Living Together, Polling Together — it's the BURT BACHARACH SONGBOOK Ballot Poll

I feel I should have heard "The Things I Will Not Miss" before today. Originally from the soundtrack of Lost Horizon apparently, but it's mostly the Ross/Gaye rendition blowing my little mind just now.

all those songs I didn't know were written by BB

I think this is the first time I became aware that BB wrote "The Story of My Life."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzk0bdlDr3Y

Not the original, not very Bacharach-like, but one the great whistling songs ever.

i love "The Story of My Life", i think there are Bacharchy elements in the melody, will probably give it a vote

OK, I've given it some thought and as long as everyone includes the artist/version with each song on their ballot, there's no reason I can't generate 2 sets of results -- one for specific recordings/performances, and then a combined one for the compositions. I'm more interested in the songs, but I can see budo jeru's and clemenza's viewpoint too.

The one version of a song per ballot rule still applies, though. If you're performances-minded and "I Say a Little Prayer" just became an impossible choice, well, that's the fun of it.

i'm far happier voting for the songs than trying to pick apart whether i prefer say Dionne and Isaac Hayes (tho the answer is pretty much all Dionne versions are my canon)

Isn't the logical compromise to do what budo jerk suggested, i.e.

is there a way you can roll out the results with the (different, according to votes) performers listed with the tracks ?

*jeru! dya

(And since "I Say A Little Prayer" is indeed an impossible choice, I'll vote the Bomb the Bass version)

Esoteric sub-category: most Bacharach-like non-BB songs.

Neil Young's "Till the Morning Comes"; David Bowie's "Kooks"; Anne Murray's "Talk It Over in the Morning"; Ginette Reno's "Beautiful Second Hand Man."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=3vX7ZWzocec

xps - That would make an easier rollout for me but I see the appeal of 2 sets of results, especially if they have major differences and surprise finishers. I have a couple of weeks to think about it.

Post-1980 tracks isn't a bad idea.

(And since "I Say A Little Prayer" is indeed an impossible choice, I'll vote the Bomb the Bass version)

― dorsalstop

i think i'll wind up going with ground zero!

Richard Chamberlain, "Blue Guitar," 1963

https://youtu.be/ccY1Fg_3oxc

The b-side was the first recording of "Close To You."

https://youtu.be/tft09VpllvU

Am I crazy or did Bacharach write one of Starship's '80s hits? I was thinking it was 'Built This City' but I see that was Bernie Taupin (which is equally weird).

NM, just went to the actual Wikipedia page.

Had no idea he wrote 'Heartlight'. Beautiful. Just belted that gem out at karaoke the other night.

Anita Harris, "London Life" — Pye, 1965
https://youtu.be/p-olFlO7gsk

I'm going to be posting links to non-spotify rarities and obscurities like this one regularly, hope everyone's cool with that. Not an endorsement, not campaigning, just more Burt.

Are we purposely focusing on lesser known covers? If not, I'm going to throw out the obvious ones:

Walk On By - Dionne Warwick
What The World Needs Now Is Love - Jackie DeShannon
What's New Pussycat? - Tom Jones
Alfie - Cilla Black
Baby It's You - The Shirelles
The Look Of Love - Dusty Springfield
This Guy's In Love With You - Herb Alpert
Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) - Christopher Cross
Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head - B.J. Thomas
(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me - Lou Johnson

2 sets of results -- one for specific recordings/performances, and then a combined one for the compositions. I'm more interested in the songs, but I can see budo jeru's and clemenza's viewpoint too.

The one version of a song per ballot rule still applies, though. If you're performances-minded and "I Say a Little Prayer" just became an impossible choice, well, that's the fun of it.

― The Mod Who Banned Liberty Valance (WmC), Wednesday, April 17, 2019 6:18 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is great, thanks so much !

re: “endorsing” (xp) and obvious vs. obscure renditions — my opinion is that everyone itt should talk about / post links to songs they like ! i don’t assume anybody knows what are the obvious choices (and even a handful of darin’s tracks are new to me). on the other hand i’m delighted by obscurities that i might not come across via the wikipedia page or spotify.

this is a thread about burt, so the more renditions of burt songs the merrier, is what i’m basically saying

(And since "I Say A Little Prayer" is indeed an impossible choice, I'll vote the Bomb the Bass version)

― dorsalstop

i think i'll wind up going with ground zero!

