An Avid's Guide to Sixties Songwriters

AN AVID’S GUIDE

TO SIXTIES

SONGWRITERS

PETER DUNBAVAN

AuthorHouse™ UK

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Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

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Phone: 0800.197.4150

© 2017 Peter Dunbavan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/22/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3347-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3346-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3345-5 (e)

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Contents

Introduction

1. Chris Andrews

2. Ashford/Simpson

3. Bacharach/David

4. Clint Ballard Jr

5. Mark Barkan

6. Barry/Greenwich

7. John Barry

8. Lionel Bart

9. Bert Berns

10. Don Black

11. Tommy Boyce

12. Leslie Bricusse

13. Wayne Carson Thompson

14. Carter-Lewis

15. Rudy Clark

16. Bob Crewe

17. Steve Cropper

18. Mike D’Abo

19. Dean/Weatherspoon

20. Bill Dees

21. Jackie DeShannon

22. Luther Dixon

23. Jackie Edwards

24. English/Weiss

25. Wes Farrell

26. Jerry Fuller

27. Geoff Goddard

28. Goffin/King

29. Philip Goodhand-Tait

30. Graham Gouldman

31. Greenaway/Cook

32. Howard Greenfield

33. Tony Hatch

34. Hawker/Raymonde

35. Hawker/Schroeder

36. Hayes/Porter

37. Tony Hazzard

38. Holland/Dozier/Holland

39. Howard/Blaikley

40. Buddy Kaye

41. Jack Keller

42. Mike Leander

43. Lennon/McCartney

44. Linzer/Randell

45. Jerry Lordan

46. John D Loudermilk

47. Tony Macauley

48. Mann/Weil

49. Martin/Coulter

50. Joe Meek

51. Joe Melson

52. Murray/Callander

53. Norman Newell

54. Randy Newman

55. Penn/Oldham

56. Gene Pitney

57. Pomus/Shuman

58. Jerry Ragavoy

59.Teddy Randazzo

60. Reed/Mason

61. Malvina Reynolds

62. William (Smokey) Robinson

63. Aaron Schroeder

64. Scott/Wilde

65. Sloan/Barri

66. Phil Spector

67. Tom Springfield

68. Geoff Stephens

69. Chip Taylor

70. Tepper/Bennett

71. Allen Toussaint

72. Udell/Geld

73. Vance/Pockriss

74. Les Vandyke

75. Van McCoy

76. Jimmy Webb

77. Bruce Welch

78. Clive Westlake

79. Whitfield/Strong

80. Kenny Young

Bibliography

About the Author

This book is

dedicated to all lovers of sixties music and to all the people with whom I share precious memories of those times.

Introduction

If it’s true that there is a book in every one of us, then mine had to be about music, and, more specifically, songwriters. My fascination with songwriters began when I was very young, sometime in the mid to late fifties, and continued to grow in the sixties and seventies, much later presenting me with the opportunity to write ‘my’ book.

It is relatively easy to find a substantial library of books relating to the songwriters within the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Kinks, or the solo artists such as Bob Dylan. But there isn’t a book or website about the other ‘bespoke’ songwriters: one that provides detailed chart placings, plus a narrative, in one comprehensive, easily readable, format about people who weren’t, or aren’t, necessarily performers themselves.

I decided, therefore, to write a book about these writers, spanning a wide range from the very well-known, such as Burt Bacharach and Hal David, to the not so well-known, such as Philip Goodhand-Tait, who only wrote three hit records. I also decided that the book should address the gap in the market and provide both chart information and narrative. It became a ‘labour of love’ and three years’ work, the hope being that the final product would appeal to a wide range of music lovers – not just ‘baby boomers’ or musicians, but everyone out there who shares my passion about the people behind some of the greatest songs ever written.

Most of my happiest memories are associated with music. The first song I can remember is ‘Yellow Rose of Texas’, by Mitch Miller, which was a huge hit in 1955 when I was all of three years old. I would have heard it on the radio, or wireless as it was known then, probably the BBC Light programme which included the popular Sunday lunchtime show, Two-Way Family Favourites.

I have very fond memories of listening to this on a Sunday at noon, with presenters Jean Metcalfe in London and Bill Crozier in Germany. The show linked armed forces personnel overseas with their families at home and, naturally, the playlist included a great number of sentimental songs, such as ‘April Love’ and ‘I’ll Be Home’ by Pat Boone. The one I remember the most, which seemed to be on every week, was ‘True Love Ways’ by Buddy Holly. I also clearly remember liking ‘Zambesi’ by Lou Busch and ‘Last Train to San Fernando’ by Johnny Duncan.

For any music enthusiast, a record or song is your footprint in time. It defines a moment in your life and can transport you precisely to the moment you first heard it – in my case, the front room of our council house, in the fifties, listening to songs on the radio or from my mother’s record collection. I had hardly even started school, but the seed was sown and I was hooked on song.

