Continuing the theme of “So you think you can sing…” one might also ask, so you think you can write songs, melodies, lyrics and arrangements? In keeping with these questions, here’s one of the greatest ever musical partnerships – Dionne Warwick with Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The hits just kept on coming for them […]
After stumbling across this bizarre video that looks like an episode of The Avengers, I am reminded that the sixties in Paris in black and white might have been a rather splendid place to be. Add Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach and Hal David and you have Walk On By, a classic single of the era that reached […]
So today we lost Burt Bacharach, he made it to the grand old age of 94 (see the list of songs written here). I would hope that he would be remembered for his collaboration with Hal David as a lyricist, arguably his finest work. David died in 2012 aged 91. But Bacharach must also be […]
Music today comes from the perfect Soul pipes of Aretha Franklin. I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You (1967) featured the Otis Redding penned Respect as the opening track which became her signature song and helped catapult the album to the No.2 spot in the US charts. The album also has two […]
In the interview with Larry Appelbaum that I posted yesterday in the Allen Toussaint thread, the interviewer asked about Toussaint’s greatest successes as a songwriter, excluding financial concerns. Transient by Lou Johnson was his Response. Whether the details of the title slipped his mind (or I have the wrong track) – it seems the actual title of […]
There seems to be two types of people in this world…Ha Ha!! That’s the funniest thing I ever wrote! But, to follow up on this thought, there’s those that like skill, technique, faultless natural ability, professionalism, virtuosity, tradition and there’s those that like, unpredictability, experimentation, imagination, originality, passion and to make the thought sound even more […]