The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Hearing the news that Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul And Mary fame had passed away a few days ago reminded me that he was the featured vocalist on 'The Young Grow Younger Every Day' from Bacharach's 'Futures' album. Although the song contains one killer Bacharahian chord change in the verses I've always been slightly disconcerted by the first line of the chorus and its musical similarity to "Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?" from 'Auld Lang Syne'. It was probably the first time I'd heard anything composed by Burt which was in any way derivative of another work, although as it turned out it wouldn't be the last.

The Henry Mancini-esque 'Lisa' has always been a bit of an anomaly in Bacharach's recorded output and maybe that accounts for the dearth of cover versions. Here's one of only two recordings of the song other than Burt's and it's a jazzy instrumental interpretation.

R.I.P. Richard Chamberlain....

'blue'

I'd forgotten how haunting the guitar riff is in Blue Guitar, an early Bacharach & David obscurity and the A-side of Richard Chamberlain's original recording of Close To You. I say 'obscurity' but I see that it peaked just outside Billboard's Top 40 in 1963. I see also that it features a Bacharach arrangement.

Sara D wrote: ↑Tue Apr 01, 2025 6:09 am I'd forgotten how haunting the guitar riff is in Blue Guitar, an early Bacharach & David obscurity and the A-side of Richard Chamberlain's original recording of Close To You. I say 'obscurity' but I see that it peaked just outside Billboard's Top 40 in 1963. I see also that it features a Bacharach arrangement.

Very nice arrangement.

Singer Jane Morgan was the first female artist to have a Top 40 hit in the US with a Bacharach song and congratulations are in order as today is her 101st birthday. It must be the way the melody and chord progression take an unconventional turning in 'With Open Arms' that really caught my ear back in 1959 or whenever it was when I first heard it, that and the beautiful tone to Jane Morgan's voice.

pljms wrote: ↑Sat May 03, 2025 12:49 am Singer Jane Morgan was the first female artist to have a Top 40 hit in the US with a Bacharach song and congratulations are in order as today is her 101st birthday. It must be the way the melody and chord progression take an unconventional turning in 'With Open Arms' that really caught my ear back in 1959 or whenever it was when I first heard it, that and the beautiful tone to Jane Morgan's voice.

The good news is that Bacharach produced an entire album for Jane Morgan a few years after 'With Open Arms' for which he also arranged and conducted seven of the ten tracks. The bad news is that the album contains only one of his compositions and it's the debut recording of the song written with Bob Hilliard, 'Waitin' For Charlie To Come Home'.

When I came across this female harmony group's performance of probably Bacharach and David's most popular song never to have been a hit nor become a standard I thought I detected some English-accented vowel sounds and sure enough I've discovered that KTB Music is a school based near Preston in the north-west of England. Their rendition is based on the version of the song as it's usually performed in 'Promises, Promises' with the long chorus being repeated.

I see that KTB Music have posted separate videos for the three individual harmony parts on their rendition of 'Knowing When To Leave' and it's interesting listening to the lower alto part and hearing how it differs from the main melody of the song sung by one of the two sopranos.

'Knowing When To Leave' is based on major 7th and minor 7th chords and listening to the isolated alto from the three part harmony version it sounds like she's singing some of those 7th notes. The song has always been popular among Bacharach aficionados but despite dozens of recordings in the late 60s there wasn't a really definitive version among them that absolutely nailed it and which could have made it a hit.