It was through my mother’s Bing Crosby catalogue and the family collection of songs by Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, and Frank Sinatra that I became interested in songwriters. I was intrigued by the names that kept appearing underneath the song titles and observing that certain names appeared more frequently than others, names such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. Unknown to me at the time, these are the writers we now associate with the ‘Great American Songbook’, and I was determined to find out as much as I could about the personal and professional lives of these people. It was the start of a lifetime’s love of songs and songwriters

My interest in songwriters moved up a notch with the arrival of a new breed of writers, based in New York’s Brill Building, who spoke directly to the young generation. These writers, who were young, white, and mainly Jewish, smoothed over the rough edges of black R&B and made their songs more acceptable to white audiences, while also giving white artists songs which had more edge, making them more acceptable to black audiences. They were Goffin/King, Mann/Weil, Barry/Greenwich, Pomus/Shuman, and Bacharach/David. They had a passion for black R&B and took their lead from writers and producers Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, who had scored their first hit in 1953 with ‘Hound Dog’ by Big Mama Thornton.

I had no idea who these people were, but I did know that a lot of the records I liked bore the names of these writers under the song titles. I was particularly struck by Goffin /King, whose 1960 composition ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ I still regard as one of the greatest pop songs of all time. Another standout was Bacharach/David, whose partnership with vocalist Dionne Warwick produced some of the most memorable recordings in the history of popular music.

The songs from these writers dominated the charts in the early sixties, right up until the arrival of the Beatles, Tamla Motown, and folk rock. While some rock historians have dismissed the songs and artists of this era as inferior to the pure rock and roll of the early to mid fifties, and the music of the mid to late sixties, their songs remain as popular as ever and capture an era of youthful innocence perfectly. If I really liked a song, I would do my utmost to find out who had written it, and if it was by one of the above songwriting teams, it confirmed my belief that they were the best writers around.

The year 1963 was tumultuous due to a number of cultural and political events, both in the UK and the US. In the UK we had the pill, the Profumo affair, the Great Train Robbery, and the start of Beatlemania, while in the US, the Civil Rights movement gained momentum and John Kennedy was assassinated. The poet laureate, Philip Larkin, wrote a poem titled ‘Annus Mirabilis’ (year of wonder) which described 1963 as the year the sixties started ‘between the lifting of the ban on Chatterley and the Beatles first LP’. It was certainly a watershed year, but at my age I cared very little about political happenings. I was only interested in the emergence of a new breed of singers and writers, in particular the Beatles.

The foundation of the Beatles’ extraordinary popularity and artistic status was the songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Although no one in early 1963 could have predicted the impact they were to have, or the enduring legacy of their songs, it was clear from both the single and the album ‘Please Please Me’ that the band and the songs were very special. Soon everyone was aware of Lennon/McCartney songs, and I was one of many converts waiting for each album and single to reach the shops, knowing that seeing Lennon/McCartney on the record guaranteed top quality.

So much happened musically between 1963 and 1967, and the Beatles always seemed to be leading the way. In the UK they were followed by other new bands that wrote and performed their own songs, and I began to follow the songs of Jagger/Richards, Ray Davies, and Pete Townshend. In the US, 1963 heralded the arrival of songwriters Bob Dylan, Holland/Dozier/Holland, and Brian Wilson into the mainstream, followed soon afterwards by John Sebastian, John Philips, and Jimmy Webb, all of whom pushed the boundaries of music beyond anything that had gone before. I couldn’t get enough of the new breed of songwriters. By that time I was in a position to be able to buy both records and music papers, such as NME and Melody Maker, so I learned a great deal more about the songwriters than I ever could have back in the fifties and early sixties.

This time period corresponded to the middle of my adolescence, and the songs provided me with the most wonderful soundtrack to my teenage years, a time when emotions run very deep and are at their most sensitive to music. The ups and downs of my relationships were mirrored by the songs of this period. Normal, everyday things seemed somehow marvellous if I was ‘in love’. There seemed to be a song for almost every high or low during that time, and that song was usually by one of the above writers.

By the end of the sixties, I had absorbed a considerable amount of information about the main writers of that era. I continued to follow many of the writers into the seventies, right up to the punk era. But at no point did I ever envisage writing a book.

That decision was made many years later, well after the sixties, in a pub in York, as I was wistfully reflecting on the music being piped out of a jukebox which had seen better days. The songs were wonderful though, and, as one does after a few beers, I decided that I knew enough about all the songs and the songwriters to start compiling information which might eventually become a book. I gave no regard whatsoever to the amount of work involved, believing that anything and everything was possible.

