5 decades of over 70 memorable, hummable, singable hits by hundreds of artists!
Burt Bacharach (aided and abetted with Hal David’s supporting lyrics and Dionne’s rapturous voice).
We will never see his like again.
(from the excellent 3 CD Rhino boxset: The Look of Love–The Burt Bacharach Collection)
Burt Bacharach, along with his lyricist Hal David.
So many memorable hits including:
The Story of My Life
Magic Moments
Please Stay
Tower of Strength
Baby It’s You
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
Make It Easy on Yourself
Only Love Can Break a Heart
Don’t Make Me Over
Blue on Blue
True Love Never Runs Smooth
Reach Out for Me
Twenty-four Hours from Tulsa
Anyone Who Had a Heart
A House Is Not a Home
Wives and Lovers
Wishin’ and Hopin’
Walk on By
There’s Always Something There to Remind Me
What the World Needs Now Is Love
Trains and Boats and Planes
What’s New Pussycat?
My Little Red Book
Here I Am
Alfie
The Windows of the World
I Say a Little Prayer
Casino Royale
The Look of Love
Do You Know the Way to San Jose?
This Guy’s in Love with You
Promises, Promises
Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head
Everybody’s Out of Town
I’ll Never Fall in Love Again
(They Long to Be) Close to You
One Less Bell to Answer
Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)
That’s What Friends Are For
And he/they worked with all these recording artists:
Marty Robbins
Perry Como
Gene McDaniels
The Drifters
The Shirelles
Gene Pitney
Dionne Warwick
Bobby Vinton
Brook Benton
Dusty Springfield
Bobby Goldsborough
Tony Orlando
Jackie DeShannon
Trini Lopez
Cilla Black
Rick Nelson
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
B.J. Thomas
The Carpenters
The 5th Dimension
Christopher Cross
Dionne & Friends
Elvis Costello
Some kind of track record, eh?
The boxset is highly recommended. Most of the songs are sung by the original artists with some covers done at the same time as original artists’ versions. Dionne and Gene Pitney got to sing most of the originals. Also included are some duds including one by Richard Chamberlain aka TV’s Dr. Kildare. N.B. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” did not get used in the movie of the same name.