The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

....prefacing her rendition of the song with these words, "I bet this is the first time a Burt Bacharach song has been performed in this establishment". ....referencing The Box Tops' recording, a version that might be unique in that the lead vocalist is male and he actually sings the song...

Burt gets so much mileage out of four basic chords in this song. It's almost like some of the music on Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue", you hear it and wonder how something so simple could sound so fresh. And the 12-bar verses and chorus feel related to the blues, even if the chord changes don...

So Dionne's in now. There's not much I care less about than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but anything that reminds people of how great Dionne Warwick is, is fine by me. If only those judges would sit down and listen to "My Little Red Book" and "Promise Her Anything", they'd re...

"I was very conscious of people looking over my shoulder at Motown." - That's the quote I was remembering. Serene was too polite and/or wise to press Burt for more details when Burt was a bit vague, which is too bad. But Burt seems like a guy who lived a very full life, in and out of music...

Wouldn`t their first obligation legally as a team have been to make good on their Warners contract? That's a good question, beyond my knowledge. These kind of lawsuits play out in a lot of different ways, and some artists have more leverage than others based on their copyrights and other factors. C...

I forgot to check Robin Platts' book for this--it's not a book I pick up very often. He's quoting Hal on p.92: "Berry Gordy called me. He was interested in me coming to work for for Motown. I wasn't interested--not because of Motown, but I just wasn't interested in working for a record company,...

the idea that Bacharach and David could have collaborated on new material shortly after having filed lawsuits against each other has always struck me as more than a little bizarre. I could see it having gone either way--the songs might have been written for Dionne a few years prior, or the project ...

I see that there's no reference to this recording in Serene Dominic's Song By Song and it makes you wonder how an obscure singer from New Zealand managed to get hold of a new and previously unrecorded Bacharach & David song and with what sounds like to my ears a Bacharach arrangement? Her Wikip...

I actually watched "The April Fools" a few months back for the first time, mainly because of the Bacharach connection and because I love Jack Lemmon. It's obscurity today is probably deserved, but the party scene where Jack meets Catherine Deneuve is so good, almost like something in an Au...

Today I learned that tucked away on an Earl Klugh smooth jazz album from 1976 is a nice solo guitar arrangement of April Fools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkV6RZa9wKY&t=43s Earl also did a nice solo version of "Any Old Time of the Day" on his first all-solo album, 'Solo Guitar', a...

All those songs are basically doing the same thing harmonically, but the root movement of Arthur tracks most closely to All the Things You Are Arthur's Theme: Em7 | A7 | D7 | G | C | F#7 | B All the Things You Are: Em7 | Am7 | D7 | G | C | F#7 | B Killing Me Softly: Em | Am | D7 | G | Em | A/C# | D ...

I found this 1986 exchange between Bacharach and music journalist Michael Fremer interesting, regarding the 1982 Air Supply song "Even the Nights Are Better". I think what Fremer is getting at is the similarity between the Air Supply melody on the chorus of "Even the Nights" and ...

Completely coincidentally, today I found a somewhat under the radar 1987 recording of the show's "Whoever You Are, I Love You" by cabaret singer Marlene VerPlanck. It won't blow anybody's mind, but if you can't get enough of Promises, Promises, maybe it will interest you: https://www.youtu...

This is great, thanks for posting it. It's amazing what turns up over the decades. Those Hal Blaine-style "wall of sound" drums certainly come through the low-fidelity. I'm not enough of a Broadway historian to know if mid-60s shows before Promises, Promises had any of this kind of muscula...

Most of us probably saw the news that 1960s crooner Steve Lawrence passed away March 7. He was on board the Bacharach train pretty early with "Loving Is a Way of Living" (1959), and recorded "Wives and Lovers" in 1966 so his lounge singer card would not be revoked, and he recorde...