Several more years later, I started to scope the book, and decided to research only the sixties songwriters who wrote songs mainly for other artists to record and perform. This, by definition, excluded some of the greatest writers of that era, such as Bob Dylan and Ray Davies. But these writers have had a considerable amount of coverage over the years, and consequently I felt that covering them again was unnecessary. I eventually settled on eighty songwriters or songwriting teams, most of whom were from the US or the UK and whose Top 40 songs, in total, come to approximately two thousand.

Notes

• The UK and US chart placings are in line with the most widely acknowledged listings, and these are Record Retailer and Billboard respectively. They have been limited to the Top 40 because of the availability of reliable data in the earlier years.

• The chart placings in the tables are the peak positions reached.

• The date refers to the first month of entry, either in the UK or the US chart.

• First hit version is the first time the song entered the Top 40. There may have been earlier releases that didn’t make the Top 40; these versions will be referred to in the text or perhaps appear as a hit rerelease.

• Rerelease is a reissue of the first hit version of the song (or occasionally an earlier release).

• Cover version is a later release, by another artist, of the first hit version.

1. Chris Andrews

Born 15 October, 1942 Romford, Essex

We meet every night at eight

And I don’t get home till late

Chris Andrews Top 40 Songs First Hit Versions

Chris Andrews is best known as the songwriter responsible for many of Sandie Shaw’s hit records and the writer of his own major hit, ‘Yesterday Man’. He will also be remembered for his contribution to the career of Adam Faith, for whom he also wrote a number of hit songs.

He started his musical career in the late fifties, forming his own group, Chris Ravel and the Ravers. Early gigs saw them performing in Soho venues including the famous 2i’s coffee bar and the Flamingo Club. The group appeared in the UK television show Oh Boy in late 1959 and, in the early sixties, performed on many occasions in clubs in Hamburg, along with other British groups including, of course, the Beatles.

Despite all of the hard work, major success eluded Chris, and it wasn’t until his song ‘The First Time’ was recorded by Adam Faith that a major turning point in his career was reached.

Adam Faith’s success as a pop star had begun in late 1959 with a Les Van Dyke-penned song, ‘What Do You Want’, which was followed by a string of hits from the same writer. By 1963, however, Faith’s career as a singer of hit material was in decline, partly due to the start of the Merseybeat boom.

Chris Andrews’ song ‘The First Time’ was recorded by Adam Faith with his new backing group, the Roulettes, in late summer of 1963, and could easily have been mistaken as coming from any of the Liverpool bands under Brian Epstein’s management. The song put Adam back in the Top 10 in autumn of that year, sitting alongside the Beatles (‘She Loves You’), Gerry and the Pacemakers (‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’), Billy J. Kramer (‘I’ll Keep You Satisfied’), and the Searchers (‘Sugar and Spice’).

The Roulettes, a group formed in Hertfordshire in 1962, were chosen to give that authentic beat-group feel to Adam’s songs, and they stayed with him until early 1965, enjoying three more Chris Andrews-penned hits during that time. Prominent members included Russ Ballard and Bob Henrit, who, after the split of the Roulettes, both joined Unit 4 plus 2 (number 1 in 1965 with ‘Concrete and Clay’). They subsequently teamed up with Rod Argent in the successful seventies band Argent. Russ Ballard has since had an illustrious career as a songwriter, while Bob Henrit became the Kinks drummer in the mid eighties.

The follow-up to ‘The First Time’, another Chris Andrews song written in the same vein, was the rousing ‘We Are In Love’, which reached a respectable number 11 in early 1964. A further four Chris Andrews songs provided hits for Adam Faith, but these were not as successful. Trying to change the formula, Adam turned to other writers for material, but he only managed to achieve one more major hit, the Bacharach/David song ‘Message to Martha’.

The paths of Adam Faith and Sandie Shaw (real name Sandra Goodrich), which were inextricably linked for a number of years, first crossed at a charity gig in Hammersmith in 1963, when Sandie appeared with the Hollies and Adam Faith and the Roulettes. Russ Ballard was so impressed with her performance that he suggested she go to Adam Faith’s dressing room and let him hear her sing. She sang ‘Everybody Loves a Lover’, with Russ Ballard backing her on guitar. Straight away, an impressed Adam invited his manager, Eve Taylor, to hear Sandie sing. Sandie duly obliged with a repeat rendition. The result was her signing with Eve Taylor’s management and a subsequent introduction to Chris Andrews.

