Magic Moments: The Definitive Burt Bacharach

[nymusicalsguy]

Our friends at Rhino UK are issuing on October 20 a new Burt box set (albeit in standard CD digipak size) with 75 very interesting tracks. Check out the lineup:

CD1:
1. Jackie DeShannon - What The World Needs Now Is Love
2. The Carpenters - (They Long To Be) Close To You
3. BJ Thomas - Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head
4. Nancy Wilson - Reach Out For Me
5. The Shirelles - Baby It's You
6. Dionne Warwick - Walk On By
7. Dusty Springfield - The Look Of Love
8. Tommy Hunt - I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself
9. Doris Day - Send Me No Flowers
10. Frankie Avalon - Gotta Get A Girl
11. Jack Jones - Wives And Lovers
12. Cilla Black - Alfie
13. Herb Alpert - This Guy's In Love With You
14. Tom Jones - Promise Her Anything
15. Cliff Richard It's Wonderful To Be Young - Alternate Take
16. Gene Vincent - Crazy Times
17. Charlie Gracie - I Looked For You
18. The Five Blobs - The Blob
19. Jackie DeShannon - So Long Johnny
20. Shirley Bassey - A House Is Not A Home
21. Burt Bacharach - Nikki
22. Andy Williams - Don't You Believe It
23. Jimmy Radcliff - (There Goes) The Forgotten Man
24. Billy J Kramer - Trains And Boats And Planes
25. Herb Alpert - Casino Royale
26. Dionne Warwick - Anyone Who Had A Heart
27. Bobbie Gentry - The Windows of the World
28. Nat King Cole - Once In A Blue Moon - Instrumental

CD2:
1. Perry Como - Magic Moments
2. Dionne Warwick - Do You Know The Way To San Jose
3. Aretha Franklin - I Say A Little Prayer
4. Dusty Springfield - Wishin' And Hopin'
5. Walker Brothers - Make It Easy On Yourself
6. Sandie Shaw - (There's) Always Something There To Remind Me
7. Burt Bacharach - Don't Go Breaking My Heart
8. Dionne Warwick - I'll Never Fall in Love Again
9. The Drifters - Please Stay
10. Gene McDaniels - Tower Of Strength
11. Marty Robbins - The Story Of My Life
12. Tom Jones - What's New Pussycat
13. Vi Velasco - That's Not The Answer
14. Dionne Warwick - Don't Make Me Over
15. Chuck Jackson - Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)
16. Gene Pitney - (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance
17. The Drifters - Mexican Divorce
18. Dean Barlow - Third Window From The Right
19. Adam Wade - Rain From The Skies
20. Della Reese - How About
21. Helen Shapiro - Keep Away From Other Girls
22. Trini Lopez - Made In Paris
23. The Merseybeats - It's Love That Really Counts (In The Long Run)
24. Manfred Mann - My Little Red Book
25. The Searchers - This Empty Place
26. Burt Bacharach - Pacific Coast Highway

CD3:
1. Dionne & Friends - That's What Friends Are For
2. Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello - God Give Me Strength
3. Will Young - What's In Goodbye
4. Christopher Cross - Arthur's Theme (The Best You Can Do)
5. Neil Diamond - Heartlight
6. Burt Bacharach & Rufus Wainwright - Go Ask Shakespeare
7. Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello - Who Are These People
8. Burt Bacharach - South American Getaway
9. BJ Thomas - Everybody's Out Of Town
10. Dionne Warwick - Odds And Ends
11. The Hammond Brothers - Thirty Miles Of Railway Tracks
12. Irma Thomas - Long After Tonight Is All Over
13. The Drifters - Let The Music Play
14. Dionne Warwick - Paper Mache
15. Keely Smith - One Less Bell To Answer
16. Anita Harris - London Life
17. Richard Chamberlain - Blue Guitar
18. The Drifters - The Land Of Make Believe
19. The Stylistics - You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart)
20. Carole Bayer Sager - Just Friends
21. Burt Bacharach - Hasbrook Heights

Congrats, Rhino UK! This looks to be a terrific set with a lot of rarities (the first CD appearance of Keely Smith's "One Less Bell To Answer", the alternate take of the Cliff Richard tune) and off-kilter choices (Carole Bayer Sager's "Just Friends", the very early stuff by the likes of Charlie Gracie, the Hammond Brothers, Frankie Avalon & Nat Cole). I'm surprised that some of these songs were recently included by Ace in their Bacharach anthology, but this looks to be a most welcome collection, in any event. Too bad the choices aren't chronological, though, like Rhino's past deluxe Burt box. Still, this one looks like a keeper.

