Qa few piano notes and we were there. We knew that it was him (and his sidekick, Hal David, in the lyrics) who had brought out this moment of grace, of sweetness. No time to recognize the voices of his muses (Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick) or stars (The Beatles, Elvis Costello, Christopher Cross) to appreciate the magic of the melody and say to oneself, when humming it, it’s by Burt Bacharach. An inexplicable phenomenon, the composer will have been able to cross four decades (and three generations) with the same style of music without going out of fashion, repeating himself and getting tired.
Burt Bacharach, 94, has died and leaves not only the world of music in mourning, but also a whole part of our lives. We all grew up, no matter what our age, with a song of his that we discovered on the radio in the back of a car, thoroughly enjoyed it on his walkman, reveled on his sofa watching the film whose she was drawn. Just look at the impressive list of songs composed, trophies gleaned and performances in the charts (73 titles placed in the Top 40 in the United States) to see the monument that has just left us.
Mi playboy, mi dandy
Born in 1928 in Kansas City, but raised in New York, Burt first sees the piano as a constraint imposed by his mother – thank you mother Bacharach. Then got caught up in the game and considered a career in the music world quite young. First as musical director and conductor of Marlene Dietrich. In the late 1950s, her encounter with lyricist Hal David changed the course of her story. And that of music. And a little ours.
This slender man, sometimes playboy sometimes dandy, as elegant as his compositions (which made the composer Sammy Cahn say that he was “the first songwriter not to look like a dentist”), first finds in Dionne Warwick a formidable ambassador for her music that is both sweet and tragic; poised and unleashed. Sometimes melancholy. Always romantic. We will cite the grandiose plea “Don’t Make me Over”; the aerial “Wishin’ and Hopin’”; the slight “Walk on By”; the lightning-fast “I Say a Little Prayer” (Aretha Franklin will make it slow); the sublime and poetic “Alfie”. The hits follow one another and the different albums are full of nuggets.
Cascading tubes
With Dusty Springfield, he finds a diamond in the rough: a woman « blue-eyed soul » who sings soul almost as well as a black artist. For Dusty the tortured – she will have a few hits before falling into drugs and disappearing – Bacharah delivers the sumptuous and jazzy “Look of Live” and this jewel that went unnoticed “ In the Land of Make Believe”. In addition to these successes, the composer tries his hand (with success) at the cinema with award-winning film scores: “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” (BJ Thomas covered by Sacha Dhistel) and “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do )” (Christopher Cross), co-written with his second wife Carole Bayer Sager. The hits, themselves, follow one another with a feeling of disconcerting ease, we lend him 1,000 performers with original songs and covers. On ne citera « que » Tom Jones (« What New Pussicat »), The Carpenters (« Close to You »), Herb Alpert (« This Guy’s in Love with You »), Roberta Flack (« Making Love »), Neil Diamond ou Rod Stewart, etc.
Music sophisticated enough to intrigue and endure, but not so sophisticated that it can be played by bar pianists.
Between 1960 and 1970, David and Bucharach make the rain and the fine weather on the popular music – which one qualifies rather scornfully « easy listening » (easy listening) like elevator music. Their hits, where copper and piano blend perfectly, have a particularity: they escape the closed world of show business, concert halls and the studio. In a hotel lobby or in the middle of a piano bar, we play (often badly) these madeleines of Proust, and the public hums these tunes that accompany every moment of our lives. In an interview at Mondethe composer liked to define his music – dare we use the word masterpiece – as “sophisticated enough to intrigue and last, but not too sophisticated to be played by bar pianists”.
Popular culture
The feud with Hal David and Dionne Warwick – a story of big money – and a relative crossing of the desert in the mid-1970s are far from tarnishing the solid reputation of a man on whom the years (and wrinkles) slip. Now in his seventies, Bacharach goes to tribute ceremonies, sometimes sings songs in an uncertain voice, writes a few musicals – without major success – but his aura remains important thanks in particular to popular culture which recycles in the series ( he appears in an episode ofA nanny from hell and of Nip Tuck), films or commercials its melodies. And to young artists (Rumer notably devoted an album to him « cover » sublime) which cover a considerable repertoire, worthy of George and Ira Gershwin who made America sing before him. “Promises, Promises”, “Don’t Make Him Over”.