Sandie Shaw, in her 1991 autobiography, has said of Chris Andrews:

I adored Chris Andrews from the moment we met, which was at his parents’ house just round the corner in Dagenham. I loved his raucous piano style; we liked the same music and were particularly influenced by West Indian ska, blue beat, and black American artists which seemed to surprise everyone, considering the pop music we produced. Chris came up with two songs I liked - one was called ‘As Long As You’re Happy Baby’ and the other ‘Ya-Ya-Da-Da’. (The World at My Feet, Sandie Shaw, Published by Harper Collins, May 1991)

She also commented:

We would arrange to meet in the smallest, cheapest room. There was just enough room for him, me, and two cups of tea balanced on an upright piano. He would immediately dust off the piano lid and begin to plonk away on the yellowed keys with all his latest bits of tunes and lyric ideas. With our new songs written on tea stained paper, we then visited our arranger, Kenny Woodman. Kenny would translate our efforts into squiggly dots and dashes on music sheets. That done Kenny would contact a Musician’s Union booker who ‘fixed’ the musicians to do the recording session. (The World at My Feet, Sandie Shaw, Published by Harper Collins, May 1991)

Chris Andrews wrote eleven Top 40 songs for Sandie Shaw, the first hit song being the atmospheric ‘Girl Don’t Come’, which was Sandie’s follow-up to her huge October 1964 number 1, the Bacharach/David song, ‘(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me’, and it reached number 3 in early 1965, being kept off the top by the Moody Blues ‘Go Now’ and Georgie Fame’s ‘Yeh Yeh’. The first four Chris Andrews songs for Sandie all reached the Top 10, and included the infectious calypso-sounding number 1 from 1965, ‘Long Live Love’.

Chris had written nine Top 40 songs for Sandie by the time she won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1967 with the Bill Martin/Phil Coulter song ‘Puppet on a String’ (which was followed by another another Martin/Coulter song, ‘Tonight in Tokyo’). Sandie returned to Chris Andrews for her next two singles, which were to be the final hits from the Shaw/Andrews combination: ‘You’ve Not Changed’ and ‘Today’, which reached numbers 18 and 27 respectively.

Despite the many songs he wrote for Adam Faith and Sandie Shaw, Chris Andrews found time to launch his own solo career, which started with a song unsuitable for Sandie called ‘Yesterday Man’. This peaked at number 3 in late 1965 and was followed up with ‘To Whom It Concerns’, which reached number 13 in early 1966.

Subsequent recordings were not so successful in the UK but proved to be popular throughout most of Europe and in South Africa. As a result of this, Chris has since spent a lot of time on the continent. He currently lives in Germany and Spain, and still performs in concert.

Chris Andrews’ songwriting success in the UK was concentrated in the mid sixties, when his songs for Adam Faith and Sandie Shaw enjoyed a total of 121 weeks in the Top 40 over the three years 1964, 1965, and 1966 – a tremendous achievement by anyone’s standards.

2. Ashford/Simpson

Nickolas Ashford: Born 4 May, 1941 Fairfield, South Carolina

Died 22 August, 2011 New York City

Valerie Simpson: Born 26 August, 1946 New York City

Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame 2002

Ain’t no river wide enough

To keep me from you

Ashford/Simpson Top 40 Songs First Hit Versions

Ashford/Simpson Top 40 Songs Cover Versions

If all Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson (AS) had done was to write ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’, their reputation as songwriters would have been assured. This song is high among Motown’s finest creations and has stood the test of time due to the way its heartfelt, almost religious lyrics combine with an exhilarating chorus to produce a feeling of pure joy that can’t fail to move even the most philistine listener.

They achieved much more than this, however, essentially having two careers: one in writing and producing nearly twenty Top 40 hits for other artists, and another as successful performers in their own right. They will no doubt best be remembered for being the writers of ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and ‘You’re All I Need To Get By’ for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, ‘Reach Out and Touch’ for Diana Ross, and ‘I’m Every Woman’ for Chaka Khan.

The couple met in 1964 at the White Rock Baptist Church in New York City, where Valerie played the piano and sang in the church choir. Nick had moved to New York from South Carolina to start a career as a dancer and joined the choir soon after arriving, having found difficulty in getting work. The pair got together to write songs, and during this early period were introduced to Josephine Armstead, a former member of Ike and Tina Turner’s backing group, the Ikettes, who knew a lot of publishers and helped open some doors.

AS wrote some songs with Armstead, one of which was ‘Let’s Go Get Stoned’ which was recorded by the Coasters in 1965.This version was not a success, but when Ray Charles recorded it in 1966, it went to number one on the R&B charts and was a modest hit on the US Billboard charts. They went on to write another R&B success for Ray Charles, ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’. The song was subsequently recorded by many other artists, most notably James Brown and Joe Cocker. It brought AS to the attention of Motown, which signed them as staff writers in 1966.

The in-house production team of Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol immediately took an interest in the pair. On hearing the demo of ‘Mountain’, Fuqua and Bristol decided to record it with Motown starlet Tammi Terrell. In the meantime, Motown chief Berry Gordy was looking for another female partner for Marvin Gaye, who had previously recorded with Kim Weston and Mary Wells. He realized that this song would be the perfect vehicle for Marvin Gaye and a female vocalist. Gaye was called into the studio and added his vocals to the original Tammi Terrell recording. This became the first of many versions of the song. Released in mid 1967, it was a modest hit in the US, reaching number 19, but surprisingly, it failed to reach the UK Top 40.

