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

Herb Alpert:

Burt wrote the arrangement for "This Guy's in Love with You" and he was in the studio when we cut it at Gold Star Recording. In the studio, I'm the opposite of Burt. He is a perfectionist who likes everything to sound exactly the way he hears it in his hear. I close my eyes and I'm from the feel-it school. Obviously, Burt feels it as well but I take a different approach. If it feels right, I stop.

So we had the track and I wanted to see whether my voice would sound good on it. A bunch of the singers and Burt and a couple of musicians were in the control room while was doing a demo of the vocal. I did one take and went back into the control room and they all looked at me and said, "Don't touch it." I said, "What do you mean, don't touch it? That's just the demo." Burt said, "Don't touch it, man. It sounds great." I touched up a couple of things here and there but that was the take.

Really loving these biography snippets today btw Wm

Alpert is so endearingly dorky on it.

Great Picture Sleeve:

https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2018/11/Herb-Alpert-This-Guys-In-Love-With-You-1541434972-compressed.jpg

Thanks, I renewed Burt's book from the library and am taking them all from that. I decided against the Noel Gallagher parts on this song. xp

It's hard for me to separate out pure childhood nostalgia from the jazz craft of a lot of these tunes but i assume that the craft is explaining a lot of the permanent love, for me, anyway

not surprised at consensus, but maybe bcz the greatest seem obvious to me

I mean this stuff remains classic and evocative for a bunch of reasons i hadn't thought through until we did this

some dickhole on wikipedia described Guy Klucevsek's version as a "dirge" and I just want to punch 'em so bad

xps -- mmmmmaybe? But I find the songs so amazing I even like "bad" versions, and craft can't explain that for me.

Also yes what Morbs said

https://i.imgur.com/7V3kpxA.jpg

4. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself — 751 Points, 15 Votes, 1 first-place vote
Lyric: Hal David
Dusty Springfield, 1964 single, 572 points — https://youtu.be/xpsDE6KCY9s
The White Stripes, 2003 single, 84 points — https://youtu.be/jpZjuvI-s8Y
Linda Ronstadt, from Winter Light (1993), 65 points — https://youtu.be/CfC_Ngtdj8I
Isaac Hayes, from The Isaac Hayes Movement (1970), 30 points — https://youtu.be/L_Mtumgu5yM

Burt

Tommy Hunt, the former lead singer of the Flamingos, a really terrific doo-wop group, had just had a big hit on Scepter with "Human," so the label decided to let him cut this as a follow-up. I did the arrangement and conducted the orchestra, and Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced the session.

I thought it was a terrific record, but because Florence Greenberg didn't like the fact that Tommy Hunt was dating one of the Shirelles while also being kept by some other woman, she did nothing to promote it and the song went nowhere. It didn't become a hit until Dusty Springfield covered it two years later.

Tommy Hunt original — https://youtu.be/7It1ATSCRxM

Dusty my number 1,totally personal, totally perfect, can't think of another pop song that nails that feeling so well

XP Naw, this was the Top. Dad claimed he bought their first album at the merch stand.

Dusty my number 1,totally personal, totally perfect, can't think of another pop song that nails that feeling so well

XP I figured you were referencing that.

i think it's WmC's coffee break time

The story of my life.

I think everything I voted for has charted except from three tunes so...

Except for

I know what one of them is and am too discombobulated to know the others

Eating lunch, getting a grocery list from my mother, and getting the online spreadsheet ready so y'all can check the full results in a little while.

One Dusty
Two Dionnes

Oh wait, only two. What am I missing?

Damn, I got #3 ready an hour ago and then accidentally closed that tab.

While lunch and technical hitches are being sorted, you may like to know that Dionne Warwick has a new album out today!

XPS One of the Dionnes is also heavily associated w/another singer.

One Dusty
Two Dionnes

I forgot the other Dionne which also has a famous version by someone else I almost voted for.

Overjoyed at 12-0 result for Dionne vs Cilla on AWHAH.

Don’t think I’ve ever even heard that one.

I honestly don't know if I've heard any Cilla record besides "Alfie"

It’s not on the Deep Dive playlist, although that does have a French version by Pet Clark.

https://i.imgur.com/cAPNsZ3.jpg

3. The Look of Love — 922 Points, 16 Votes, 3 first-place votes
Lyric: Hal David
Dusty Springfield, 1967 single, 572 points — https://youtu.be/e8o-XuTH68w
Isaac Hayes, 1970 single, 117 points — https://youtu.be/0IzxHKI8PJE
Shelby Lynne, from Just a Little Lovin' (2008), 51 points — https://youtu.be/CfS_uw_ugDs
Dorothy Ashby, from Afro-Harping (1968), 46 points — https://youtu.be/k4vpiqKjLc8

Ella Fitzgerald cut an album for Reprise in 69 with a bunch of Brit session players covering Motown, Beatles, Randy Newman etc. Her version of ‘The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game’ is particularly suited to her.

#2 for me

XPS I think "You're My World" was Cillia's biggest stateside hit, and I only really know it from Oldies Muzak.

My #1, what an astonishing vocal.

My #3 and #4 match the consensus but I think that’s where it stops.

Courtesy of Hideous Lump on the other thread, more versions of Dusty's "Look of Love." The one in the previous post is the "Dusty whispering in your ear" U.K. vocal mix

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

xxp My #1 too but it was the Hayes version on my ballot

That Shelby Lynne version seems to be off a Dusty tribute album.

The Casino Royale version is also the only Burt-produced for Dusty version.

Cilla's version of AWHAH was #1 in UK, Ireland and NZ, selling 950k copies in the UK. Warwick's version didn't break the top 40 here, but was huge everywhere else.

Catching up on this thread (and the playlist, thanks Nag! Nag! Nag!), wish I'd had more time these past few days but not sure I've got much more to add other than to say that so many of these songs are just perfect. Bacharach was someone I never really investigated properly until my mid-20s and even then not that deeply so there's been a lot of stuff that's new to me.

Also want to echo Noodle Vague's comment about the biography excerpts, definitely want to read up more!

not even "LoL" could make that Peter Sellers-Ursula Andress love scene sexy

Xxp Don’t think Dionne Warwick ever forgave Cilla for that.

Cilla Blecch

yooooou! hooooo!

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