Joe

[An Enormous BB Fan]

It's mind-boggling that one man wrote all that PHENOMENAL music! And what's even more amazing is that all these songs don't even come close to total output of Burt's INCREDIBLE genius!

I see they have Will Young's "What's In Goodbye" which is such a wonderful relatively-new Burt composition. I'm not sure if it even made the charts here in the United States. Will won the British version of American Idol called "Pop Idol". I wonder how his career is going because I never see any mention of him. At any rate, this Rhino release will hopefully give "What's In Goodbye" a wider audience. I'd hate to see a song like never be heard.

[EricMontreal22]

Will's still a solid seller in the UK--they just never even attempted to market him in the US, I don't think he's even signed there.

What a freakin WEIRD collection. tons on the previous Rhino box set, some very random (but welcome) choices, NO sense of any order to the tracklisting. I have to say, at the risk of sounding a grump I'm very mixed on this (it's a pain to have so many pretty pricey Bacharac h collections for a handful of new songs)

[robbieindart]

I was just wondering if this was released. I checked all retailers (Amazon, Amazon UK...etc) but it doesn't seem to be released. I checked the Rhino website, Rhino UK, Rhino Handmade and the WEA website. There is no record of it. Any information would be very much appreciated.

Rob

[nymusicalsguy]

Unfortunately, I believe this has been pushed back to the first quarter of 2009.

[pljms]

With these collections it's nearly always a case of what's been left off rather than what's been included. So it's congratulations to Rhino for their 'Definitive' Bacharach collection of 3 CDs and no less than 75 tracks with no - wait for it - Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa (!!!), Message to Michael/Martha, Are You There (With Another Girl), Promises, Promises and the world-wide No.1, On My Own. Songs like Crazy Times, Gotta Get a Girl, How About, Thirty Miles of Railroad Track, Keep Away from Other Girls and Once in a Blue Moon are all nice to find on a 'Rarities' collection, but not on a compilation called 'Definitive'. And why include decidedly inferior versions of some of the most popular songs, like Billy J Kramer's Trains and Boats and Planes, Nancy Wilson's Reach Out for Me and Shirley Bassey's A House is not a Home? Utterly mind boggling.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

You're so right about those inferior versions. The only answer that I can come up with is that -- I'm just guessing -- they figured that people already had the popular versions and -- maybe -- they figured that people might want to hear a new interpretation by another famous artist -- such as Bassey or Wilson. I don't know. That's all I can come up with right now.

[Sara D]

We all know it's quite possible to compile a 75 track 'Definitive' Bacharach compilation limiting it only to the Great and the Good, so it's a cock-up of major proportions by Rhino to include so much 'lesser' material. It begs the question who in their right mind with any sort of knowledge of the great man's work could possibly decide to leave out the immortal 'Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa' for the utterly disposable 'Don't You Believe It'?

Below is the British TV ad for this flawed compilation

[nymusicalsguy]

I would have had less of a problem with this collection's track listing had Ace not just released its own Bacharach collectors' anthology, featuring virtually every one of the lesser tracks included here. (Amazing that some of these songs haven't been on CD for the entire CD era, and now they appear on two CDs in less than six months!!) The real collector's items on this MAGIC MOMENTS set (already available in Australia) are the original Keely Smith "One Less Bell To Answer" making its CD debut, and a previously-unreleased alternate version of Cliff Richard's "It's Wonderful To Be Young". That said, I applaud the compilers for making a true cross-section of Bacharach available in one package, and for including songs from AT THIS TIME, truly bringing this package up to the present date. Still, "definitive" is such a heady word, and so hard to live up to...