Diana Ross had a much bigger hit when she recorded the song, with AS as producers, for a 1970 release. Originally recorded for an album and clocking in at six minutes long, it was a radical reworking of the original, incorporating spoken passages and several new parts. According to Valerie Simpson, this was Nickolas Ashford’s idea and did not meet with the approval of Berry Gordy. However, the pared-down, three-minute version got a lot of approval from Motown and local DJs. Eventually AS persuaded Berry Gordy to release it as a single. It reached number 1 in the US and number 6 in the UK and was nominated for a Grammy, vindicating AS’s faith in the new version.

During 1967, 1968, and 1969, AS wrote specifically for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell and achieved seven more Top 40 hits for them. AS were now a couple in the romantic sense, as well as a songwriting team, and in that context were perfectly placed to write for a duo, bringing a good balance from a gender point of view and good empathy in the studio. This was perfectly illustrated when they took over the production reins with their third release, ‘Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing’.

This superb song peaked at number 8 in the spring of 1968. The performance by Gaye and Terrell displayed a spark that was apparent from the opening lines. It was effectively the forerunner for their next release, a song which has been rightly described as one of Motown’s finest moments, and a yardstick in duetting by which other collaborations should be assessed.

The song was the sublime ‘You’re All I Need To Get By’, a Top 10 hit stateside and a Top 20 hit in the UK. The sheer joy and passion in the vocal performances, combined with exquisite lyrics and a wonderful musical arrangement, make this song as much a pleasure to listen to today as it was when it first hit the airwaves in 1968. Valerie Simpson commented that a song like ‘You’re All I Need’ was ‘an inspired song, one you didn’t think you had written, it was that good; a song like that just writes itself’. (interview with the Chicago Tribune in 2011)

The B-side, ‘Two Can Have a Party’, recorded in 1966 by Tammi Terrell with a later vocal overdub by Marvin Gaye, became a Northern Soul dance-floor favourite which still receives a lot of airplay in its own right.

The last AS written and produced hit for Marvin and Tammi was ‘The Onion Song’, an oddity in that it was their only song to reach the Top 10 in the UK, yet failed to reach the Top 40 in the States. Released in the UK first, it has the distinction of being Motown’s first stereo single record and also the first to be released in a promotional sleeve; maybe these added attractions helped the song to be a major seller in the UK. In contrast, it was released some three months later in the States to little effect.

After the untimely death of Tammi Terrell on 16 March, 1970 at the age of 24 from a brain tumour, a devastated Marvin Gaye became a virtual recluse, refusing to record or perform live. He was to return to the public with his acclaimed album What’s Going On and engage in future duets, but it will be for his recordings with Tammi Terrell that he will best be remembered.

With no Marvin or Tammi to record their songs, AS’s next vehicle at Motown was Diana Ross, who had gone solo at the end of 1969. The first offering, ‘Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)’, an anthemic song in 3/4 time, was turned down by Berry Gordy as not in the style of Diana Ross, but he was evidently persuaded by AS and Miss Ross to release it as her debut single as a solo artist. Although only a minor hit on both sides of the Atlantic in mid 1970, it has since become a major part of Diana Ross’s live act with its message of living together in harmony. It was chosen as the Hands Across America theme.

AS provided Diana Ross with five more hits in the seventies, the reworked ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and ‘Remember Me’ being the most successful.

AS’s seven-year contract with Motown ended in 1973. In the time leading up to that point, they talked to Berry Gordy about not only being writers, but also becoming performers of their own material. Motown was reluctant to let them do this. Consequently AS left Motown and signed with Warner Brothers as recording artists.

They went on to write and record eight albums for Warner, and in addition wrote and produced for artists such as Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, and Ben E. King. Their most notable song in this period was ‘I’m Every Woman’, a hit in 1978 on both sides of the Atlantic. It was to become an even bigger hit for Whitney Houston in 1993, reaching number 4 on both charts and featuring in the movie The Bodyguard.

The duo left Warner in the early eighties and signed to Capitol Records, with which they had their most successful single, ‘Solid (as a Rock)’, which became their signature song.

They continued to write songs and perform as a duo until 2011, when Nickolas Ashford was diagnosed with lung cancer; he died on 26 August of that year. Valerie Simpson once attributed their endurance as songwriters to the eight years that they were writing partners before they married. As a reminder of their humble origins, she paid for a bench in New York’s Bryant Park, inscribing the plaque ‘Nick Ashford Slept Here’. Valerie Simpson continues to write songs and has performed solo as a tribute to her late husband.

3. Bacharach/David

Burt Bacharach: Born 12 May, 1928 Kansas City, Missouri

Hal David: Born 25 May, 1921 New York City

Died 1 September, 2012 Los Angeles, California

Anyone who had a heart

Would surely take me in his arms and always love me

Why won’t you?