― Jaki Liebowitz (rushomancy), Wednesday, April 17, 2019 8:20 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

al green for me

Ah, I get it now. Thank you! This is going to be fun...

i’m also going to assume that not everybody uses spotify / has time to make it through the whole playlist, so i hope it’s okay with WmC that i post youtube links here to songs that might already be on the playlist ?

Totally cool with that!

I'm posting obscurities in the early days mostly because when I started the spotify playlist I tried for a while to go chronologically and kept running into roadblocks, and I have a sticky note with a bunch of those roadblocks on it. Doris Day's "Send Me No Flowers" and suchlike. I'll move to better-known stuff eventually with my linkage.

The string break in Chuck Jackson's "Breaking Point" is almost glorious enough to overshadow Chuck's unhinged desperate vocal performance. Almost.
https://youtu.be/ojrbvy6bbhI

Richard X feat. Deborah Evans-Stickland (of the Flying Lizards) - Walk On By
https://youtu.be/EFSkDUlQz1M

Burt & the Backbeats - "Move It on the Backbeat" aka "Move Me on the Backbeat" - Bigtop, 1961 (The Backbeats were Dee Dee and Dionne Warwick)

https://youtu.be/kaGEe7u9J3E

The flip was Jobim's "A Felicidade," no youtube available that I can find.

3 versions of "The Look of Love" Dusty Springfield:

The superior "Dusty whispering in your ear" U.K. vocal mix: https://youtu.be/e8o-XuTH68w

The inferior "drenched in reverb" U.S. vocal mix: https://youtu.be/bDnrzFWlZUg

The completely different "Casino Royale" soundtrack version: https://youtu.be/MPkp-pCJYCc

Nice! (that reverb version is more funny than nice)

"Me Japanese Boy I Love You" — released just before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The incorrect grammar makes me squirm, but a beautiful tune.

Bobby Goldsboro, 1964 — https://youtu.be/xMOWttB17OU

Pizzicato Five, 1994 — https://youtu.be/lx57hRa6VHI

The full single isn't on youtube, but here's Richard Chamberlain singing part of "Rome Will Never Leave You" on a Dr. Kildare episode. https://youtu.be/Q0t_zDIUSvQ

I have The Fear that this poll will get 8 or 9 ballots.

for tunes i will probly just list the 30 i saw him rip thru at Coney Island about 15 years ago

(excepting "That's What Friends Are For")

Cool, glad you plan on voting -- don't forget to include artists with those tunes. I guess for ballots that don't include artists I will default the artist name to BB.

I yesterday watched Lost Horizon, to see a few songs in their original context. BB's claims that it almost ended his career was also a major selling point. LOL. It was... quite an experience.

Good morning! Don't forget to vote!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7pgAAW9pEU

Morbs, did he do a lot of between song patter and reminiscing when you saw him?

nice stylistics tune !

i'm feeling torn on which version of "i just don't know what do with myself" i like best. i haven't listened to the white stripes since i was probably 13 but i just listened to their version and it kind of rules ?

anyone have a fav / rec beyond dusty / white stripes / lloyd cole version upthread ?

some discoveries from the spotify playlist i've liked:

dionne warwick - that's not the answer (incredibly beautiful)
the three sounds - the look of love (nothing too special i suppose but it grooves)
nat king cole - once in a blue moon (when was this recorded ? lovely playing for sure)
james brown - a message to michael (love that organ tone)

some non-playlist stuff that's caught my ear:

eddy mitchell - toujours un coin qui me rapelle (nice french-language adaptation of "always something" - love the arrangement)
the rangoons - moon guitar (moody guitar instrumental)
the boots - another tear falls (pretty cool german beat / psych rendition with killer drums)

finally, it's totally killing me that i can't track down the soulful strings version of "message to michael" because i'd really like to hear it.

Discogs lists that Nat King Cole tune, which is subtitled "Based on Rubinstein's Melody in F," as from a 1955 album, but on second look it may not be by Bacharach after all; there's a 1952 version of the same album that has the songwriting credit as "arranged by Nat Cole" with no credit to BB. It's the earliest BB credit as songwriter/arrangers in Discogs.

ah, okay. perhaps this poll could use a bit of mystery. i’ll try to do some more research and report back if i find anything

I see the flipside of that Rangoons track ("My Heart Is a Ball of String") is also Bacharach-David. Here's both of them together on youtube, but a terrible transfer from the vinyl. https://youtu.be/jh2OjNXZwUg

i'm going to have to try not to miss the deadline for sure, i'm definitely trying to absorb this man's fantastic work before i do!

