Bacharach, Burt

Composer, songwriter and record producer Burt Bacharach, born in Kansas City Missouri, was the son of a newspaper columnist father (nicknamed Bert) and a painter and songwriter mother, who made sure he had piano lessons as a child. He was not enthusiastic about that classical piano training as a teen, preferring jazz, but continued with serious musical training. He studied music at McGill University in Montreal with Helmut Blume, at the Mannes School of Music and at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California where he was greatly influenced by his composition teacher, French composer Darius Milhaud. Following time in the army, he spent three years as pianist and conductor for pop singer Vic Damone. His big break came in 1956 when he was recommended to Marlene Dietrich and began arranging and conducting for her nightclub appearances. He worked closely with her for five years, touring the world, but in the early 60s, he yearned for more time for song writing. He had met lyricist Hal David in 1957 and began writing with him; their collaborations developed into a partnership in 1963. Having “discovered” Dionne Warwick accompanying a session in 1961, he and David wrote songs for her that sold 12 million recordings over the next 20 years. Dozens of her singles hit the charts, 22 of which made the top 40s. The Bacharach-David team was successful throughout the 60s and early 70s, producing such songs as the Oscar-winner, “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” for the film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” By 1973, however, they had a falling out over the score of the musical re-make film Lost Horizon which flopped. There were lawsuits and they refused to work together any longer. Bacharach continued composing and making television appearances through the 80s and 90s, composing hundreds of pop songs and in the process winning 6 Grammys and 3 Oscars. He and Hal David jointly received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress in 2011. As a tribute to Nikki, his daughter by his second marriage (to actress Angie Dickinson), an undiagnosed victim of Asperger’s syndrome , in 2016, he scored the film “A Boy Called Po,” the true story of an autistic child; Nikki had committed suicide at age 40 in 2007. At age 88, this was Bacharach’s first original score in 16 years. He released “Live to See Another Day,” in 2018, co-written with Rudy Perez; the proceeds of this went to a charity founded by parents of the children killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

He died on February 8, 2023, in Los Angeles, California.