Bacharach/David Top 40 Songs First Hit Versions

+ originally the B-side of the Shirelles 1962 release, ‘Stop the Music’

++ originally the B-side of Dionne Warwick’s 1963 release, ‘This Empty Place’

+++ originally released in August 1962 by Tommy Hunt but failed to chart

# originally released in August 1964 by Lou Johnson but failed to chart

## originally the B-side of Gene McDaniels 1961 release, ‘Chip Chip’

^ originally recorded by Burt Bacharach in 1965

^^ originally the B-side of Richard Chamberlain’s 1962 release, ‘Blue Guitar’

Bacharach/David Top 40 Songs Cover Versions

Burt Bacharach Top 40 Songs First Hit Versions

Burt Bacharach Top 40 Songs Cover Versions

Hal David Top 40 Songs First Hit Versions

Hal David Top 40 Songs Cover Versions

Bacharach/David Awards and Achievements

• Grammy: Trustees Award 1997

Burt Bacharach Awards and Achievements

Burt Bacharach. Awards and Achievements

• Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1971

• Won Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award, 1996

Hal David. Awards and Achievements

• Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1972

• Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1984

• Chairman of the Board of the National Academy of Popular Music and Songwriters Hall of Fame

• Songwriters Hall of Fame Visionary Award, 2011

Introduction

The songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David was, without any doubt, one of the greatest of the twentieth century. Bacharach’s timeless, elegant, and original melodies, combined with David’s seemingly effortless, heartfelt, and sincere lyrics were a constant feature of the sixties musical landscape and have endured way beyond that golden era. People of all ages know a Bacharach/David song even though they may not be aware of the composers; the songs appear to have been with us forever and are just as popular now as they were back then.

The songs Bacharach and David composed are benchmarks for every aspiring songwriter, Bacharach and David never courted the fashion of the day but strove to write meticulously crafted songs to the very highest standard. Their songs are as much a part of the sixties as the songs of Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Bob Dylan, or Brian Wilson. They revolutionised the music of that era and rarely have been copied since. Bacharach’s melodies were unusual in structure, combining unconventional and shifting time signatures, polyrhythms, asymmetrical phrasing, and complex harmonies which stretched even the most accomplished vocalist or musician to the limit.

Bacharach was a classically trained musician and could never understand rock and roll music per se. It was far too one-dimensional for his ears, which were tuned to harmonies and chords. But he adapted this musicality to create melodies that, though unusual, were accessible and much more complex than they sounded. Bacharach and David made it sound easy, in much the same way that Lennon and McCartney did, but it certainly wasn’t easy.

They started to write together exclusively around 1963, before that time working with other writers at New York’s famous Brill Building as well as occasionally writing with each other. As noted in Joe Smith’s An Oral History of Popular Music, Bacharach said, ‘It seemed everyone was bouncing around. It was almost incestuous. I’d write with Hal three times a week and then I’d switch off and write with Bob Hilliard in the morning and then in the afternoon Bob would write with the same composer Hal had just finished with.’ (An Oral History of Popular Music, Joe Smith: Published by Grand Central Publishing, October 1989)

There are several reasons why they eventually settled on an exclusive collaboration. One of the main ones was the entry into their lives of a young lady from New Jersey named Dionne Warwick, whose voice perfectly suited the type of songs Bacharach and David were composing at that time. This clearly evident empathy led to her first singing their demos, and then being their flagship artist, singing lead on a large portion of their work during the sixties. Warwick achieved twenty-two Top 40 hits, nine of which were Top 10, in the US charts during the sixties, all either written or produced by Bacharach/David, making them one of the most successful teams in popular music history. This catalogue of songs included ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’, ‘Walk On By’, ‘I Say a Little Prayer’, and ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose’.

For most of the mid sixties, Bacharach and David did not feel the need to write for anyone else – such was the strength of the three together. Hal David said in Performing Arts in April 1998, ‘There was nothing that Burt and I could write musically, or I could write lyrically, that she couldn’t do’. For his part, Bacharach was quoted in an interview by Morgan Neville for A&E’s Biography: ‘The more that Hal and I wrote with Dionne, the more we could see what she could do; she can go that high, and she can sing that low. She is that flexible and she can sing that strong and that loud and be so delicate and soft too … the more I was exposed to that musically, the more risks I could take’.

As the successful sixties turned into the less productive seventies, cracks appeared in what had been one of the great collaborations in pop music. The threesome eventually broke their partnership under acrimonious circumstances in 1973, provoking a number of legal suits and countersuits in which each one seemed to be suing the other – a sorry end to a beautiful relationship.

After a relatively quiet period, Bacharach bounced back in the eighties when he married fellow songwriter Carole Bayer-Sager. They wrote several hits together, including ‘Arthur’s Theme’, ‘That’s What Friends Are For’, and ‘On My Own’, all of which were chart toppers in the US.

