Burt`s book

[Blair N. Cummings]

Wow, it`s quiet here! I expected to come back from New York and find at least a couple of threads.
Maybe it`s hard to find. I expected to see at least a small stack of copies on one of the tables at the Strand. Instead, I had to engage the help of a staffer who asked me to spell Bacharach and found a copy on a rolling rack in an aisle, not yet filed.
I began reading it at LaGuardia yesterday and plan to finish it tomorrow. Here`s what I`ve learned so far:
Dionne never said,"Don`t make me over!"
He still regards the Woman project as a failure because it didn`t sell.
Over the course of life , Burt has been in greater sexual demand than I.
More to follow....

[An Enormous BB Fan]

That's amazing that Dionne never said "Don't make me over." I mean, that has been canon all these years... and repeated over and over and over .... by Dionne herself! It just goes to show you.

Of course I will read the book. I just haven't gotten around to it yet for various reasons. I've waited all these years... I can wait a week or two more. I'll devour that book in one sitting. I'm also enjoying the anticipation of having a great time reading it. I think a part of it is that I want to hear what other people say about it first. Don't ask me why. And don't make me over!

[face]

I have it on hold at Barnes & Noble, and I will grab it tomorrow (hopefully). Can't wait to read it. As far as Dionne never saying "don't make me over," I think I read somewhere a long time ago that she actually said "don't f*ck me over." So.... I can see why they might have changed the story just a bit!

[An Enormous BB Fan]

I have it on hold at Barnes & Noble, and I will grab it tomorrow (hopefully). Can't wait to read it. As far as Dionne never saying "don't make me over," I think I read somewhere a long time ago that she actually said "don't f*ck me over." So.... I can see why they might have changed the story just a bit!

But I assume that, in the book, Burt meant that it never happened period -- with any substitute words.

[Blair N. Cummings]

That`s right, Enormous. She said nothing of the kind according to both Burt and Hal.
It`s also untrue, according to Carole Bayer-Sager, that Dionne suggested that the proceeds from "...Friends..." go to AIDS research. It was Carole`s and Dionne resisted it saying ,"...I just gave for "We Are the World'."
And that`s about it regarding Dionne in the book. In fact, it`s a pretty slight package. There is a lot of stage direction, if you will. A lot of people move around a great deal. And Burt is relatively unsparing of his own behavior when appropriate. Nevertheless, as reflections go, this isn`t Marcus Aurelius or Montaigne. There1s little here about recording sessions with Dionne or on his own projects and what little there is we`ve heard before.
It`s not a waste of time exactly but I didn`t come away with any new insights into the man or his work.

[BachtoBacharach]

The book is a quick read. I liken it to Dionne's autobiography with more substance...it's certainly more interesting than the lightweight pap that Dionne's book was. One nugget I found really interesting was something I knew back in the 1960s but was never explained in any great depth and just accepted as fact was Dionne's distance toward Angie Dickinson. They always seemed cooly cordial to one another but Burt tells the story about Dionne appearing at the Savoy in London in a blond wig while he and Angie were in the audience, as though mocking them. Burt was like "WTF" while Angie disputes his story and was nonplussed and didn't take that as a subliminal message from Dionne; she stated that there were times when Dionne did wear a light or blong wig. If you were expecting a real treatise on the sometimes rather volatile (and very interesting) relationship between Burt and Dionne (and the volatility was mostly on Dionne's part and I am not judging here, I would expect that kind of relationship to exist between two extremely creative people and it certainly did; Burt was never direct in his confrontation of anyone) this isn't your book. No substantive discussion about the acrimonious split (Dionne does go into the split in far more detail in her book than Burt does in his) which is very surprising since it destroyed so much. Nothing really earthshaking here to see I am afraid other than some reinforcement of how emotionally distant Burt really was from Angie and how quickly he tired of his marriage to her. Angie is a beautiful person inside and out and she is very realistic about her relationship with Burt and about Burt's hangups and some of her own. Burt self-admittedly comes across as a real jerk and cad at times. There were a couple of new things I didn't know about how Marlene Dietrich felt about Angie and Burt's self-acknowledged passive-agressive cruelty in just casually sharing with Angie some of Marlena's vitriol toward her. Burt does manage to humanize himself, which is something Dionne never accomplished in her tome. There is some self-reflection in Burt's book and some ownership of his behaviors which does not happen in Dionne's book...she's never been one for self-reflection and self-awareness.

[nikray77]

I have not picked up the book yet. But as usual some how Dionne is the problem. Again self-awareness and reflection appears to not only be a issue with Dionne or Burt. I would dare same some posters here lack much of what they expect from Dionne at least on this site I hope not in the real world or in their own lives but I doubt it.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Blair and B2B: Interesting. And, sadly, this is exactly what I was afraid of when I heard about the book. I have to admit that I expected the book to mostly be a rehash of things I've read about over the years. And I'm most sorry to hear that Burt didn't go into details about the recording sessions with/without Dionne.

I still can't wait to read the book, however.

[blueonblue]

Burt's book isn't released in the U.K. until the 6th June.
As Dick Dastardly would say "Drat.....and double Drat !!!"

"blue"

[Martin Johnson]

After reading the initial response to the book on here I don't think I'll have any problem waiting until June to read it. When a life of 85 years and a career of almost 60 as one of America's most successful and celebrated composers is condensed in an autobiography to a mere 300 or so pages you know it's hardly going to be in-depth and there will be many aspects of Bacharach's life and career that won't be touched on. Still, at least I know that when I eventually get hold of the book I'll read it to the end, unlike Carole King's self-penned memoir which I gave up on less than a quarter of the way through because I was starting to lose the will to live. It dawned on me then that when it comes to show biz autobiographies that perhaps there was a lot to be said for a good ghost-writer after all.

[nikray77]

By the way it's been sometime since I read Dionne's book but I think Dionne stated in a few interviews and in her book that Liz Taylor was the one that suggested that the proceeds go to AMFAR. And it was Carol who brought Liz to the recording session.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Is THIS what the book is like???

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/a ... words.html

[Blair N. Cummings]

Yep, those are excerpts (although the photos are from elsewhere). There`s a bit of a cut-and-paste feel to the whole thing. My sense is that Burt`s "narrative" is really a set of transcribed interviews cleaned up for the page. The other interviews, I suspect, may have been done on earlier occasions for other publications but I don`t know that to be a fact.

[nymusicalsguy]

Burt hasn't made a secret of the fact that the book has been constructed from (new) interviews. Similarly, co-author Robert Greenfield mentions the genesis of the other participants' interviews in the book itself. Off the top of my head, I believe some of Angie Dickinson's quotes were derived from a prior magazine article, and obviously Marlene Dietrich's quotes are of an older vintage. But Greenfield spoke to Angie, Dionne, Hal, Elvis, Carole and many others in assembling the book, and thanks them accordingly for their participation and material. I might be in the minority here, but I do believe the varying perspectives add a dimension to the book uncommon to many such autobiographies. Burt has stressed his desire to be frank - "warts and all," so to speak - in the book, and he's succeeded to a great degree, even if it wasn't possible for him to go into as much depth as we might like about certain songs or albums. (Some projects, such as AFTER THE FOX, are not only left unmentioned but seemingly rewritten out of history. Burt repeatedly refers to BUTCH CASSIDY as his third film score after WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT and CASINO ROYALE!)

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the book to anyone reading this; you're sure to learn at least a few new stories, and for those alone, the memoir is worth "the price of admission."

[An Enormous BB Fan]

I wonder if Burt is ashamed of After The Fox for some reason? AFAIC, it should have been mentioned and counted as a film score -- just for the sake of veracity, if nothing else.