Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

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Martin Johnson
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Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:41 am

Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by Martin Johnson »

Thanks Sara, what an inspired choice and although I don't think I've heard that track for forty years it sounded so familiar it might only have been a few weeks. Good film too and it took me a while before I realised that it was Rachel Roberts with Malcolm McDowell in the shot preceding the song.
pljms
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Location: London

Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by pljms »

When David Foster was just as well known as a composer as he was a producer he was often compared to Bacharach and the pair did go on to write a couple of things together in the 80s. 'What Can I Say' was co-written and arranged by Foster with Chicago trombonist Jimmy Pankow and was produced by Foster for the Chicago 16 album. Features the kind of delicious chord sequence and brass arrangement which made those Bacharach comparisons inevitable.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=orGINGkjgjI
Paul
Martin Johnson
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by Martin Johnson »

By the early 80's Chicago's much lauded brass section was becoming increasingly surplus to requirents so it's nice to hear it used so effectively on 'What Can I Say', so effectively in fact that it prevented the track from being released as a single, brass apparently deemed too unfashionable at the time to be featured on a potential hit record.

David Foster to me defines the era of songwriting by committee as so many of his songs seemed to have a co-composer and occasionally two lyricists. 'Mornin'' by Al Jarreau was composed by Foster with the record's producer Jay Graydon with lyrics by Jarreau. It epitomises the slick LA sound of the 80s when the new digital technology meant that production values skyrocketed. It features Foster on keyboards and Graydon on guitar playing the riff that runs virtually throughout the track and in common with all the songs they co-composed it's very rich harmonically:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kzXNdLVZs3k
ron hertel
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by ron hertel »

One of many great songs stored in my memory bank that I had not thought of or heard in years. .... Couldn't help wondering if Johnny Mathis had ever covered this gem. ..... Thanks for posting this link!
pljms
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Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am
Location: London

Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by pljms »

I remember that when Bacharach was asked to choose his five favourite records of songs not written by himself for the Ken Bruce show on BBC Radio 2 several years ago one of his choices was Earth, Wind and Fire's 'After the Love Has Gone' written by David Foster, Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin. As we know Foster worked with Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager on 'Girls Know How' for the 'Nightshift' movie and is normally the way when heavyweight writing talents collaborate on a song the end result was less than the sum of its parts. The fact that Al Jarreau's recording of the song was produced and arranged by Foster and Jay Graydon meant that not many of us would have guessed that Bacharach had had a hand in its composition if we hadn't known.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFDwIxzGAIE
Paul
pljms
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by pljms »

They say that most writer/producers are frustrated artists and for one album only David Foster and Jay Graydon formed Airplay. The album included the song of theirs that Bacharach so admired. Jay Graydon is the lead vocalist.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0RtjatjyeQQ
Paul
pljms
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Location: London

Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by pljms »

According to Serene Dominic's book Burt Bacharach: Song by Song, the instrumental 'Heartstrings' as recorded by David Foster was co-composed by Foster with Bacharach. As with 'Girls Know How', Foster's stamp as an arranger and producer is all over it, to the extent it's hard to discern any Bacharach input to the tune.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PtWODhFKEHU
Paul
Sara D
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by Sara D »

Tony Hatch has stated more than once that he was "under Bacharach's spell" as a composer and arranger in the mid-60s, naming 'Where Are You Now' as the prime example. I think 'You'd Better Come Home' from that time also owes a lot to Burt.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u_H2C3TMeP8
blueonblue
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by blueonblue »

One of my favourite Hatch / Trent compositions...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_kEN8Wyd9c

'blue'
Sara D
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by Sara D »

Blue, 'Lazy Day' is something I'd not heard in years and it was nice to be reminded of it.

Tony Hatch has always maintained that his most successful copyright isn't as most people assume 'Downtown' but the much more covered 'Call Me'. Unlike Burt, Hatch was often his own lyricist and that was the case for his two most famous songs. I prefer the Trini Lopez recording of 'Call Me' to the hit version by Chris Montez.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIMQOJXINc0
Davide Bonori
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by Davide Bonori »

I'm not a Beck Hansen fan, but his tune "Just noise" could be a track from "Painted from memory".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN5dxzib1E
Blair N. Cummings
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by Blair N. Cummings »

I don`t usually contribute to this thread, but it occurred to me that this relatively unknown Anthony Newley song would have qualified for Painted From Memory:
https://youtu.be/atOB66d8oLg
Martin Johnson
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by Martin Johnson »

Blair N. Cummings wrote:I don`t usually contribute to this thread, but it occurred to me that this relatively unknown Anthony Newley song would have qualified for Painted From Memory:
https://youtu.be/atOB66d8oLg
There's No Such Thing as Love was actually a UK single release in 1963 for Anthony Newley which didn't chart (He'd had several hits by that time). Written with composer Ian Fraser and not Leslie Bricusse as I'd assumed, the version of this song I'm most familiar with is by Thelma Houston on her eponymous album from 1972:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnGdFOGZTEI
Blair N. Cummings
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by Blair N. Cummings »

Newley`s legacy is, in my view, long overdue for a re-evaluation. Here in the vulgar States anyway his name has sunk into oblivion. When he died, the obit in the NYT was short and all but dismissive (possibly because he had made a few too many appearances on The Tonight Show singing "Pop Goes the Weasel"). Granted, most of what he wrote (with Bricusse and others) was intended for stage and film projects and, so, many were "situational." But there`s still a body of work that needs to be re-discovered by a younger generation. Here`s one that I`ve always loved but that has always been taken at to rapid a tempo. I just chanced upon this (apparently) amateur theatre presentation whose music director had the sense to slow the thing down:
https://youtu.be/YWRWugxA1QM
blueonblue
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Re: Another great song that sounds like Bacharach

Post by blueonblue »

Great song by Roger Joseph Manning Jr... formerly of the pop band 'Jellyfish'
Drifts into Bacharach territory at 3:44

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud4N5SvpHCM

'blue'
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