Burt Bacharach Newsletter
Sign-up to receive daily news on Burt Bacharach by email.
Burt Bacharach Filmography
Source:
Theiapolis
Burt Bacharach Resources
Table of Content
Burt Bacharach: Biography
Burt Bacharach (born May 12, 1928 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American pianist and composer. He studied music at McGill University and Mannes School of Music. In the 1950s and the early 1960s he was the pianist and bandleader for
Marlene Dietrich. He teamed with lyricist Hal David and others to write many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s.
Bacharach's music has been sung by a number of popular singers including the Carpenters, Aretha Franklin, Jack Jones, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Luther Vandross, and especially Dionne Warwick. His music, which is mostly classified as Easy listening, has been praised for its distinctive melodies, sophisticated style, and light classical feel. He has a total of 52 Top 40 hits. In addition, many of his songs were adapted by jazz artists of the time, such as Stan Getz and Wes Montgomery.
He has been married four times, to Paula Stewart, actress
Angie Dickinson, lyricist Carole Bayer Sager (with whom he collaborated on a number of pieces), and currently (as of 2003) Jane Hanson.
In 1998 he collaborated on an album called
Painted From Memory with singer/songwriter
Elvis Costello.
Bacharach has had cameo roles in a number of Hollywood movies including all three Austin Powers movies.
-
Known records >>
Table of Content
Latest Film News
Latest news on Burt Bacharach
LiteratureNew DVD documentary on Arthur Lee: "Love Story"
When I think of the peak concert attending experiences of my life, two of the top ten shows were Arthur Lee and Love. In the early 90s, I saw a pre-jail Arthur do a nearly all-acoustic set at a small bar in North Hollywood because the electricity went out. He made up for the loss of the band with inspired skat singing and the audience left the show grinning from ear to ear. The second time I saw Lee play was even more memorable. After spending 5-1/2 years in prison, Lee was released and began a tentative series of gigs around Los Angeles playing Love's classic 1967 album "Forever Changes" in its entirety. When he walked onstage that night, at a packed Henry Fonda Theater, he looked tiny, frail, old, scared even. His clothes looked too big. Everyone was pulling for him, we all wanted this to be amazing and triumphant, but it didn't look promising. Within seconds, however, he strapped on his hollow body electric guitar and became the great Arthur Lee. It was a magical musical event. Lee's voice had lost none of its beauty and range; the songs none of their power. Audience members were moved to tears. Yes, it was that good (and thanks to the Internets, here's a clip from that very night's highlight, "You Set the Scene"). Now, two years after his untimely death, there is a new feature-length documentary, Love Story that tells the tragic trajectory of the life and times of Arthur Lee. It's a great film and thank the gods that someone got Lee on video talking about his life's work before he died. The dramatic power of Lee's story hasn't been diminished from constant retelling on Vh1 rock docs and "Love Story" is gripping from start to finish. Mostly it focuses on the band's first three records, especially "Forever Changes." And of course it also covers Lee's notoriously difficult personality and the drug use that split the band wide-open. The only criticism I have of "Love Story" is that there isn't more footage of Lee and and the band in their prime, but it's not like the filmmakers had much of an option as there is virtually no footage of Love that exists from that era save for this wonderful clip of them on Dick Clark's American Bandstand performing a blistering version of Burt Bacharach's "My Little Red Book." Arthur Lee and Jimi Hendrix "Everlasting First" unreleased demo Love Story DVD documentary...
Published: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:48:24 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the article
Sign-up to receive daily news on Burt Bacharach by email. See Also:
