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THE HIT–MAKER
Since the Fifties, Burt Bacharach has written the soundtrack to many of our lives. As he heads to the UK, Garth Pearce asks him about music, money and... ssshh... sex. Portraits by Olaf Heine
Burt Bacharach’s house is in silence. No records play, radios are switched off, the TV screens are blank. There is not even the faintest humming or soft whistling from the man himself, as he works in his garden. This is how he likes it.
Yet, while waiting to talk to him, I realise that I know virtually all his songs. Not all the lyrics, which were produced by several co–writers, but the tunes to films like Alfie and What’s New Pussycat, which seem so fresh. And how about Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, What the World Needs Now is Love and The Look of Love?
Just one of his 70 worldwide hits, Anyone Who Had a Heart, was released by Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield, Linda Ronstadt and Olivia Newton John. It might have been written in 1963, but Shelby Lynne, 39, recorded it last year. And Dionne Warwick built a whole career on this and many of his tunes – 38 in all. They spring easily to mind: Walk on By, I Say a Little Prayer, Do You Know the Way to San Jose?, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again... the list seems endless.
Gene Pitney, for whom Bacharach wrote a succession of hits with lyricist Hal David, would regularly meet him to plunder and polish his wares. Pitney was performing until his death in Cardiff two years ago, on tour yet again at 65, on the back of one of the greatest heart–tuggers of all time, Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa.
But when Bacharach, 80, relaxed at his house in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, thinks back, his attitude towards it all is remarkably casual. “It’s a gift,” he says. “An endowment, if you like. I write a song, record it with an artist, do the orchestration and make a record.
“After that, you need to let go. I don’t ever think about the songs I have written. I am usually on to the next song, being haunted in the middle of the night by a melody. I don’t sleep well. I keep hearing something, over and over. That is a plus, because it may have real value. It wakes me up and keeps me awake. However, I feel permanently tired.”
He looks anything but tired. His 5ft 8in inch frame does not carry an ounce of fat. He has spent 45 minutes in the gym with his personal trainer, as he has done every morning for as long as he can remember. “I have missed only two days this summer,” he says. He is also tanned and bright-eyed, thanks to a seven-week holiday on his farm further down the Californian coast, just north of San Diego. He has been attending race meetings with his horses. “I cannot compete against the big guys, like Bob Sangster, who is a good friend of mine,” he says. “But we had two sensational years at the Kentucky Derby.”
One of his racehorses, Soul of Matter, romped home to a $1 million prize in 1995. He seems as proud of that as the three Oscars he won for both best music and best original score in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and best original song, Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do), for the film Arthur (1981). “Songwriting is easier than training horses to win races,” he says.
He has been writing successfully for more than 50 years, since Marty Robbins recorded The Story of My Life in 1957. After that, the top recording artists seemed to form a queue to get to his songs, from Bobby Vinton (Blue on Blue), to the Beatles (Baby It’s You).
But Bacharach did not get to meet many of the stars who clamoured for his songs. He is a low–key man, who generally likes to keep his thoughts to himself. He would probably have preferred to keep it that way, but had been persuaded to talk to Saga to mark a special occasion – the release in October of a three–set CD, Magic Moments – The Definitive Burt Bacharach Collection on Rhino Records. It includes many recordings of himself, with a supporting cast of his favourite singers, such as Dionne Warwick, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Frankie Avalon, Nat King Cole and Cilla Black.
When we met, he was also preparing for a performance at the BBC Electric Proms on October 22.
So it was a chance to ask him a few personal questions. He is now married to his fourth wife, Jane, an attractive former ski instructor who at 48 is 32 years his junior. They have two children, son Oliver, 15, and daughter Raleigh, aged 12. Had he ever played any of his own songs at his weddings?
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