Songwriter and Composer Burt Bacharach Dies at 94

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Legendary composer Burt Bacharach has died at the age of 94. Bacharach reportedly died at his home in Los Angeles of natural causes, according to his publicist Tina Brausam, who told the Associated Press.

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The musician was one of the most prominent composers in the 1960s and ’70s, writing several top 10 hits including Dionne Warawick’s “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and “I Say A Little Prayer.” 

Throughout his career, he received several accolades including eight Grammy awards, was a prize-winning Broadway composer, and received three Oscars. He also went on to win two Academy Awards in 1970 for the score of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and for the song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”

In 1982 he and his then-wife, lyricist Carole Bayer Sager,  won an Oscar for “Best That You Can Do”  which is the theme from Arthur. Other movie soundtracks that he created include “What’s New Pussycat?,” “Alfie,” and James Bond Spoof’s “Casino Royale” in 1967.

“Best That You Can Do”

The musician was born in Kansas City Missouri on May 12, 1928, with his family quickly moving to Queens, New York in 1932. As a teenager, he went on to develop a love for jazz music and organize a 10-piece band with his high school classmates.

He wrote his first song “The Night Plane to Heaven,” while attending McGill University in Montreal, later studying Theory and Composition at the Mannes School of Music in New York City, the Berkshire Music Center, and the New School For Social Research. 

Bacharach spent a total of two years serving in the Army as a piano player on Governor Island and at Fort Dix.

After being discharged, he became a piano accompanist for The Ames Brothers, Vic Damone, Imogene Coca and other acts before collaborating with Hall David, a Lyricist, with whom he made several of his biggest hits with.

Among the hits include “Only Love Can Break a Heart,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,”  by Gene Pitney and Jerry Butler’s “Make It Easy on Yourself.” 

In 2012 former president Barack Obama awarded him and David, who died later that year, the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize in honor of their contributions to pop music over the years.

Read More: Austin Butler Pays Tribute to Lisa Marie Presley: ‘Eternally Grateful’

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