionne.
Alistair
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by Alistair »

A marvellous compilation of Bacharach songs - although I personally could have done without the Stranglers version of "Walk On By", and Val Doonican and Billie Jo Spears version of "What the World Needs Now Is Love" lolloped along without any sense of pace - imagine it this being sung to the beat of a metronome and you get the idea! And Bacharach's time signatures are so important to his work. The Top Of the Pops version of Dionne's "Do You Know the Way To San Jose" was bizarre, to say the least. Donkeys, yet!
I had seen "This Is Now" before, but it was good to see it again,: the sequences where Burt was conducting an orchestra rehearsal in Monte Carlo were fascinating.
Alistair
blueonblue
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by blueonblue »

My favorite "clip" of the night.........


"blue"
Martin Johnson
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by Martin Johnson »

The video compilation show veered from the sublime (Aretha with The Sweet Inspirations) to the, well, let's just say less sublime (The Stranglers). Having Gwen Guthrie's 'Close to You' as well as the Carpenters' version was a waste and I'm sure the BBC must have dozens of superior performances of 'Walk on By' in their archives to the Stranglers version. The biggest surprise for me because it certainly didn't look very promising on paper was Cilla and Cliff's collage of 'Walk on By' and 'The Look of Love'. Mel Torme's 'What's New Pussycat' and Sammy Davis Jnr's 'This Guy's in Love with You' were different enough to be entertaining and made me wonder, not for the first time, why more 'jazz' singers don't cover Bacharach. The same applies to jazz musicians in general. I agree with pljms re the normally assured Rufus Wainwright's remarkably unassured performance of 'Message to Martha'. Maybe it was having the master on the set with him at the piano that made him so jittery.
Sara D
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by Sara D »

Yes, the compilation show was a bit of a hotch-potch as these things invariably are but never less than fascinating all the same.

I hadn't seen the 'This Is Now' documentary in many a year and that too was an intriguing watch. It was interesting hearing Carole Bayer Sager state how ridiculous she found it when she first started going out and about with Burt in the early 80s when people pestered him for new material when he'd "already done it all". I wonder how ridiculous she'd find it more than 30 years later and with Burt now in his mid-80s that people were still wanting more from him.
Last edited by Sara D on Thu May 03, 2012 8:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Martin Johnson
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Re: BBC4 'Bacharach Night'

Post by Martin Johnson »

Yes, some people are never satisfied, are they?!
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