Red Allert

[Roberto Pinardi]

ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK BURT BACHARACH TOGETHER ? JAPAN MINI LP BSCD2 Blu-spec CD 2
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ORIGINAL-SOUNDTR ... 3f2093e315

GREAT From Davide Bonori

Bye
Roberto

[Blair N. Cummings]

It`s cool and overdue that this obscurity is blinking in daylight again, but caveat emptor: I`m sure this thing has been obscenely priced and its running time is roughly 30 minutes (including repititions). The songs have been posted here and on YT for years. The outstanding instrumental (which I`ve noted as being entitled "Lursa" although that seems wrong) sounds like a beguiling out-take from Futures.
In other words it`s kind of like the Arthur ST: bordering on but not yet a victim of the long `80s creative snooze. It`s certainly worth having but not worth paying an arm and a leg for.

[blueonblue]

At long last......wonderful score !!!
Pricey........but priceless.
Blair, the name of the song you were referring to is called "Luisa".......great track !

"blue"

[Roberto Pinardi]

http://theseconddisc.com/2013/01/07/bur ... -mcdonald/

Bye
Bob

[Blair N. Cummings]

Nice notes, as always, Joe. It raised again, in passing `though, the provenance of the Mills album songs.
I and, at least, one other take it that these were the songs slated for Dionne`s second Warners album. You - and others before - suggest that Burt and Hal briefly buried the hatchet for this project.
My understanding was that Hal was the only writer in the studio and, therefore, was given first mention in the "written and produced by..." credit. Burt`s involvement in the process was zilch. Nevertheless, these are unmistakeably Bacharach charts. The question, I guess, is "When, and for whom, were they recorded?"
It would be nice to have an authoratative account, just out of curiosity.

[BachtoBacharach]

Blair, according to my source in the know who was intimately involved in the process of coordinating things between Bacharach, Warwick and David and whom I have spoken with several times before on this topic states that the tunes Mills recorded were definitely written for Dionne Warwick's followup to her WB album "Dionne" which was released in January 1972. This also jibes with David Nathan's statements regarding those compositions. Bacharach, Warwick and David went into the studio to record the album "Dionne" in the fall of 1971 with a plan to record 10 tunes. Bacharach had written only three new tunes for the album, "If You Never Say Goodbye", "The Balance of Nature", and "I Just Have to Breathe." Aside from "Be Aware" which was written for Dionne but pulled out of the drawer for Barbra Streisand to sing on Burt's March 1971 Singer special, the rest were old Bacharach-David and other compositions to flesh out the album which was admittedly skimpy. Bacharach had minimum involvement in the studio when this filler material for "Dionne" was recorded. He was pursuing her own star by that time and Dionne's career seemed to be plateauing out. Her last singles prior to the release of "Dionne" had not performed as well on the charts as expected (The Green Grass Starts to Grow-released Dec 1970), Who Get's the Guy (released March 1971 and Amanda (from the Love Machine movie) released July 1971). In the spring of 1972, Burt signed on to score the movie "The Lost Horizon." During the time from the summer of 1971 through mid-1972, Burt and Hal composed several new Bacharach-David tunes intended for the followup to "Dionne" and subsequent projects but never used. Those tunes were later used in the Mills album according to my source. This, also according to my source, all were either in the drawer complete with music and lyric for Dionne or charts given to Hal to flesh out the lyrics for future Dionne projects when the Bacharach/Warwick/David relationship imploded in the summer of 1973. Dionne Warwick stated she doesn't remember any of the tunes as ever being given to her for consideration but she probably wouldn't because they never got together again to begin to work on the Dionne follow-up and of course we can't ask Hal David now. Based upon what I have been told, it is a pretty safe assumption that many if not all of the new Bacharach-David material on the Mills album was intended for Dionne.

[Blair N. Cummings]

So, BtoB, did Burt grudgingly book studio time to get these tracks ready for Mills or were they already in the can (like those of Holland/Dozier/Holland, employed for Dionne`s Just Being Myself")?

[BachtoBacharach]

I am not sure that Burt was as minimally involved as believed; I had always thought the opposite based upon the scuttlebutt and my own observations; that Burt was driving the project. Apparently, Hal was the main driver on the project and it's was the last project with their Blujac production company so from a business standpoint, Burt had to have had some involvement since he and Hal jointly owned BluJac Productions. With Just Being Myself, the shockingly skimpy LP with 8 tracks, those tracks were already in the can as HDH had those left over from sessions with Honeycone, etc. and all Dionne did was add her vocals. Only in recent years has the album gained appreciation; it was ignored in 1973 as too much of a departure from the Bacharach/Warwick formula. The tunes Hal and Burt cut with Mills were recorded live in the studio and not piecemealed out so the first time those tunes were recorded was with Mills. They followed the same method of studio recording they used with Dionne and used studio musicians. Now, I have always wondered why, when Dionne went back into the studio with Burt in 1974 why they didn't record those tunes as well as those three she recorded that Burt co-wrote with Neil Simon (and two with Bobby Russell) which never saw the light of day (David Nathan, hear this! Get those tunes out of the vaults and on CD!). Those sessions led Burt to declare that his magic with Dionne was gone and he abruptly cancelled further sessions. Very fickle move and this shows Bacharach's mental state at the time after the failure of Lost Horizon. The only conclusion I can draw based upon what I know from being there at the time and from other sources is that at the time Dionne cut these Bacharach/Simon tunes, Burt was still on the outs with Hal and because he wasn't willing to work with Hal any longer, those tunes eventually cut by Mills were off limits for Dionne to record during those sessions; Hal had to be involved in the production of those tunes contractually and he and Burt were communicating through their respective attorneys. The lawsuits were flying between Burt and Hal which has been little publicized and the lawsuit Hal filed against Burt preceeded the lawsuit Dionne filed in 1975, and his lawsuit basically tied up BluJac and BluJac's involvement in DIonne's career untill it was settled. Apparently, Burt and Hal reconciled enough to let the Mills project go through (maybe a contractual obligation that had to fulfilled?) but BluJac was dissolved after the Mills project. Now I think what prompted Burt and Hal to give those tunes to Mills was Dionne's hit Then Came You. No one was as surprised as Burt that Dionne hit number 1 with the tune and I believe that gave her the confidence to say goodbye to Bacharach/David and move on and later file her suit; she had been treated so shabbily by them both, particularly Burt. Burt and Hal never worked together again until Sunny Weather Lover. Hal is on record as saying that Burt's stubbornness over not settling with Dionne over her $5.5 million lawsuit for $5 million cost them the full five million PLUS legal fees for Warwick so they ended up paying and then some because the thing dragged out for almost 5 years. This stubborness cost Hal millions. Warwick's trevails with Bacharach made better press due to their fame, but as rancorous as the Bacharach/Warwick split was, it was nowhere near as contentious as the battle between Burt and Hal. There are enough folks still around who were intimately involved with the parties and maybe someday what actually happened will make better sense.

