Happy Birthday To Burt Bacharach!

-
This is a soulful tribute to Burt Bacharah. The guy celebrated his 83rd (!) birthday on the 12th of May. His melodies and arrangements are always wonderful. The poetic and sometimes very deep lyrics of Hal David and Carol Bayer Sager (his ex-wife) make the picture complete. Bacharach and David delivered probably their best work with Dionne Warwick, but there are many artists who have made beautiful interpretations of Burt's classics. This mixtape is a proof of that. Celebrate with him and enjoy his magic sounds with those incredible trumpets.

My tribute starts with the original version of 'Always something there to remind me'. It was covered by Sandie Shaw and a few years later by Dionne Warwick. There's an interesting new wave/electro version of it by Naked Eyes (led by Rob Fischer who became one half of Climie Fisher later on). 'Arthur's theme' has been recently covered by Fitz and the Tantrums for the remake of the movie 'Arthur'. And Boyzone frontman Ronan Keating gives us his interpretation of the song on his new album 'When Ronan met Burt'. It's a nice one as well, especially when he's backed by an all female orchestra on YouTube. Don't forget to listen to the last track of the mix, 'Alfie' by Rumer. It's from the Dutch version of her lovely album 'Seasons of my soul', which includes her outstanding new single 'Goodbye girl'. She seems to be some kind of reincarnation of Karen Carpenter. Hopelfully she enjoys life more than Karen did... Although I'm two days late, happy birthday to you, Burt!

Tracklist:

Lou Johnson – (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me (1961)
The Four Tops – Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head (1970)
Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne – Love Power (1987)
Marc Collin feat. Nadeah – Arthur’s Theme (2008)
Sergio Mendes feat. Fergie – The Look of Love (2008)
Phyllis Hyman – In-between the Heartaches (1980)
Ron Isley – This Guy’s In Love with You (2003)
Isaac Hayes – Walk On By (1969)
Eddie Kendricks – Any Day Now (1967)
The Supremes & the Temptations – Do You Know the Way to San Jose (1968)
Dionne Warwick – Trains and Boats and Planes (1967)
Trini Lopez – Made In Paris (1966)
Dionne Warwick – Anyone Who Had a Heart (1964)
Jackie DeShannon – So Long Johnny (1966)
The Marvelettes – Message to Michael (1967)
Adam Wade – Rain From the Skies (1963)
Del Shannon – The Answer to Everything (1962)
Dusty Springfield – The Look of Love (1966)
Dee Clark – You’re Telling Our Secrets (1961)
The Dells – I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself (1971)
Cissy Houston – This Empty Place (1970)
Paris Sisters – Long After Tonight Is All Over (1961)
Ella Fitzgerald – I’ll Never Fall in Love Again (1969)
Rumer – Alfie (2011)

Burt's Best: A Soulful Tribute To Burt Bacharach by Professor Eddy on Mixcloud


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disco Knockouts!

-
Image
Apart from the picture of Sharron Davies, there are two songs that inspired me to make this mix. One of them is a recent track from Duck Sauce. The repetition of the female vocals reminded me of Stars On 45 (I believe they both sampled 'Gotta Go Home' by Boney M). The other one is from Dutch singer Dee Dee. I heard ‘I put a spell on you’ on a recent episode of Tim Sweeney’s ‘Beats in space’. In the accompanying video she looks a little bit like a sex doll, but I love the song! I like the closing track from soul veterans the Drifters, but isn’t it strange to hear guys who were in their thirties at the time sing about schoolgirls? Different times, I guess, when no one had heard of R. Kelly yet... One of my personal favourites is ‘Night time’ from Maggie MacNeal. I bought the 7” which was produced by Michael Lloyd (known for his work for the Osmonds, Lou Rawls and Solomon Burke) way back in 1979. Maggie MacNeal was one half of successful Dutch duo Mouth & MacNeal. Their bigg
Read more

The Smooth Operators Present Classic Yacht Rock

-
Image
Unsplash The Smooth Operators (Martijn Soetens and I) introduce you to yacht rock songs that you must have heard at least once in your life! We present some real yacht rock classics and yacht rock songs that we think should have been classics. Harden My Heart by American pop/rock group Quarterflash was written by guitarist Marv Ross and included on the band's debut album, Quarterflash (1981). The song was originally released as a single in early 1980 by Seafood Mama, Quarterflash's predecessor band. Quarterflash's version became a top-10 hit in the United States, peaking at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1982. Guitarist and songwriter Marv Ross remembered that a friend of his had given him the title and that he came up with the lyrics very quickly. Last Monday Michael McDonald, front man of the Doobie Brothers, celebrated his 72th birthday: "Emerging from the laid-back California rock scene of the '70s, McDonald found his niche in a unique blend of
Read more

West Coast Sundown: Yacht Rock, Late Night Pop & Sunset Soul

-
Image
Unsplash Enjoy the soundtrack to a West Coast sundown! 😊 The closing track by Matt Duncan is brand new, by the way. It sounds like a lost recording from The Nightfly sessions by Donald Fagen. At the time critics sometimes called David Cassidy’s music bubblegum pop. That was simply defined  music manufactured to sell as much records as possible and it was mostly aimed at a very young audience. Bubblegum's classic period ran from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies. At that point disco music took over the single market. However, David Cassidy certainly made some very good records, although in later years he found it difficult to shake off his teen idol image. “His wispiest, breathiest hit was called ‘I Am A Clown’. Poor, sweet, forlorn sexy David – marshmallows could’ve bruised this sound.“ (Bob Stanley in his book Yeah Yeah Yeah )  Midas Shadow by Al Stewart is from his classic 1976 album The Year Of The Cat . The message of this song is that when a successful businessman stops
Read more