Mexican Divorce/Close To You/Nikki/Wives & Lovers/All Kinds Of People/And The People Were With Her/April Fools/Hasbrook Heights/Freefall/One Less Bell To Answer
Self titled final high placed chart album from Burt Bacharach, the most commercially successful songwriter of the 1960s. Most of the songs here are amongst his less known compositions. (US:18)
“I am a sucker for Burt Bacharach, and particularly his own. Never has ‘easy’ listening been more complicated, full of intricate arrangements and rhythm changes, even if it seems always light and breezy.”
“The thing about Bacharach that musicians envy was his ability to write with such memorable complexity. Most tunes you hear whistled in the street use the simplest chords.”
“Here Bacharach bows out (from greatness) with such rich intricacy that appreciative weeping is probable and completely acceptable. Chords, melody, harmony counterpoint - if you like it lavish, then listening to his second recorded version of Wives & Lovers will leave you dribbling.”
“I simply cannot give this album enough praise. Even though there's no Warwick or Springfield, nor the legions of others who have recorded Bacharach/David's work over the years, it is Bacharach in the purest, most melodic form. In particular, Wives & Lovers is so hauntingly beautiful. When it comes to the American popular song, this album stands as a triumph.”
“The songs and their arrangements are some of the best ever written by anybody. This album ranks as one of the best, if not the best, of the Bacharach A & M original albums. Great songs and great orchestrations, with strings in profusion and the chorus, with Cissy Houston in the spotlight, in superb shape. Bacharach at his best.”
“Several of his most well-known and classic standards are here. Bacharach displays his exceptional composing skills on his extended suite for orchestra And The People Were With Her, a brilliant, jazzy collage of strings, horns, and shifting rhythms with Burt, himself, leading on grand piano. Freefall is another stellar example of his superior orchestral writing and arranging with added voices in the ensemble. Hasbrook Heights is a blissful waltz with Burt on lead vocal coolly musing with the orchestra about the relaxed, good life in the suburbs.”
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