Hal David had success writing lyrics to a number of hits, most notably for Julio Iglesias with ‘To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before’ and for John Barry with ‘We Have All the Time In the World’, which was the theme song to the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Bacharach, David, and Warwick were reconciled in later years and rightly won numerous awards for their contribution to music. Bacharach and David were awarded the prestigious 2011 Gershwin Prize by President Obama in May 2012. Hal David was too ill to attend the ceremony and died on 1 September.

Early Years

Burt Bacharach was born on 12 May, 1929 in Kansas City, Missouri, to Bert and Irma (née Freeman) Bacharach. His mother was a portrait painter of some repute, and his father worked in a department store until around the time when Burt was eight years old. The senior Bacharach then became a columnist for mens’ fashion magazines. He eventually achieved national status and wrote two bestselling books on how men should dress. This, no doubt, rubbed off on Burt, who was known in later years as a very fashion-conscious dresser.

The family moved to New York when Burt was young. His mother soon enrolled Burt in piano lessons, which he detested, much preferring sport, his abiding ambition being to be a professional American football player. Burt was quoted as saying, ‘My mother made me take piano lessons as a child and I hated it. She forced me to practice every night, when all I wanted was to be outside playing. But then two things changed my mind. The first was hearing Ravel for the first time. I thought that I hated classical music, but when I heard the French impressionists I realised I was wrong. The second was discovering jazz and big bands.’ (The Times, 2002)

This discovery of jazz led to his falling in love with the unconventional harmonies and melodies of bebop, and this was to have a major influence on his future compositions. At fifteen years of age he joined a band while at Forest Hills High School. He played piano, gaining confidence in not only his developing musical ability, but also his interaction with his contemporaries. After his graduation from Forest Hills, he enrolled in a music program at McGill University in Montreal, where he wrote his first song titled, ‘Night Plane to Heaven’ which was published but did not sell.

While studying at McGill, he lived a dual life between studying classical music and his passion for jazz, in particular his growing admiration for Maynard Ferguson and Oscar Peterson. After graduating, he went on to study theory and composition at the Mannes School of Music in New York City, the Berkshire Music Center, and the New School for Social Research, where he studied under Darius Milhaud. Milhaud was to have an enormous influence on Bacharach, instilling in him the importance of melody. In Pulse 1995, Bacharach said, ‘The important thing I learned from him was not being concerned when melody shined through. He told me, Don’t ever be worried about something that people can remember, whistle or sing. I learned that and how to eat Mexican food. He was a very decent man.’ (‘Props for Burt Bacharach’, Skip Heller, Pulse, October 1995)

Bacharach has always believed that his formal education in music was of immense benefit to him as a professional, popular music songwriter.

In 1950 he was drafted into the US Army, and he spent two years in Germany playing piano at officers’ clubs. This was where he got his introduction to the pop music of the day, because medleys of current hits were requested by his audience. He quickly had to learn and sometimes improvise. During his time there, performing hits and acting as a dance band arranger, Bacharach met vocalist Vic Damone, who had enjoyed success before he was drafted, particularly with the 1949 hit record ‘You’re Breaking My Heart’. The two got along very well and decided to meet again after they completed their stints in the army.

After Bacharach was demobbed in 1952, he and Damone worked together touring the US cabaret circuit. Bacharach conducted the band and arranged the vocalist’s material, gaining valuable experience and receiving many plaudits along the way. He also worked in the same way for other music names, touring and playing live throughout the mid fifties, and receiving acceptance and attention as a top-class arranger and accompanist. At some point in 1956 he began to look critically at the songs being offered to the artists he was working with and decided that he could do just as well. He rented an office in the Brill Building in New York City and started to write. He soon found it wasn’t as easy as he’d thought; in his first ten months, not one of his songs was published.

Also working in the Brill Building was a lyricist with a number of hits to his name. This was Hal David, and this was where Bacharach’s and David’s paths first crossed.

Hal David was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on 25 May 1921, the son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants, Gedalia David and Lina (née Goldberg) David. His older brother Mack was the first to achieve success as a lyricist with ‘I’m Just a Lucky So and So’ and ‘A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes’. Hal followed his brother into this medium after working as a journalist on the New York Post.

His first serious attempts were evidenced during his army days in World War Two, when he wrote for entertainment shows and gained positive critical notices. This gave him the confidence later to write lyrics for established post-war artists such as bandleaders Sammy Kaye and Guy Lombardo, the latter having a hit in 1949 with David’s lyrics on ‘The Four Winds and The Seven Seas’. The song was eventually recorded by over twenty-five different artists. He further enhanced his reputation when Frank Sinatra recorded ‘American Beauty Rose’, a song David had co-written with Lee Pockriss.