[pljms]

Yes, the compilation is just about worth shelling out 10 quid for because of the inclusion of Keely Smith's One Less Bell to Answer and also Bobbie Gentry's excellent version of The Windows of the World. What ever happened to Bobbie Gentry? She had a UK No.1 with I'll Never Fall in Love Again and also covered Raindrops which also got into the UK Top 40 and was a talented songwriter in her own right, as Ode to Billie Joe brilliantly demonstrated.

[Alistair]

Well it's been released in the UK, I received my copy from amazon.co.uk here in Scotland this morning. Haven't had a listen yet - but it's a 3 CD digipack, with a small booklet inserted into a slot in the sleeve.
Hope to get round to hearing this later today.
Alistair

[Sara D]

Not surprisingly, given the inclusion of so much 'lesser' material, the reviews I've read in the UK press of this recently released compilation have all run along the lines of, "He wrote some great stuff but, by golly, didn't he write some dross as well?" This is just my opinion, of course, but I rather suspect that the same reviewers would have been more inclined to hail Bacharach as the greatest popular composer of the second-half of the twentieth century if the following 19 tracks hadn't featured on the compilation and were replaced by the 19 songs further below:

1/ Gotta Get A Girl
2/ It’s Wonderful to be Young
3/ Crazy Times
4/ Don’t you believe it
5/ Once in a Blue Moon
6/ That’s not the Answer
7/ Rain from the Skies
8/ How About
9/ Keep away from other Girls
10/ Made in Paris
11/ It’s Love that really Counts
12/ Pacific Coast Highway
13/ What’s in Goodbye
14/ Heartlight
15/ Go ask Shakespeare
16/ Thirty Miles of Railroad Track
17/London Life
18/ Blue Guitar
19/ Just Friends


1/ With Open Arms
2/ True Love never Runs Smooth
3/ Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa
4/ Message to Michael
5/ To Wait for Love
6/ A Lifetime of Loneliness
7/ Here I Am
8/ Are you there (with another girl)
9/ Looking With my Eyes
10/ Promises, Promises
11/ Knowing When to Leave
12 Check-out Time
13/ Something Big
14/ Be Aware
15/ Lost Horizon
16/ The World is a Circle
17/ Seconds
18/ On My Own
19/ Painted From Memory

[pljms]

Yes, Sara, that would make a truly 'Definitive' compilation. I totally agree with all your selections of tracks that maybe shouldn't be on there and nearly all of those that should, but I'd try to find room for 'April Fools' to be included at the possible expense of 'I Looked for You'.

[Fool Killer]

Very nice list, Sara! Speaking as someone who was involved with Rhino's 1998 box, I'd like to point out that a large amount of the songs on your second list *were* included on our set. And it's hard to take any claims of definitive-ness seriously on a Bacharach collection that excludes "24 Hours From Tulsa", "Are You There (With Another Girl)" and "Promises, Promises"!

That said, I was listneing to "Go Ask Shakespeare" the other day and LOVED it. i remember how happy we were to just be able to include "God Give Me Strength" on the box set - it came out just as the box set was being finished up, and gave us a great way to end it!

[nymusicalsguy]

The Rhino US box certainly still stands as the TRUE definitive Bacharach collection! Fool Killer & co. outdid themselves on that gold standard of box sets. I still believe its release was in large part responsible for the Maestro's great renaissance. (Hence my wishes for a similar box for Dionne Warwick which would remind folks of her place among rock royalty...for one thing, she should be alongside Dusty Springfield & Aretha Franklin in the R&R Hall of Fame!)

That said, I'm grateful for the recent Rhino UK edition as well as the upcoming releases through El/Cherry Red (BURT BACHARACH - FIRST BOOK OF SONGS) and Universal/Eclipse (PARADISE ISLAND - RARE SONGS OF BACHARACH) as both contain at least a few new-to-CD items, especially the former, mixed in with the other, familiar, less-than-definitive tracks.

Now if Rhino US were ever able to consider updating THE LOOK OF LOVE with a 4th disc that could touch on all of the excellent work Burt has done in the past fifteen years, that would truly, truly be amazing. Or get a complete Dionne Warwick/Burt Bacharach box set out there...

Wishfully thinking,

Joe