The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

I know there is a Tavis Smiley topic, but I was afraid that this would get lost there once it gets bumped from the top.

Ron Isley was on The Tavis Smiley Show not too long ago.

See the entire Ron Isley segment by clicking on this link:

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/arc ... 0096#video

And here is a complete transcription of what Ron said about Burt:

Tavis: How did you like doing the Bacharach stuff?

Isley: Oh, man, it's my favorite.

Tavis: I think that is one of the - anybody who - if you're a Ron Isley fan and if you don't know who Ron Isley is, first of all, shame on you. But that Burt Bacharach project that you did, I could not imagine what Ron Isley singing Burt Bacharach would sound like, but I thought it might work. When I heard it, it completely blew me away. I love that project.

Isley: It's my favorite. It's my favorite.

Tavis: Yeah, your favorite one. I love that project.

Isley: Yeah. Just working with Burt, man, that was something I wanted to do all my time. I spent a lot of time with Dionne Warwick when he was working with her, and I was thinking to myself, wow, I would like to sing songs like that. At the time, I had the song "Twist and Shout" out, and I was supposed to do "Make It Easy on Yourself."

Someone changed the words to it, and so never got a chance to record that. We sort of recorded it, but he didn't like it. So I talked to him about that years - we had so much fun. Burt is a great friend of mine now. So when I got the chance to do "Alfie" and those type of songs, I really wanted to show him what I could do.

Tavis: And you did, you showed him. (Laughter) That thing worked.

Bonjour An Enormous BB Fan;

Thanks for posting this clip on Ron Isley talking about working with Burt!

Wish it was a little longer though.

Take care mon ami.

Vincent

I agree...thanks for posting this!
Hello to Vincent!

Bonjour SteveO;

As Marvin Gaye would say, "What's going on?!"

Take care mon ami.

Vincent

I just love to see people like Ron Isley talk about Burt the way they do. In one video, he called Burt a genius. Rumer, the new, young singing sensation, also called Burt a genius. She even said that he was the greatest composer of the 20th century. Elvis Costello said, "Now I know how it's done", talking about how a song is written, and referring to Burt as his teacher. And this from a man who had written hundreds of songs prior to working with Burt. I love to see Burt get the credit he deserves. He's not just another composer, that's for certain!