The entertainers Burt Bacharach rediscovers success

Press, 7 January 1987, Page 14

The entertainers Burt Bacharach rediscovers success

The memorabilia in the music room at Burt Bacharach’s Bel Air home reflects the successes of his three-decade pop music career. Tucked among the gold records is a note from Marlene Dietrich, for whom Bacharach arranged and conducted in the 19605. There is a fan letter from another top songwriter of the period, Jimmy Webb, and this handwritten tribute from Ira Gershwin: “For Burt, the fifth ‘B’ — in no particular order — Beethoven, Brahms, Berlin, Bach and Bacharach.” That is just on one wall. The accolades are a reminder of just how celebrated Bacharach was in the 19605. By the age of 40, he had composed 22 Top 10 hits and had won an ,Emmy, two Oscars and three Grammys. When the hits stopped, they stopped. From 1971 to 1981, Bacharach did not earn a single Top 10 hit. The 1973 film musical “Lost Horizon,” which he scored, was, in his words, a “colossal fizzle.” A 1978 album with the Houston Symphony Orchestrra was also a flop. Bacharach’s luck began to return in 1981. With Carole Bayer Sager, whom he would marry in 1982, Bacharach composed Christopher Cross’s Oscar-win-ning “Arthur’s Theme.” More hits followed: Roberta Flack’s “Making Love,” and Neil Diamond’s “Heartlight.” Bacharach and Sager have landed two No. 1 singles: Dionne Warwick’s “That’s What Friends Are For” and Patti Laßelle and Michael McDonald’s "On My Own.” If things keep going like this, Bacharach may need a bigger wall. Bacharach becomes emotional when he talks about “That’s What Friends Are For,” the graceful ballad that Warwick recorded with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight. One reason is that the record’s profits — $1,000,000 at last count — were donated to the American Foundation for A.I.D.S. Research. Another is that it was one of Bacharach’s first sessions with Warwick after a decade-long fall-ing-out. Song remembered The biggest reason is more personal. After waiting to adopt a baby, Bacharach and Sager were notified last December that a one-week-old boy was available for adoption. “We got the call the day the

After becoming one of the world’s foremost pop composers during the 1960 s with such hits as “What’s New Pussycat” and “Walk On By,” Burt Bacharach ran into a> lengthy slump. From 1971 to 1981 he did not earn a single Top 10 hit. However, PAUL GREIN finds the American’s fortunes have soared again with the chart-topping success of “That’s What Friends are For” and “On My Own.” record went to No. 1,” Bacharach said. “It fell out of the sky. If you give look what you get back.” Bacharach and Sager wrote “That’s What Friends Are For” four years ago for Rod Stewart to sing in the “Night Shift” sound track. They remembered the song when they were gathering material for Warwick. She liked it and asked Wonder to sing it. Recalled Bacharach: "When Stevie was putting his vocal on, Elizabeth Taylor came by the studio. She had just become chairman of A.I.D.S. foundation and was struck by the emotion she was hearing. “The song wasn’t written for the medical catastrophe that was going on, but a lot of Carole’s lyrics were so pertinent, so right for the climate of the country, that the idea was born.” Of course, the record would never have been cut had Bacharach and Warwick not reconciled. Said Bacharach: “There was a 10-year period where we not only Jiadn’t been in the studio, but we weren’t speaking more than ‘hello’. ” When Hal (Bacharach’s former collaborator, Hal Davis) and I started to come apart, we weren’t able to be there in the studio for Dionne. “So she sued us, and Hal sued me and I sued Hal. It was all very messy. It is great to leave all that stuff behind you. “It is also very exciting to be happening again, because this-is a business where you can go up and you can go down.” After his 10-year slump, Ba-

charach knows about downs. “I think I got in trouble in a couple of ways,” he said. “I got in trouble when I started to play Vegas and Reno a couple of times a year, because I would never write during that time. "Also, I had a lot of things going on in my life that were chewing up creative energy. There was a long lawsuit with a business manager that wasn’t exactly sending me to the piano with a lot of joy.” Looking back, Bacharach said he wasn’t completely surprised by his 1970 s slump. Conspicuous ‘bomb’ “I always kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in the 19605,” he said. “It is the old writers-running-dry theory: When will the notes stop? When will I be burned out? When will I have written everything I’m supposed to write? So when it did happen, I guess that is what I probably expected or was calling in all along.” Bacharach’s most conspicuous “bomb” was “Lost Horizon.” “I just kind of went down to the beach at Del Mar and sort of hid,” Bacharach said with a wince. “It was such a giant bust, I didn’t want to be (seen) walking around this community.” Five years later, Bacharach recorded an album with the 100piece Houston Symphony Orchestra. It never dented the Top 200. “I cut into that album very intensely,” Bacharach said. “It meant a lot to do. It didn’t turn out the way ... I mean, it was a flop, you know, but it was something I had to get out of my system. “I thought it could be a huge commercial success, but I wasn’t reading the marketplace at all at that time. I was like a wild horse let loose. I could have been off this planet.” Bacharach mused for a second. “We are a very good team, Carole and myself. She reined me in a little bit. Carole has a good creative sense for what is commercial and what is not. I think she gave me an awareness of the pop music scene that I might have been missing at that time. “It is great to be able to share in something like this with somebody that you love,” Bacharach said. “We are happy together, we are creative together and we are doing great together.” “On My Own,” which spent several weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, was an unusual

record for Bacharach. Laßelle and McDonald’s slow-boil ballad has a gritty rhythm and blues undercurrent that set it apart from the sprightly hits traditionally associated with the Bacharach sound. Bacharach ‘sound’

Bacharach attributed the new style to the fact that he has been writing less on the piano and is more often using synthesisers and drum machines.

But he doesn’t really buy the notion of a “Bacharach sound.” “A lot of people talk about the Bacharach sound, but I don’t know what that is,” he said. < “ ‘What’s New, Pussycat?’ was as far from ‘Walk On By’ as you could get; ‘Alfie’ was a straightout ballad and ‘Wives and Lovers’ was a jazz waltz, I guess the key denominator was the ups-and-downs, the peaks and explosions.”

With his renewed success, Bacharach said that he was writing more. “The more you write, the easier it is to be sitting up here in this room by yourself,” he said. "I used to say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go up to the music room What a drag. I’m going to work. I’m going to the dungeon.’ Now if I’m ’ away for a while, I start to miss it.”

Bacharach is also thinking about cutting another album. “I’m still signed to A and M,” he said, “and I guess if I came up with something that I’d like to do that wasn’t a 100-piece orchestra sitting in Texas, they might say ‘Go for it’. ” Bacharach chuckled dryly. With his successful comeback, he can afford to joke about his slump. Bacharach sees a parallel be-

tween the music business and his other love, horse racing. “One of the things I learned from being involved with horses is a certain amount of patience. “I see it all the time with trainers and jockeys: If a jockey stops or gives up on himself, he loses a certain confidence. You have to learn that everything goes in cycles.” (c) 1986, Paul Grein. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.