Remembering Burt Bacharach and His Music

One of the most accomplished pop music composers of the 20th century, Burt Bacharach, died Wednesday at age 94. 

Billboard reports the musical maestro behind 52 top 40 hits including “Alfie,” “Walk on By,” “Promises, Promises,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “What the World Needs Now is Love” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?,” Bacharach had an untouchable run in the 1960s and 1970s with a wide range of pop, R&B and soul artists.

Working with lyricist partner Hal David, Bacharach and David were dubbed the “Rodgers & Hart” of the ’60s, with a unique style featuring instantly hummable melodies and atypical arrangements that folded in everything from jazz and pop to Brazilian grooves and rock.

Many of their songs were popularized by Dionne Warwick, whose singing style inspired Bacharach to experiment with new rhythms and harmonies, composing such innovative melodies as “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and “I Say a Little Prayer.”

Bacharach’s music cut across age lines, appealing to teens as well as an older generation who could appreciate the Tin Pan Alley feel of some of David’s lyrics. His fresh style could keep the listener off­balance but was intensely moving, defying convention with uplifting melodies that contrasted the often bittersweet lyrics.

His songs were sung by such major artists as Dusty Springfield, Gene Pitney, Tom Jones, the Carpenters and B.J. Thomas, as well as hundreds of others. His first No. 1 on a Billboard chart came in a genre not typically associated with the dextrous composer: country. Bacharach/David’s “The Story of My Life,” recorded by Marty Robbins, topped the Hot Country Songs chart in 1958. That same year, Perry Como took the duo’s “Magic Moments” to No. 4 on Billboard‘s Most Played by Disk Jockeys chart, a pre-cursor to the Hot 100.

Bacharach ventured into motion picture songwriting, creating indelible soundtrack songs such as “The Look of Love” and the Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” during this fertile period (he also scored a pre-acclaim Hot 100 entry with the titular theme song to the Steve McQueen horror flick The Blob in 1958, with The Five Blobs’ “The Blob” hitting No. 33). The Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid theme song “Raindrops” earned Bacharach two Oscars (best score and best theme song) as well as a Grammy for best score.

He also won an Oscar for Best Song for “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do),” which he shared with Carole Bayer Sager, Peter Allen and singer Christopher Cross. Bacharach’s compositions received three other Oscar nominations: for “What’s New Pussycat?,” (from the movie of the same name in 1965) “Alfie,” (movie of the same name 1966) and “The Look of Love” (from Casino Royale, 1967)