Burt Bacharach obituary: accomplished musician behind countless pop classics
Songwriter behind an astonishing array of hits has died aged 94

Burt Bacharach, who has died aged 94, formed, with the lyricist Hal David, the most “accomplished American songwriting team since George and Ira Gershwin”, said The Daily Telegraph.
Together, they were responsible for an astonishing array of classic songs: What the World Needs Now Is Love; I Say a Little Prayer; Do You Know the Way to San Jose; Walk On By; Make It Easy on Yourself; Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa; This Girl’s In Love With You; Alfie; The Look of Love, and more.
Their songs were recorded by everyone from Aretha Franklin to Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield, but the singer that Bacharach described as “our artist, our flagship” was Dionne Warwick. Her voice, he said, has “the delicacy and mystery of sailing ships in bottles”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Bacharach’s music was sometimes dismissed as easy listening; and his songs, often tinged with regret, were certainly mellifluous and lushly orchestrated; but they were seldom easy, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian: Bacharach “dealt in changing meters, odd harmonic shifts, umpteen idiosyncrasies that were perhaps the result of [an] eclectic musical education, which variously took in studying classical music under the French composer Darius Milhaud, listening to bebop musicians in the jazz clubs of New York’s 52nd Street, and hanging out with avant-gardist John Cage”.
His music was impossible to classify because it was “genuinely sui generis”: it could be recorded by rock bands, “mum-friendly crooners”, soul singers and jazz musicians.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1928, Burt Bacharach was brought up in New York, where his father was a journalist. He learnt the piano, and in his teens started sneaking into jazz clubs. He studied music theory at McGill University, and after military service he found work as an accompanist.
Deciding that he could write better songs than those he was playing, he teamed up with Mack David, and had some success. Then he started working with Mack’s brother Hal, and in 1958, they hit the big time with Magic Moments for Perry Como. In the late 1950s, he toured with Marlene Dietrich; then in 1961, he met Warwick, and revived his collaboration with David. The trio went on to have 33 US chart entries.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
A perfectionist, who liked to say that his compositions should be easy for the listener, not for the singer, Bacharach fell out with David and Warwick in the 1970s. He also split up with his second wife, the actress Angie Dickinson.
His profile waned, but his career was not over: in 1981 he won a second best song Oscar for his theme for Arthur, co-written with the third of his four wives, Carole Bayer Sager. (His first was for Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.) And in the 1990s, he sent up his image as a 1960s smoothie in the Austin Powers films. He played Glastonbury in 2015, and he toured into his 90s.
-
‘The Taliban delivers yet another brutal blow’
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Renewables top coal as Trump seeks reversal
Speed Read For the first time, renewable energy sources generated more power than coal, said a new report
-
Prime minister shocks France with resignation
Speed Read French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu submitted his government’s resignation after less than a month in office
-
Mustardy beans and hazelnuts recipe
The Week Recommends Nod to French classic offers zingy, fresh taste
-
Susie Dent picks her favourite books
The Week Recommends The lexicographer and etymologist shares works by Jane Goodall, Noel Streatfeild and Madeleine Pelling
-
6 incredible homes under $1 million
Feature Featuring a home in the National Historic Landmark District of Virginia and a renovated mid-century modern house in Washington
-
The Harder They Come: ‘triumphant’ adaptation of cinema classic
The Week Recommends ‘Uniformly excellent’ cast follow an aspiring musician facing the ‘corruption’ of Kingston, Jamaica
-
House of Guinness: ‘rip-roaring’ Dublin brewing dynasty period drama
The Week Recommends The Irish series mixes the family tangles of ‘Downton’ and ‘Succession’ for a ‘dark’ and ‘quaffable’ watch
-
Dead of Winter: a ‘kick-ass’ hostage thriller
The Week Recommends Emma Thompson plays against type in suspenseful Minnesota-set hair-raiser ‘ringing with gunshots’
-
A Booker shortlist for grown-ups?
Talking Point Dominated by middle-aged authors, this year’s list is a return to ‘good old-fashioned literary fiction’
-
Fractured France: an ‘informative and funny’ enquiry
The Week Recommends Andrew Hussey's work is a blend of ‘memoir, travelogue and personal confession’