After meeting crooner Vic Damone in Germany, Bacharach worked alongside the singer for several years, leading to engagements with a virtual pantheon of club circuit celebrities including the Ames Brothers, Joel Grey, Steve Lawrence, and Paula Stewart, who married Bacharach in 1953. Throughout the 1950s, Bacharach cut his teeth as a musician by serving as a piano accompanist and arranger to a number of performers before making his first attempts at songwriting. It was at the New School where Bacharach benefitted from the tutelage of Darius Milhaud, of whom many claim to have sharply influenced Bacharach's style. After serving in the armed forces from 1950 to 1952, Bacharach immersed himself in music theory and composition study at the Mannes School of Music in New York City McGill University in Montreal, Canada the Music Academy of the West, in Santa Barbara, California, where he received a scholarship and at the New School for Social Research. Taking the study of music to heart, Bacharach exposed himself to jazz and classical performance through formal training, as well as by sneaking into local jazz clubs where he witnessed legends such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Although he strived to become a football star, the young Bacharach was limited to a steady diet of cello, drum, and piano lessons at his mother's behest. While Bacharach's separation with David in the early 1970s was followed by a period of general stagnation, by the 1990s the composer was celebrated anew by a young generation of musicians who found great artistry in Bacharach's body of easy listening works.īacharach was born on May 12, 1928, in Kansas City, Missouri, before his parents relocated to New York City. As Francis Davis noted in the Atlantic Monthly, by the early 1970s, Bacharach had been acknowledged by critics and listeners as "a 'national idol'-a celebrity songwriter who was to his day what Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter had been to theirs." Crafting a distinct style of melody, notably in collaboration with lyricist Hal David, Bacharach provided vocalists with the music for a vast list of hits, as well as for numerous acclaimed film soundtracks. After firmly establishing himself as a highly original tunesmith by the early 1960s, Bacharach became not only a household name, but even a publicly visible persona.
In a career spanning nearly six decades, songwriter Burt Bacharach has attained a virtual star status usually reserved for those on the other side of the recording process. Addresses: Record company-A&M Records, 1416 North La Brea, Los Angeles, CA 90028. Education: Attended Mannes School of Music, NY the Berkshire Music Center, NY the New School for Social Research McGill University, in Montreal, Canada and the Music Academy of the West, CA. Born on in Kansas City, MO son of Bert Bacharach (a columnist) married Paula Stewart, 1953 (divorced 1958) married Angie Dickinson, 1965 (divorced, 1981) married Carol Bayer Sager, 1982 (divorced, 1991) married Jane Hanson, 2003 children: four.