Dionne Warwick’s favorite composer had also worked with Tom Jones, the Beatles and Elvis Costello. He is the author of great hits like I Say A Little Prayer, Aretha Franklin’s hit.
His detractors had put him a little hastily in the “easy listening” box when he was quite simply one of the greatest American melodists of the XXe century. If he had nothing of a rock star, Burt Bacharach, who has just died of natural causes in Los Angeles at the age of 94, was a reference. We owe him many pop standards, foremost among which Walk On By, Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head Or The Look of Love. A very inspired and deeply original composer, he was, like his colleague Michel Legrand, a poor singer. This handicap allowed him to reveal great singers like Dionne Warwick, who was his muse for twenty years. Her first job was as musical director for the Blue Angel, Marlene Dietrich. The German diva allowed her to travel around the world several times, without quenching her unquenchable thirst for melodies. “Dietrich’s music sucked but the adventure was fascinating “, he told us in 2014.
This former student of Darius Milhaud, born into a Jewish family in Missouri, had traded his academic education for a passion for jazz. After five years with Dietrich, who greatly appreciated him, and rich in a reputation as an outstanding arranger and conductor, he had chosen, in 1963, to devote himself exclusively to the composition of original songs. With the lyricist Hal David, whom he had met in 1957 at the Brill Building, Bacharach formed a shock tandem for many years. Their first joint hit was Make it Easy on Yourself,performed by Jerry Butler. But it is truly sung by Dionne Warwick that their songs became standards. 38 of them reached the top of the hit parades, selling a dozen million copies in all Anyone Who Had a Heart, Alfie, I Say a Little Prayer, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again , Do You Know the Way to San Jose? made her the most popular American singer after Aretha Franklin. Which will itself record a beautiful version of I Say a Little Prayer.
Read alsoBurt Bacharach, legendary American composer, dies at 94
In the England of the early sixties marked by the emergence of the Beatles, Burt Bacharach became a star, acquiring under his name an even greater notoriety than in his own country. his album HitMaker! Burt Bacharach Plays His Hitswas a great success in 1965. Soon, the cinema began to employ it. The original James Bond soundtrack parody Casino Royale in 1967, revealed the song The Look of Love,one of the most covers of his repertoire. Raindrop Keep Fallin’ on My Head(poorly) adapted into French by Sacha Distel under the title All the rain falls on me accompanied the film Butch Cassidy & Billy The Kidwith Paul Newman and Redford two years later, winning an Oscar.
In the 1970s, now married to actress Angie Dickinson, Bacharach was very present on television, notably with his own show. But several failures, as well as an argument with Dionne Warwick, made him less visible. However, at the time of punk, the angry Englishman Elvis Costello rehabilitated this suddenly old-fashioned man by taking up his songs and quoting him in an interview. The 1980s were not kind to the production of Burt Bacharach, who gradually sank into a molasses where the subtleties of yesteryear had turned marshmallow. However, the 1990s, and with them the revival ofeasy listening, made it new frequentable. In Northern Ireland, the young Neil Hannon braided laurel wreaths for her, trying to match her melodic genius. Elvis Costello shared in 1998 a magnificent album with him, Painted from Memory the first excerpt of which God Give me Strengthmatched his 1960s standards. Even the White Stripes paid homage to him with their garage cover of I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself . “I adore. Jack White has very good taste. Of course, his approach to the song has nothing to do with mine, but I like him a lot.he confided to us in 2014, on the eve of giving a remarkable concert as part of the Nuits de Fourvière, in Lyon. This will be his last appearance in France.