During the fifties, David collaborated with a number of different composers at Famous Music in New York. He had hits with ‘Bell Bottom Blues’, ‘Broken Hearted Melody’, and ‘My Heart Is An Open Book’. His greatest break came when Eddie Wolpin, manager of Famous Music, introduced him to the relatively unsuccessful Bacharach and told them to write together. They began their collaboration in 1956–57 and wrote several unremarkable songs, including two which appeared in Paramount movies and one which was recorded by Johnny Mathis. In late 1957, a song called ‘The Story of My Life’ changed their luck, and they had their first major success.

The Songs

Bacharach and David’s ‘The Story of My Life’ was originally recorded in 1957 by established country singer Marty Robbins, and was produced by the highly successful Mitch Miller. Miller had produced a string of hit singles in the fifties for artists such as Frankie Laine, Rosemary Clooney, and Guy Mitchell. He was renowned for using as many gimmicks as he felt necessary to make a hit. His records were the first that were production led, and it made little difference who was singing. He got hit after hit. Bacharach and David’s new song was given the Miller treatment and produced the big hit they were looking for.

At the same time another new Bacharach/David composition, ‘Magic Moments’, also got the Miller treatment and went to another established singer, the crooner Perry Como. Both songs were notable for their catchy melodies, original lyrics, and ‘cowpoke’ whistling – a Miller addition.

Both songs were smash hits in the US and UK. ‘The Story of My Life’ reached the top in the UK as a cover by Liverpool’s Michael Holliday, and Perry Como succeeded it at the top with ‘Magic Moments’. It was the first instance of the same writers penning consecutive British chart-toppers. In the US, ‘Magic Moments’ was the B-side of ‘Catch a Falling Star’, but it still reached number 4.

‘The Story of My Life’ had no fewer than five cover versions in the UK, all of which were hits early in 1958. ‘Magic Moments’ is the ninth most-played song ever in Britain since 1934. It reached another generation and audience when it was used in the popular film Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

These songs can be seen as somewhat bland and not in keeping with what was to come from the writers, nor with the rock and roll craze then sweeping both the US and the UK. Their substantial success, however, gave the writers some financial security, which in turn meant they had more freedom in what they wrote, and eventually in how their songs were arranged and produced.

Bacharach said, ‘I wanted to have a hit. These two songs were so unlike what I was going to write afterwards but I was grateful to have them’. (interview with Mick Brown for the Daily Telegraph in 2013).

Bacharach, a city boy, felt at odds with ‘TheStory of My Life’ going to the top of the country charts. He wasn’t able to convince the musicians he was working with (at that time, he was Marlene Dietrich’s musical arranger) that he was the person who had written the song.

Despite this success, between 1958 and 1962 Bacharach and David did not work together on a regular basis. Bacharach continued to work for Marlene Dietrich, and David continued to collaborate with other composers, having hits with ‘Johnny Get Angry’ by Joanie Summers, ‘You’ll Answer To Me’ by Cleo Laine, and the evergreen ‘Sea of Heartbreak’ by Don Gibson. Bacharach, in the meantime, had struck up an unlikely union with two of the Brill Building’s most distinguished writers, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller.

Having got a taste of writing hits, Bacharach turned for help and advice to Lieber and Stoller, wondering how to continue doing this without compromising his ideals. Lieber and Stoller were highly successful in the R&B genre and in writing, producing, and recording two-minute pop works of art (‘Poison Ivy’, ‘Hound Dog’, ‘Yakety Yak’). Bacharach wanted them to teach him how to do this. They agreed as long as he agreed to allow them to publish his future material. An agreement was quickly made, and Bacharach went into the studio to produce his own songs, something which previously had been out of his control.

With this arrangement in place, Bacharach left Dietrich (though not completely) and joined the people working with Lieber and Stoller. He thus entered a world of music he had previously ignored – R&B and rock and roll.

Bacharach commented on this period: ‘Lieber and Stoller’s influences in black and hispanic music made me think and hear differently. I started placing songs with black artists and when you start working with non-white singers it’s a different tone, there’s a soulful thing about it and that influences what I’m composing and the way I’m working’ (interview with Mick Brown for the Daily Telegraph in 2013).

During his time working with Lieber and Stoller, Bacharach teamed up with lyricist Bob Hilliard and wrote ‘Please Stay’ and ‘Mexican Divorce’ for the Drifters, ‘Tower of Strength’ for Gene McDaniels, ‘Any Day Now’ for Chuck Jackson, and, with Mack David, ‘Baby It’s You’ for the Shirelles. He also wrote a notable tune with Hal David, ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ for Jerry Butler. All the performers were non-white.

Apart from ‘Mexican Divorce’, which was the B-side of Goffin and King’s ‘When My Little Girl is Smiling’, all the songs were to be hits at least once.‘Tower of Strength’ hit number 5 in the US for Gene McDaniels, and gave Liverpool’s Frankie Vaughan a number 1 with his