A PERFECT song and performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8fzpPK1NGM

also, i'm definitely appreciating the youtube posts of highlights, since i don't spotify...

Rushomancy, here are some youtube mixes/playlists to save from having to go track by track.

163 tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75lAZuzOEwk&list=PL5DBD438DE93F7200
50 tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dDGnl8_Dzg&list=RDEM9Aij9DVsEj1dHoZTAzaLfQ&start_radio=1
80 tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoN2Egw_zN4&list=PLED2157694D9F62CA

120 tracks in a single file (time markers included): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtZEu9YCSYA

Wow, that last one is crammed with obscure tracks including the Della Reese one I was looking for. Vic Dana, "The Story Behind My Tears," that's gotta be top 10 on everyone's ballot for sure. It's got the Mel Torme "These Desperate Hours" I was looking for...

Crap, I meant to do short URLs.

xxp - "Are You There" has jumped from not on my radar to top half of my ballot...

My ballot will be mainly the hits and in their best known versions, I suspect, with a few exceptions. Gotta plug 'Bond Street' (aka Home James Don't Spare the Horses from the o.g. Casino Royale OST) although I'll be voting for the Reach Out version.

Speaking of Casino Royale, this Geoff Love version of the title theme is canon.

Finally, a plug for the Burt & The Posies version of What the World Needs Now (from the 'Austin Powers in: Goldmember' OST), which is my favourite arrangement of the song and I always like it when Burt himself sings.

I like that Burt + Posies version, though the seams are pretty apparent between the 2 artists' parts.

Here's a 1-hour Burt documentary from BBC Four -- not sure what year this was broadcast.
https://youtu.be/hcGDvUgewu4

Definitely considering Casino Royale selections, in some form or another.

One thing that could have had an alternative life in a film score IMHO is BB's own wordless arrangement of Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa from Hit Maker! The drumming in the second half is kinda bonkers. I've listened to it an insane number of times this week and might opt for it over Gene Pitney's.

XXXP: OTM re Warkwick's "Are You There..." Easily top 5 here.

A track I'm glad to have discovered through this exercise is Gloria Lynne's response to Tower of Strength. Not least for the rhythm section. Almost proto-ska or something?!

("Tower of Strength" itself, Gene McDaniels', is also sitting on my longlist at present.)

it’s funny, i’ve always known (eu)gene mcdaniels had a pop vocal career before he re-emerged in the late ‘60s / early ‘70s as a militant black power soul / jazz singer-songwriter. but i’ve never listened to as much of his early liberty records period as i have this past week. i can’t say i like it so much. dude has a stellar voice obv but i just can’t dig the arrangements and the vocal performances can be grating (tho tbf i’ve had friends gripe about the vocal theatrics on “outlaw” so idk).

thought about it, left it out for accounting reasons

OK, no ballots came in overnight so this dish is DONE with 17 voters. Thank you to everyone who sent in a ballot! I could start the results right now if previous polls hadn't raised the graphics game so high.

A sense a bit of perfectionism in you, not unlike Mark Hudson.

Ah, got the wording slightly wrong, should be a *bit* of the perfectionismt

for my part, I don't ever look at the graphics in poll rollouts, with images off.

OK, I don't see any reason to delay the results, but I'm still waiting on a big work dump that is 2 weeks late at this point. If it comes in today, I'll have to pause the rollout and give 100% attention to that.

Wishin' and Votin' - the BURT BACHARACH SONGBOOK Poll Results

Good to have NV and Dr M in the polling

https://i.imgur.com/0BQjtxe.jpg

2. I Say a Little Prayer — 1027 Points, 17 Votes, 2 first-place votes
Lyric: Hal David
Aretha Franklin, 1968 single, 708 points — https://youtu.be/KtBbyglq37E
Dionne Warwick, 1967 single, 244 points — https://youtu.be/kafVkPxjLYg
Gene, from To See the Lights (1996), 88 points — https://youtu.be/G7CxOtEqOmQ
Al Green, from Truth N' Time (1978), 77 points — https://youtu.be/ZeQQGjoFdI0

lol whoops

WTF is Paul Hampton?

Oh wait this is first thread