Burt Bacharach, Oscar-winning composer of “Butch Cassidy,” dies.

Three-time Academy Award-winning musician and songwriter Burt Bacharach died of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday at the age of 94.

Burt Freeman Bacharach was born May 12, 1928 in Kansas City, Missouri, and wrote nearly 50 songs that reached the top 10 on the charts, including six that reached number one.

Bacharach has always shown an interest in music and was part of the school band. He was drafted into the army during the Korean War and sent to Germany, where he met singer Vic Damone and toured army bases as a pianist.

After the service, Bacharach studied music in college, toured with Damone and soon became the personal manager of actress Marlene Dietrich (“The Blue Angel”).

“I wasn’t chasing it. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I got caught up in the drift of things,” he once said of his first hit. “Things just happened for me. I was very lucky.”

In 1957 he collaborated for the first time with the lyricist Hal David (who will accompany him throughout his career) and soon found his great interpreter in the singer Dionne Warwick. Before Bacharach made her sing “Don’t Make Me Over” in 1962, she sang backing vocals on Drifters recordings. But when that song became a hit, his story changed, starting a partnership that would last more than a decade and make her a star with eight Top 10 hits during that span.

“Dionne had this kind of voice that allowed me to challenge her from session to session,” said Bacharach. “I could do one thing, I could see that she was capable of this and say, ‘she can do more – she can sing louder, she can sing softer, she can sing in a wider range’ … so that she allowed to stretch”.

The collaboration with Dionne Warwick inspired Bacharach to experiment with new rhythms and harmonies, which generated innovative melodies such as those heard on “Anyone Who Had a Heart”, “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Walk on By”.

Musical success brought him to the cinema. And his first work, the theme song for “Que é que Há, Pussycat?”, “What’s New Pussycat”, ended up becoming more popular than the 1965 film itself and earned him his first Oscar nomination. Him resumed nominations for “How to seduce women” (1966) and “Casino Royale” (1967).

And when the consecration came, it was a double dose, with two Oscars for his work on “Butch Cassidy” (1969): best song for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” and best soundtrack.

Twelve years later, he again won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)”, music from the film “Arthur, the Millionaire Seducer” (1981).

He continued his success over the next few years as he wrote and produced songs with Bayer Sager, including “That’s What Friends Are For”, which was covered by Warwick and won the 1986 Grammy for Song of the Year.

In addition, Bacharach remained involved in cinema, composing the songs “They Don’t Make Them like They Used To”, recorded by Kenny Rogers for the film “Os Últimos Durões” (1986), and the soundtrack of “Presente de Greek ” (1987).

In 1998, Bacharach wrote an album of songs with Elvis Costello and, after the turn of the century, worked on films such as “She is Unforgettable” (2000), “Brief Stories 5” (2009) and “Po” (2016) . ).

The latter film appealed to him because it was about a family dealing with a child with autism. Bacharach’s daughter Nikki died by suicide in 2007, aged 40, after a long struggle with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Over the years Bacharach’s songs have been covered by dozens of artists of various genres, such as Perry Como, Dusty Springfield, Gene Pitney, The 5th Dimension, Herb Alpert, Tom Jones, The Carpenters, BJ Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Alicia Keys, The White Stripes and Primal Scream.

In addition to three Academy Awards, Bacharach has received eight Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Trophy in 2008, after being nominated for more than 20 Recording Academy Awards. And in 2011, he and David were awarded the Gershwin Popular Song Award by the US Library of Congress.

He has also achieved mentions and recognition in several films. The entire soundtrack of the comedy “My best friend’s wedding” (1997), with Julia Roberts, was set to music by Bacharach, and he was also invited to play himself in two films of the “Austin Powers” series.

Burt Bacharach fan, Paul McCartney said he was humbled by the composer’s songs. “His songs are much more musical than the stuff we write—they’re much more technical,” the singer said in 1965, at the height of Beatlemania.

Source: Terra

Ashley

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