Posts Tagged: dionne warwick
The American Pop Music Hall of Fame Will Have a Great First Class
The site has a news item today that reports the American Pop Music Hall of Fame is seeking input from the public on which group or performer should be in the inaugural class. The story the item is based on has a link to the entire list of candidates.
They are:
Paul Anka, The Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Bee Gees, Tony Bennett, Chuck Berry, Pat Boone, the Carpenters, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Chubby Checker, the Dave Clark Five, Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Bobby Darin, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, the Everly Brothers, the Four Seasons, Connie Francis, Elton John, Dean Martin, Johnny Mathis, the Monkees, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Patti Page, Les Paul & Mary Ford, the Platters, Elvis Presley, Simon & Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Smokey & Miracles, The Supremes, Three Dog Night, Bobby Vinton, Dionne Warwick, Andy Williams, Hank Williams and Stevie Wonder.
I wanted to feature one of the acts on the site in addition to the news item. So I took a pen, closed my eyes and pointed to the screen. The Everly Brothers was the closest.
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Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick Medley
This is a bit of the third soundtrack of the 1960s — the one that wasn’t rock-and-roll and the one that wasn’t afraid of it.
I purposely followed yesterday’s post on The Ramones with one on Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Both the Ramones and Bacharach/David took what could easily be dismissed — simplistic head-banging proto-punk and light pop — and found the art within.
Of course, both aren’t to everyone’s taste. It seems to me, however, that The Ramones and Bacharach/David brilliantly succeeded in taking things well beyond any superficial characterization of their respective genres. Isn’t that the point of art?
The list of artists that have done these songs suggests that people in the business understand the brilliance of Bacharach (who wrote the music) and David (the lyricist). The songs above include Walk on By, Say a Little Prayer, Do You Know the Way to San Jose?, Anyone Who Has a Heart and What the World Needs Now.
Here Stevie Wonder plays Alfie at a White House reception at which Bacharach and David received The Gerswhin Prize for Popular Song. Another hit for the team was the song Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, which was sung by B.J. Thomas on the soundtrack of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Â
A “selected” discography is at an unofficial Bacharach’s website. The site says that he has performances scheduled in the coming months for San Diego and Tokyo.
Note: A visitor at DailyKos–which is kind enough to let folks like me cross-post–suggested that this post lacked anything on the Bacharach collaboration with Elvis Costello. The commenter suggested I Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.
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