(12 May 1928 - 8 February 2023)
With the death of Burt Bacharach at the age of 94, it is not only the music business that has lost a great songwriter, but the cinema, television and theatre are also poorer for his passing. As a composer-arranger of hundreds of songs, a record producer and collaborator, an accompanist for the great and the good, he was a giant of the music industry, and an inspiration to other writers of popular music. With such a wide career it is difficult to know where to begin, with a man who recorded over forty albums, won six Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards and an Emmy.
Starting with the songs he wrote for Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Perry Como, Dusty Springfield, Gene Pitney, Tom Jones, Herb Alpert, Cilla Black and The Carpenters – to name just a few – where would these artists have been without him? Because he worked on so many songs, mainly with the lyricist Hal David (1921-2012) it is hard to believe that he wrote ‘I Say a Little Prayer for Me’, ‘Walk on By’, ‘What the World Needs Now’, ‘Alfie’, ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’, ‘The Look of Love’, ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’, ‘A House is Not a Home’, ‘Don't Make Me Over’, ‘Close to You’, ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head’…
Bacharach’s style of music was jazz-based and he had shown an interest in jazz from an early age. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but grew up on Long Island in New York, the son of a journalist and his wife, an amateur painter and songwriter. Burt trained in classical music but preferred to frequent jazz clubs. However, he had tuition from composers such as Henry Cowell, Darius Milhaud and Bohuslav Martinu. After leaving the US army, he worked with the singer Vic Damone and other vocalists. From the age of 28 he was Marlene Dietrich’s musical director.
With Hal David he wrote the musical version of the Billy Wilder film The Apartment as Promises, Promises, the hit song being ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’. Other projects included the revues Andre DeShield’s Haarlem Nocturne and The Look of Love, My Best Friend’s Wedding, additional music for The Boy From Oz and co-writing music for Some Lovers with Steven Sater.
In the cinema, Bacharach wrote for Forever My Love (1962) starring Romy Schneider, a trio of Peter Sellers movies, What’s New Pussycat (1965), After the Fox (1966) and Casino Royale (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), from which ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head’ was a big Oscar-winning hit, Lost Horizon (1973), a flop but the song ‘The World Is a Circle’ held its own, Together? (1979) with Jacqueline Bisset, Arthur (1981) with a hit song for Christopher Cross, Ron Howard’s Night Shift (1982), Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988), Love Hurts (1990), Bette Midler in Isn’t She Great (2000) and A Boy Called Po (2016). Bacharach played cameo roles in the three Austin Powers films and was often a guest on TV music specials.
Burt Bacharach was married four times, to Paula Stewart from 1953, to the actress Angie Dickinson from 1965, to the lyricist Carole Bayer Sager from 1982 and to Jane Hansen from 1993, until his death. With Dickinson he had a daughter, Nikki, who committed suicide at the age of 40. With Sager he adopted a son, Cristopher, and with Hansen had a son and daughter, Oliver and Raleigh .
MICHAEL DARVELL