[blueonblue]

Is it also true that Dionne only found out about the Bacharach/David split when she read it
in the papers ?

"blue"

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Great stuff, B2B! I never knew exactly how acrimonious the split had gotten between Burt and Hal. Burt must have had some real mid-life crisis at that time to do what he did to both Hal and Dionne. Boy oh boy did he screw up a great thing! I think he must have had a mental breakdown of some kind at that time to do what he did. It really made no sense. He had the greatest lyricist and singer as his partners and he just threw it all away? For what? What a horrible decision for music lovers all over the world. I remember when the split happened. I just couldn't believe it!

I have another question for you, B2B. I loved the H-D-H/Warwick album, "Just Bein' Myself." And, yes, it was a different kind of thing for Dionne -- but it was great! I've always wondered why H-D-H didn't work with Dionne again and write and produce another album for her. Would you happen to know the reason for that? And while I'm at it: Why didn't Thom Bell continue writing and producing albums for Dionne? I loved the songs she did with him. Thom Bell is one of my absolute favorite songwriters. And where has he been all these years? Did he just stop writing and producing?

B2B: Did you know Bert Decoteaux by any chance? Or Harold Wald?

[BachtoBacharach]

Enormous, I think the reason that HDH didn't work with Dionne or she with them after Just Being Myself was simply economics. Just Being Myself didn't sell and was a gigantic flop. No one seemed to be interested in Dionne doing Motown despite some fairly good tunes; the album was an abrupt change from what the public was used to from Dionne. They wanted ballads and Bacharach from her. Harold Wald was associated with Burt and Hal through BlueJac and the publishing arm of their company. I became acquainted with both he and Bert De Coteaux, the latter primarily through Marlena Shaw.

Blue, the old story that Dionne found out in the papers is partially true. She tells a version where she read about the split in the LA Times. Actually, Dionne's dad, Mancel was the first person to tell her that he heard through John Houston rumors were flying that Bacharach and David had split. Warwick tried repeatedly to contact both Bacharach and David, both personally and through their reps and attorneys and no one was returning her calls. Allegedly, Leslie Uggams said that Dionne heard the rumors but couldn't confirm them until she read an article regarding their split in Variety. Warners was pressuring her for a follow-up to "Dionne" and despite what you have heard to the contrary, "Dionne" sold reasonably well despite being devoid of hit singles. In fact, If We Only Have Love was the only US single release and it wasn't even a Bacharach-David tune. Why Warners didn't release Be Aware as the lead single if still a mystery to me. When Bacharach refused to do the follow-up and even refused to release Dionne from the clause in her contract with BlueJac that stated she couldn't record with other producers unless Bacharach/David consented (Hal had given his consent), Dionne basically was painted into a corner. She met Burt at his Malibu home and essentially begged him to either get into the studio with her or let her record Just Being Myself or Warners was going to sue her; Burt was refusing to work with Hal as well. Burt finally relented after repeated visits and calls from Dionne and consented. Another facet in this cluster was that Warners was primarily an album oriented company and Dionne was primarily a Top 40 Hitmaker and Dionne and Warners wasn't a good fit from the git go and even less so after the departure of Mo Ostin to run the Electra/Asylum branch. But, Warners offered her $5 million and that overshadowed everything else and it's true that she was at that point the highest paid female vocalist in the history of popular music contracts. Burt though, apparently because of his fugue state after the failure of Lost Horizon, just didn't seem to care about either Dionne or Hal.

[blueonblue]

BachtoBacharach,
Thank you for the info.
It was disgraceful the way Dionne and Hal were treated.
But I read somewhere that Burt has since apologised, saying it was bad behaviour on his part.

"blue"

[David Young]

According to Robin Platts in his 2003 publication,``BURT BACHARACH and HAL DAVID, What the World Needs Now``, Dionne and Burt recorded the song I TOOK MY STRENGTH FROM YOU in the studio in 1973. Why has this recording never been released??

The song was subsequently recorded by Stephanie Mills in 1975 and Burt cared enough about the song to have it as the opening track on his 1977 A&M album FUTURES, sung by Joshie Armstead.

However, Dionne would bring her own inimitable vocal imprint to the song, and it must be due for release.


BachtoBacharach, thanks as always for your insights. Perhaps your source may have remarks about the recording session


David