The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Hi,
Regarding What The World Needs NOw, I'm curious if the original demo Burt made as presented to Dionne still exists...
She said she turned it down because it didn't sound like her type of song..(sounded too country to her, for one thing) and seemed in the mold of Gene Pitney...
Dionne said that when Miss De Shannon recorded it, Burt changed the arrangement around and made it more desirous...
I would like to hear what that original demo sounded like.

Steveo

Mr. Steveo:

Do not think it really matters. Did you ever listen to those unlistenable 4 versions of WTWNN Ms. Warwick recorded with the Hip Hop Nation United back in the late 90's? Although Ms. De Shannon recorded the definitive version of WTWNN - most associate the song with Ms. Warwick who did a very nice recoding of the song back in the 60's. This Hip Hop stuff along with her so called updated versions of Mr. Bacharach's great songs that she performs these days can not be music to Mr. Bacharach's ears. This may be a reason they do not perform together any longer. I heard that Mr. Bacharach likes his songs sung as he wrote them.

That's a very good question, Steveo. I don't believe, however, that the Demo that Jackie got was any different from the one that Dionne heard. And if Burt did do a different Demo, then wouldn't he have had Dionne listen to it one more time? And let me say this: I have heard some Demos of Burt's. It's just Burt singing and playing the piano. And, I hate to say it, but it's not so easy to hear (in your head) how great the song really is just based on Burt's singing and playing. Burt's piano (only) demo of Share The Joy does not resemble the final at all. My point here is this: I would imagine that Dionne, who heard many of Burt's demos prior to WTWNN, simply misjudged the greatness of WTWNN.

I have another question. Dionne was never shy about stating how she hated Do You Know The Way To San Jose? If she didn't like the demo to WTWNN and didn't record it, then why did she hate San Jose and record it anyhow? Why didn't she pass on San Jose as well?

There was never a demo recording of WTWNN that Dionne (or Gene Pitney) heard to my knowledge. She heard the original arrangment as pitched to Gene Pitney with incomplete lyric apparently not really fleshed out and probably played and sung by Burt and Dionne has stated that the tune had a western feel similar to Liberty Valance in the arrangement pitched to her and she felt it didn't fit her. I don't think the greatness in the tune was even discovered until the DeShannon recording. Hal has written as well that Dionne heard an unfinished arrangement for Pitney at Burt's apartment and that when Burt and Hal were searching for tunes for the DeShannon project, Hal pulled it out of the drawer, completed the lyric and Burt rearranged the tune and they then pitched it to Jackie DeShannon. The tune was fair game, they felt, since Dionne turned it down. Dionne was on a European tour when Burt took Jackie into Bell Sound with Dionne's usual backup singers and cut WTWNN and Dionne has stated that Burt used the "Dionne Warwick" formula in the recording down to his choosing her background singers and recording at Bell with Ed Smith engineering...Hal's mother was even knitting in the studio as she did on virtually every Dionne Warwick recording. San Jose was a different animal all together. Hal has said it was about the only tune he ever wrote a lyric to that he didn't hear Dionne singing. Dionne likely heard a full fledged arrangement from Burt as the demo and although she didn't want to record the tune, once Burt and Hal heard her rehearse it, they talked her into recording it. It was the last recording that the trio recorded at Bell Sound and it was engineered by Ed Smith, not Phil Ramone, despite Phil's remembrance that he was the engineer and that it was recorded at A & R. It was not but Phil engineered so many of the trio's recordings that it is understandable that he was mistaken on this. I think DYKTWTSJ is probably the most perfect pop tune of all time and Dave Marsh echoes that sentiment. It was also Dionne's biggest international hit next to Heartbreaker.

BachtoBacharach wrote:.....I think DYKTWTSJ is probably the most perfect pop tune of all time and Dave Marsh echoes that sentiment....

I couldn't agree more. And that perfect pop song has a very special place in my heart to boot.

Thank you all for your thoughts and info on WTWNN demo and song...fascinating reading...
I was under the impression listening to Burt talk, that the song was already completed when they stuffed it into a drawer, and then later pulled it out for De Shannon, but that may have not been the case...you speak about a lyric re-write or completeion...anyway...some interesting comments.
If there was a demo of just Burt singing the song, it would have probably sounded like
the performance which Burt did on the Hollywood Palace with Herb Alpert sitting near him
and the piano...I'm not specifically speaking of the shaping of the song, but just the bare bones voice and piano that we often hear on some of Burt's demos. I agree that listening to
Burt's piano/vocal demos, sometimes its pretty hard to envision the final master with all of the wonderfulness that Burt puts in with his orchestration of the tune.