The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Julie London cut only one Bacharach number, Wives And Lovers, and as it was recorded in the mid-60s she sings it straight and without any of the irony singers must feel almost obliged to bring to it today. Hal baked a big dose of irony right into that lyric, and there's no way to sing that song wit...

...lyricist is Sammy Gallop whose most famous song is probably 'Elmer's Tune', a hit for Glenn Miller in the early 1940s. Gallop also co-wrote "Somewhere Along the Way" 10 years after "Elmer's Tune", and both of them went to 68 on the charts. His "Autumn Serenade" live...

This track benefits from being arranged by Zorn, the obvious AACM aficionado than Zorn, the Klezmer student. Like another career-long wild card, Anthony Braxton, Zorn could be phenomenally imaginative or phenomenally self-indulgent. But, as Miles said, "If you don`t make mistakes, you ain`t tr...

I didn`t think this was at all bad; in fact I found it to be quite respectful of the composition. I couldn`t say that about much of the Zorn project. There's about 4 on the Zorn album that are astonishingly good, and about 5 that are astonishingly bad. I won't try to mount a defense of the balance ...

Trombonist Josh Roseman worked with Dave Douglas and other downtown NYC jazz musicians in the 1990s and 2000s, and his 2002 solo record has a version of "Land of Make Believe" that is in the same ballpark as some of the arrangements on John Zorn's "Great Jewish Music" Bacharach a...

...arranger Stan Foster might also have been inspired by the orchestration on Julie London's famous recording of Fly Me To The Moon. Thanks for posting the Alma and referencing the Julie London "Fly Me To the Moon". That's some of the best singing I've heard London do, and that Ernie Free...

Here's a rare promo film Pitney made for the record. So I've got some questions. Did this woman he was singing about steal all of his money and his car, thus forcing him to ride around America in an empty bus lamenting that he can never, never never go home again? Why the suit and tie? Was he a doo...

In a previous comment I mentioned a Gene Pitney quote about "Liberty Valance" I'd seen in Serene Dominic's "Song By Song" book. I decided to see if the interview was online, and lo and behold, the Chicago Sun Times still has it up 27 years later. I didn't see it on the forum; hop...

If you are looking for a commercial release, my understanding is that it's never been released on consumer video (DVD or VHS). There are, as I assume you know, two uploads of mediocre quality on Youtube. This one seems to be a little better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9uWdhT2vRQ This page call...

I couldn't find anything definitive in Google books, but Pitney's record was definitely on the market by March 31 1962, when it was mentioned in Billboard, and it peaked on the charts sometime that spring or summer (Wikipedia says in April). It's possible that the Fairmount Singers version was relea...

Connie occasioned this memorable paragraph from Serene Dominic: Despite the success of “Magic Moments,” Bacharach and David would not return to the American Top 5 as a team until “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” in 1962. Needing a hit during that dry spell, they turned to the girl Billboard called...

....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...