The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Trijntje Oosterhuis sings "That's What Friends Are For," last Saturday night (3/16/13) at Amsterdam's Heineken Music Hall.

Some kid has done a little video on YoutTube for Hal's great "It Was Almost Like A Song" from Dionne's last album. I'm still flabbergasted why this hasn't gotten more support here together with Hal's stunning "99 Miles From LA" and Burt's terrific "Love Is Still the Answer" .

And it still sounds some much better, deeper, more nuanced on a big stereo

'The Love too Good to Last', one of the few Bacharach/Bayer Sager songs I really loved and just about the first one they wrote together (with Peter Allen). This is the wonderful Pointer Sisters version which Bacharach also arranged and which featured on the soundtrack of 'Nightshift':

Martin, I think the first songs of Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager were fine and they still sound good today. I recently got hold of a CD of the 'Sometimes Late at Night' album after thirty years of having only the vinyl version and this is one of my favourite tracks from it:

Martin thank you for posting "Almost Like A Song" one of Dionne's very best, a truly memorable track !
Sara, I too have "Sometimes Late At Night" on CD it's fantastic !
A criminally underrated opus !
One of my favorites from that album...those Bacharach chords are spine-tingling....


"blue"

'Almost Like a Song' .. my favourite from Dionne's new album ... love it! It has a sort of country sound to it.

gillanddon,
My favourite too.

"blue"

Another track, Blue, from that "criminally underated album". I think this is the most 'classic Bacharach' of all the tracks on the album - every note, every chord change, every orchestral nuance.

Pure Bacharach !
I've run out of adequate superlatives for this beautiful album !

Thank you Sara,
"blue"

blue & Sara:

This is also one of my favorite albums! ...... I've mentioned this before in this forum - I had the pleasure of seeing Burt & Carole perform the entire album live at the Roxy Theater on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles (a very intimate club type venue) at the time the album was released. ........ It remains one of the most memorable live performances I have ever attended. This was at a time when Burt and Dionne were on the "outs" personally and professionally and I learned afterwards that Dionne was in attendance at this event as well! The CD "Sometimes Late At Night" is on my priority playlist! Never get tired of listening to it!

Hi Ron,
Burt and Carole did a "Radio Special" in 1981 ... they discussed the making of the album
have you ever heard it ?

"blue"

I never did hear that "blue"! .... Wonder if it's available on youTube or elsewhere on the net. Thanks for the "heads up"
ron

Add my name to the list of people here who love that album. I think it had some of Burt's most sophisticated compositions on it, not the least of which is "Wild Again."

Question: Why didn't that album become a hit? My answer is this: Carole Bayer Sager, the singer. Not strong enough. I think if Dionne had recorded that album it would have done much, much better. I think "Stronger Than Before" would have been the big hit off the album, too. I think it had all the makings of a big pop hit. Carole's voice, in my estimation, was too soft and sweet -- just as her speaking voice is. Just hear Aretha or Dionne sing "Stronger Than Before" in your head and you'll see the difference.

By the way, a few songs on that album were not written by Burt, one of which is "You And Me (We Wanted It All)." Sinatra sang that one, too.

Dionne did record "Stronger Than Before" and it was included on her 1985 Arista album "Friends". ......... The track was produced by Burt & Carole.

Sometimes Late at Night, in my view, fell through the cracks for two reasons: no promotion and a changed pop soundscape. By the mid-70s, stalwarts like Bacharach/David, Jimmy Webb, and Nichols/Williams were no longer in demand. The airwaves were saturated with neo-bubblegum, country-pop, and disco.
Carole famously encouraged Burt to round off the rough edges to his melodies in the hope of blending into a dumbed-down radio playlist.
It didn`t work. Although it did achieve the previously unthinkable: it made the post - SLAN songs unrecognizably boring. Burt`s melodies have seldom (PFM the major exception) been quite the same.