Burt Bacharach showed a knack for music at an early age and earned an education to match, studying composition and performance at schools in New York, Montreal, and California, and learning after hours by watching the jazz greats of the '40s and '50s. He found his true calling in the '50s as a composer-for-hire, scoring minor hits (including the theme to The Blob) and working as a musical director for Marlene Dietrich. In the following decade, he and occasional collaborator Hal David became one of the most successful songwriting teams of all time. Bacharach provided the cool, sophisticated melodies, while David's lyrics summoned up an adult world of possibility and heartache. And they found a peerless interpreter in Dionne Warwick: The trio's greatest hits of the period include "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," "Trains And Boats And Planes," "Walk On By," "Message To Michael," "Promises, Promises," and many more. In spite of his professed obsession with work, Bacharach lived a public private life, romancing and marrying Angie Dickinson while mounting a successful musical (Promises, Promises) with David, working on film soundtracks, and producing hits. The Bacharach-David-Warwick era came to a bitter close in the early '70s, however, after the songwriters' movie musical of Lost Horizon flopped, they split acrimoniously, and Warwick's record label forced her to sue them for breach of contract. Bacharach resurfaced only sporadically in the '70s and '80s, turning out the occasional hit with his new wife, Carole Bayer Sager. Their 1991 divorce marked a personal low point shortly before a professional resurrection. Embraced by a new generation of fans (including the members of Oasis), Bacharach popped up as the epitome of '60s swinger cool in the Austin Powers movies, collaborated with Elvis Costello for 1998's great Painted From Memory, and became the subject of numerous retrospectives. Bacharach's latest project provides another high point. The new Here I Am: Isley Meets Bacharach pairs him with the venerable Ron Isley for a revelatory tour through the Bacharach catalog, with a few new songs thrown in for good measure. It's a career-best vocal performance for Isley and confirmation of Bacharach's sustained power as a producer and arranger, and Bacharach was eager to talk about it in a recent interview with The Onion A.V. Club.
The Onion: How did your new album come about?
Burt Bacharach: I've always had a good relationship with the people at Dreamworks. We had talked about doing a project of some kind, maybe an album with nine or ten different singers, each writing a song with me. It never seemed to happen. That's a hard one to do, because it's hard to get permission from the different labels, say, for Sting. But the relationship has always been a close one. So, they had this project… And [executive producer] John McClain was very involved. He's terrific, you know? He's a powerhouse. He's a machine. He makes things happen. The Isleys were coming off… Well, when we had our first meeting with Mo Ostin and the rest of the group the Isleys record with, R. Kelly was just about to come out [with his Isley collaboration], and McClain said, "It's going to be a number-one album." And they were coming on top of another album that was huge. I was very glad to see that they were back with that kind of force, that kind of selling power and acceptance. They've been around a long time.
O: You've had a definitive female interpreter of your songs with Dionne Warwick, but you've never really had a male equivalent, although you've worked with a lot of great singers.
BB: Yeah, I worked with Chuck Jackson, and I've always been attracted to the more soulful singers. Ron [Isley] is a spectacular singer. I'm not sure there's anyone better. The beauty of it was, I signed on to do five or seven songs. Then they were going to use two other producers to finish the album. Which is always smart with a record company: You don't want to commit to one producer, because you don't know how it's going to turn out. But after the first five… And incidentally, we did it all live, so everyone was playing at the same time. Which was a huge thrill, because hardly anyone records this way.
O: Is that your preferred way of recording?
BB: Well, it always was. There's a real interconnection with everybody involved with recording. You've got a drummer relating to what the singer's singing.
O: As a perfectionist, however, you've got to be somewhat attracted to what can be done with computers these days.
BB: Sure, you can make it absolutely perfect. You can get a perfect bass line. You can spend a day… I've seen bands spend a day on a couple of bars of a bass line, making a loop. But when you peel it all back, it's the overall picture, you know? You can get a lot of stuff sounding really great with synthesizers. But if you peel it back, is there a melody there? Is there something that's memorable, not perfect and slick? [The new album] was thrilling for everyone. Listen, those vocals of Ronnie's on "Alfie," that's take number one. With everybody playing. We had a string balance, a rhythm balance. There was even me talking a little on my talkback mic, which they were able to lose when they mixed. I didn't even know they were running tape. To walk out of there with five songs done in one day… What I liked so much was being able to work with Ronnie. Spending time at my house at the piano. Getting the feel of where he might go. Taking out some licks that were really great, that he might not remember, and putting them on the arrangement. Reminding him how special that one line is. And then to try and rearrange all these arrangements I've worked with for so many years. I've done "The Look Of Love" one way for so many years, and it was great to get inside and do it totally different.