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Bacharach: Maestro! The Life of a Pop Genius
"Covering the well-known and public areas of Burt Bacharach's life, as well as those aspects that have previously been hidden from the media, this book examines a celebrated career spanning 50 years. Covered in detail are Bacharach's previously undocumented early life; his work with lyricist Hal David; his golden years composing hit after hit; his numerous relationships with women and his four marriages, including those to Angie Dickinson and Carole Bayer Sager; and his recent collaborations with Elvis Costello and Noel Gallagher."
- GenresBiography
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 13, 2011
Despite some minor faults, 'Bacharach: Maestro!' is a passionate and richly sourced portrait of the composer, with plenty of (press) interview quotes from the man himself, important figures in his life and reactions from the contemporary press. If you're a big fan, you'll find historical moments that are very moving in the way they're retold, such as the withering critical reaction to the film 'Lost Horizon', which Bacharach had painstakingly scored, and it's knock-on effect on the dissolution of the Bacharach-David-Warwick partnership.
Brocken makes no bones about the fact that he views the late-sixties blossoming of Rock as the dominant Popular style as "a major villain in eradicating artistic divergence" (p.241), and if you can appreciate at least where he's coming from, there's an understated tragedy to how Bacharach's music lost its audience through irrelevant social attitudes to the sounds he used, rather than any notable decline in the man's abilities. If anyone presumes he simply made enough money and called it a day, or that he lost the muse by the time his songs fell out of the charts, I highly recommend searching for the rare 1977 solo album 'Futures'.
As is always a relief to find in a biography of someone you admire, it seems as if Burt was a genuinely lovely fellow. He's always modest and self-critical about his considerable achievements, and though it's clear that writing music was a vocation that dominated his waking hours, his language when discussing his composing is always connected to his emotions - rarely technical at all:
I like music biographies because you always learn a little something more than you expect to, and I suppose this book's major subtext is the hot-headed battle between the 'authentic' and the 'Easy Listening', whose history (including those generally accepted designations) has been so far written by the victors. This aesthetic opposition can be convincingly reframed as the difference between the then-new breed of countercultural youngsters and the less effervescent adult audience, who kept shtum on political issues and didn't need their music to 'say' anything about them.
I can't fathom even the interpretation that Bacharach's music was tame, mood-setting exotica, and the fact that many people would vaguely imagine him to be in the vein of Harry Conniff or Martin Denny is good evidence that countercultural vanity has led to much neglect of diversity in instrumental expression in Rock/Pop music: a diversity that Bacharach's oeuvre perfectly demonstrates. As Brocken writes:
But you don't need to agree with him, or me, to enjoy the book. It's main strength it how it sticks to the facts, and gives you a rich impression of the man, his time, his work and his many collaborators. Brocken's biography is reverential and passionate but his comments are discerning and to the point. Despite the occasionally irksome choice of word, silly typo or leap of logic, it's a coherent and inquiring study of a towering figure in music.
Brocken makes no bones about the fact that he views the late-sixties blossoming of Rock as the dominant Popular style as "a major villain in eradicating artistic divergence" (p.241), and if you can appreciate at least where he's coming from, there's an understated tragedy to how Bacharach's music lost its audience through irrelevant social attitudes to the sounds he used, rather than any notable decline in the man's abilities. If anyone presumes he simply made enough money and called it a day, or that he lost the muse by the time his songs fell out of the charts, I highly recommend searching for the rare 1977 solo album 'Futures'.
As is always a relief to find in a biography of someone you admire, it seems as if Burt was a genuinely lovely fellow. He's always modest and self-critical about his considerable achievements, and though it's clear that writing music was a vocation that dominated his waking hours, his language when discussing his composing is always connected to his emotions - rarely technical at all:
"I was aware of the angular side of music but I liked tunes too... In [Darius] Milhaud's class... I wrote a sonatina for oboe, violin and piano which... was highly melodic and quite different from what everyone else was writing. And I felt ashamed, or should I say self-conscious at having written something that wore its heart on its sleeve so obviously", [p.56]
"I'm not trying to prove anything as a conductor or as a pianist. Technically, I'm probably rotten at both. But it's heartfelt and it's honest. It's my music" [p.57]
I like music biographies because you always learn a little something more than you expect to, and I suppose this book's major subtext is the hot-headed battle between the 'authentic' and the 'Easy Listening', whose history (including those generally accepted designations) has been so far written by the victors. This aesthetic opposition can be convincingly reframed as the difference between the then-new breed of countercultural youngsters and the less effervescent adult audience, who kept shtum on political issues and didn't need their music to 'say' anything about them.
I can't fathom even the interpretation that Bacharach's music was tame, mood-setting exotica, and the fact that many people would vaguely imagine him to be in the vein of Harry Conniff or Martin Denny is good evidence that countercultural vanity has led to much neglect of diversity in instrumental expression in Rock/Pop music: a diversity that Bacharach's oeuvre perfectly demonstrates. As Brocken writes:
Anyone who could apparently sentimentalise art in such a way as Burt Bacharach could not possibly resonate with counter culture!... despite great gains from the US underground, there also existed an arrogance of its assumptions... The counter culture's sniffy response to this 'easy listening' was basically a litany of small-minded prescriptiveness. [p.154]
But you don't need to agree with him, or me, to enjoy the book. It's main strength it how it sticks to the facts, and gives you a rich impression of the man, his time, his work and his many collaborators. Brocken's biography is reverential and passionate but his comments are discerning and to the point. Despite the occasionally irksome choice of word, silly typo or leap of logic, it's a coherent and inquiring study of a towering figure in music.
December 12, 2011
I was hoping this book would be better - since it seems to be the only biography on Bacharach, but unfortunately I didn't enjoy it very much. The book reads as if it were written as a college research paper. It's obvious that the author was not afforded the opportunity to actually interview Burt, so every quote in the book comes from somewhere else and it is full of ibids and credits to other sources, which detract from its readability. The bottom line though, is that the book is just boring. I'm halfway through and find myself skimming pages now looking for interesting quotes and facts amid the muck but I'm giving up. It appears to be a well researched book, and there is a bit of critical musical analysis of his songwriting, plenty of quotes, and background about the music business, but somehow the author just couldn't put it together into a book that is interesting to read. Still, if you love Bacharach, you might want to check this out.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews