Sheet Music for ALL of Bacharach's Songs?

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Dusty
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Joined: Sat Apr 29, 2023 3:46 pm

Sheet Music for ALL of Bacharach's Songs?

Post by Dusty »

Hi!

I can't find the sheet music online or in old songbooks for some of the deeper, more obscure, though still amazing, Bacharach/David tunes.

Songs like, "The Wine is Young" (the first track on the LP, I'll Never Fall in Love Again) and "Is There Another Way to Love You?" (the B-side to "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head") can't be found anywhere by me.

As Dionne sings on "Anyone Who Had a Heart", what am I to do? Does anyone know where to get the sheet music for the less well-known songs?
pljms
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Re: Sheet Music for ALL of Bacharach's Songs?

Post by pljms »

A songbook was publishsed in 1973 under the title Bacharach & David Greatest Hits which contained no less than 132 songs, so inevitably it features a lot of lesser known material. Of the two songs you mentioned only 'The Wine Is Young' is included. From my experience of hunting down books on the net which have long been out of print, your best bet is the site AbeBooks where you'll find thousands of independent sellers from all over the world. I bought this book in the mid-70s and it's still in my possession although now a bit tattered.
Paul
Jim Dixon
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Re: Sheet Music for ALL of Bacharach's Songs?

Post by Jim Dixon »

I've been doing some research on Bacharach sheet music, and have found the songbooks below so far. A link at the bottom goes to a Google doc with all the titles for each book:

Bacharach & David greatest hits [151 songs]
Hansen, 197?
https://www.worldcat.org/title/74811011


Bacharach & David In the beginning [9 songs, including several rarities]
Arch Music Co., 1969
https://www.worldcat.org/title/7438228


40 golden songs of Bacharach & David
Hansen 1969
https://www.worldcat.org/title/6175500


The Bacharach and David songbook [36 or 37 songs, depending on edition]
Simon and Schuster, New York, (1970)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/875958131


1st. edition only:
Here I Am
My Little Red Book (All I Do Is Talk About you)
What's New pussycat?

2nd. edition only:
All kinds of people
One less bell to answer
Close to you


Bacharach & David [80 songs]
Almo Publications, Hollywood, CA, 1978
https://www.worldcat.org/title/10841150


Burt Bacharach anthology [40 songs]
Warner Bros. Publications, 1989.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/20606279


The Hal David songbook [44 songs, not all with Bacharach music]
Hal Leonard Corp., Milwaukee, WI, 1990
https://www.worldcat.org/title/23445649

searchable Google doc with song titles for each songbook:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E9X ... ii-Fc/edit
Jim Dixon
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Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2023 8:12 pm

Re: Sheet Music for ALL of Bacharach's Songs?

Post by Jim Dixon »

Regarding sheet music for obscurities, some of the notable early songs with lyricists other than Hal David are hard to find, songs like "Baby It's You", "Tower of Strength", and Mexican Divorce".

Bacharach & David's songs published by Arch in 1962-1963 are rare, with the exception of "Twenty-Four Hours to Tulsa" and "Only Love Can Break a Heart". A 9-song collection of Arch Music tunes did appear in 1969, and notably, Fool Killer is included (a tune I can't find anywhere else).

I haven't done much looking around for Bacharach rarities in songbooks that aren't specifically Bacharach songbooks. Library catalog records are hit and miss when it comes to listing song titles in the records for sheet music collections. I may at some point do more searching on individual titles, some of which may have been published as single song editions.
mark
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Re: Sheet Music for ALL of Bacharach's Songs?

Post by mark »

Wow. I've never seen that Hansen collection before, but that's a pretty impressive collection of songs.

When I first started collecting Bacharach stuff in the '90s, the Burt Bacharach Anthology was the most available sheet music collection, but it's mostly well-known songs (with a few lesser known ones thrown in).

I've got a copy of this somewhere, and while it's less comprehensive than the Hansen collection, it features a lot of lesser-known compositions. (And almost no Dionne songs!)

https://www.amazon.com/Famous-Songs-Bac ... B00113JX4O
Jim Dixon
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Re: Sheet Music for ALL of Bacharach's Songs?

Post by Jim Dixon »

mark wrote: Sun Jul 02, 2023 11:08 am Wow. I've never seen that Hansen collection before, but that's a pretty impressive collection of songs.
I just got my copy of the Hansen book ("Bacharach & David Greatest Hits") in the mail yesterday. It's interesting.

At minimum, you get fakebook quality sheet music for a lot of obscurities (melody and lyrics). Most of the arrangements are written for performance on organ, so the treble clef has just the melody line, and the bass clef has lots of static chords, plus some foot pedal bass that generally just augments the static chords rather than functioning as a separate bass line. I'd have preferred regular piano vocal arrangements, but it is what it is. It's also fairly cheaply printed, and the songs are often crammed onto a single page, which works because the organ parts are so simple they don't take up that much space on the page. There is 6 pages of biographical material, 3 each for Burt and Hal.

Thanks for the tip on "Famous Songs". Based on the description "One book for vocal/piano/organ/guitar" and the table of contents entry for "organ registrations", I am assuming this collection is a subset of the material in "Bacharach & David Greatest Hits", and the arrangements are likewise geared towards organ players. All the the rarities in "Famous Songs" also appear in "Bacharach & David Greatest Hits". "Famous Songs" was so cheap I ordered a copy anyway, so I can confirm that it's the same stuff when I get it.
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