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The music of David and Bacharach also worked on a different level-as the background to movie soundtracks. Years later, The White Stripes transformed “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself” into a stripped-down, guitar-heavy slice of rock. In the hands of Isaac Hayes, the sweet refrains of “Walk on By” becomes a psychedelic funk classic. The songs were so well written that they could easily be reworked into different genres, and break the confines of “easy listening”-a genre often maligned as unhip. Through collaborators, Bacharach’s music was able to reach a fairly diverse audience. The list of artists who found success with Bacharach songs in that era is astonishing: Aretha Franklin, the Carpenters, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, and the 5th Dimension, to name just a few. Others, like Perry Como, were already established singers. Some, like Warwick, were plucked from relative obscurity. Her warm tones and fluid phrasing made Warwick’s voice the perfect accompaniment to Bacharach’s music.īut she was one of many collaborators. The first single he produced with her, “ Don’t Make Me Over,” was the first of 38 songs he and David produced with Dionne Warwick. Not long after they began working together, Bacharach came across a young backup singer at a recording session who seemed to have promise.
Bacharach met David in 1957 in the storied Brill Building in New York City-a place where a young songwriter could perhaps catch a break.
Indeed, they were a late product of Tin Pan Alley-the music industry centered around midtown Manhattan. In that way, they were a throwback to an earlier age of popular music, when the likes of Rodgers and Hart provided hit after hit for a roster of singers. They also stood apart from other notable songwriting partners of the age-Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, for example-in that the songs were written for others to perform. While Bacharach’s musical counterparts were writing and performing music that responded to and reflected the political, social and cultural upheavals that defined the era, Bacharach and David’s songs focused on different themes: Theirs was music that dealt with relationships and matters of the heart. It was a time when rock ‘n’ roll and the British Invasion were at the forefront, with rhythm and blues, protest music and folk rock finding their way on the musical landscape.
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Cross-generational appealīacharach began his long songwriting career in the 1950s, but it was the following decade that saw him come to prominence with a series of hit songs.īut with the 1960s as a backdrop-a time of immense innovation in popular music-Bacharach may not have been taken as seriously as many of his contemporaries. 8, 2023, at the age of 94, appealed to generations of listeners, as well as the diverse pool of singers who chose to work with him.
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It is full of influences from jazz chord structures and progressions, as well as rhythms. Dre.īut there is a harmonic and rhythmic complexity to his music that elevates it above the sweet, often saccharine arrangements that can typify easy listening.
Yes, Bacharach’s back catalog is filled with memorable, catchy melodies-whether they were written with longtime partner and lyricist Hal David, former wife Carole Bayer Sager, or in collaboration with more contemporary artists such as Elvis Costello, Adele, and Dr.
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