The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Nancy Sinatra, "This Girl's In Love With You" from "The Ed Sullivan Show":

If me or anyone else on here compiles a list of instrumental albums dedicated exclusively to the music of Burt Bacharach to compliment the one featuring vocalists we're going to have to take into account jazz guitarist Grant Green Jr's just released 'Thank You Mr Bacharach'. Here he is with his fellow musicians negotiating some tricky time changes with aplomb:

This is SOOOOO good!!

A song for today....


'blue'

A different take on a Bacharach/David classic......




'blue'

The Swinging Blue Jeans' version of 'Don't Make Me Over' was one of three UK hits that so-called Mersey Beat groups had with Bacharach & David songs in the mid-60s, the other two were by a group actually called The Merseybeats and they were 'Wishing And Hoping' and 'It's Love That Really Counts', the latter one of only four instances that I'm aware of a Bacharach song being a hit in the UK without ever reaching the US Hot 100 for any artist, although The Shirelles did come very close.

Here are The Merseybeats with Dusty from the TV Special 'The Bacharach Sound' from 1965....


'blue'

When I think of The Merseybeats I remember my elder sister playing their hit 45 'I Think Of You' on her pink Dansette record player several times a day. Watching them lip-syncing and miming to the record on TV in 1964 takes me back to the time when pop groups smiled inanely at the camera no matter how sad the song and then gave a little bow at the record's conclusion. I see that it was written by Peter Lee Stirling. No, me neither.

If the April 1964 date is correct, this aired the month I was born.

Anyone hearing the track 'Up And Down' by Judy Singh in 1970 would have been forgiven for thinking it might have been composed by Bacharach. It's credited words and music to David Foster but apparently it's NOT the famed producer/composer of the same name as it's a couple of years before he started to become active in the business as a musician, plus he's never been known to write lyrics.


From her album 'A Time For Love' that featured 'Up And Down', here's Judy Singh with Jimmy Webb's brilliant song 'Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon'. From the days when a song could become an instant standard without being a chart hit.

Burt discusses Dusty...

'blue'

Here's Madeline Bell talking about how it was working as a background singer on Dusty Springfield's recording sessions and also about Dusty's love of Bacharach.

Talking about Dusty Springfield's love of Bacharach, here she is with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas on Ready Steady Go in 1964 performing 'Wishing And Hoping'.

Paul,
Wonderful stuff !
Thanks for posting.

'blue'

Madeline Bell has recorded a few Bacharach numbers in her time and his influence is very pronounced in a song that she co-wrote with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, a track in which he not only plays piano but also arranged and produced. In fact he was at the helm for the whole of Madeline's 'Comin' Atcha' album released in 1973 and co-wrote all the songs with her.