Let's talk Bacharach

Even if you don't immediately recognize the name Burt Bacharach, you undoubtedly have heard some of his music before as he was one of the most popular songwriters in the 60s and 70s with more than 5000 writing credits to his name according to Discogs (this includes every cover of each of his songs). Some of his most well known songs include Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, Close to You, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, This Guy's in Love with You, I Say a Little Prayer, and my personal favorite, Walk on By. Bacharach was not only popular in the states and has accquired much international fame. By looking at the sort-by-country feature in his Discogs page, we can see a list of the countries that covered his music the most-- Japan being at a lofty #3 just under the UK.

Previous to doing further research on this recently, I had known about one wonderful cover of Close to You (most famously recorded by the carpenters) by the incredible Haruomi Hosono. Hosono's version of the song first appeared on a compilation album called All Kinds of People Love Burt Bacharach. Interestingly, Hosono sings "close to me" instead of "close to you" which completely changes the meaning of the song which I think is pretty damn cool. Talk about self love. Here's the Carpenters' version for reference, and then his version:

This compilation, put together by Jim O'Rourke, contains several recordings of both american and japanese artists performing Bacharach songs, none of whom I recognized besides Hosono. Regardless, it's a pretty neat album although Hosono's contribution absolutely steals the show.

Another one of my favorite Bacharach covers from Japan I have discovered is this cover of "Walk on By" by a band called Woodpecker. The most famous version of this song is sung by one of Bacharach's greatest collaborators, Dionne Warwick. And while I'm talking about Walk on By, I can't help but mention the incredible 12 minute reimagination of the song by Isaac Hayes which is among my favorite songs of all time.

^That album cover is so badass.

This album by Woodpecker, "It's Not My Fault", has other Bacharach covers and to my delight Laura Nyro covers! I don't know too much about Laura Nyro but I was on a little kick of listening to her music pretty recently. She's a wonderful vocalist in the same sphere as Carole King or Joni Mitchell, her most popular song being Stoned Soul Picnic which is one of the songs Woodpecker did on the album. One of my favorites, Minako Yoshida, sounds a lot like Laura Nyro and most definitely took some inspiration from her (more on Yoshida later). I may return to Woodpecker in a future article because they are pretty interesting.

^Something about this makes me very happy. Both such wonderful songs, especially Nyro's. God damn.

My search for more stuff like this led me to a bit of a subgenre of jazz musicians (drummers, saxophonists, etc.) and their groups doing jazz covers of western pop and rock in the 60s and 70s. I want to do a whole article on stuff like this, but here are a couple Bacharach covers that stood out:

I was particularly interested to see that Jiro Inagaki did an entire album of Burt Bacharach songs, as he has a fairly internet famous album called Funky Stuff that I enjoyed. Really great stuff in here.

I also found this Billboard article about Billboard Live Yokohama, a concert that Burt Bacharach performed at in 2020. Also on the list of performers is Sadao Watanabe, who I know a little bit about and have a couple of his records. I will have to look into more cases like Watanabe--Japanese jazz artists who did get releases in the US. What was really a pleasant surprise on this list was Larry Carlon of Steely Dan fame, apparently performing Steely Dan and Crusaders hits! But sadly, upon looking further I discovered that this concert had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. Here is a video of some of the artists apologizing, and I am overwhelmed by the number of GOATs in here-- Bacharach himslef, Larry Carlton, Shakatak-- not to mention some familiar faces in the lists of artists playing at other Billboard concerts, like one of my favorite bands, Nona Reeves. Also on there was Casiopea of Mint Jams fame and Toshiki Kadomatsu who I know for his album After 5 Clash.

Although this concert didn't work out, Bacharach had performed in Japan multiple times prior due to his success overseas. He released an album called "Live in Japan" in 1972, and I found this more recent video of him performing This Guy's in Love in Japan. I'm not sure of a specific time, but the Youtube video was posted in 2011, so I assume around then. I will not lie, tears were certainly shed. The amount of feeling in this performance combined with his old age and very recent death in 2023 really hit me.

So anyway, that's where I'll leave off on this topic for now. It's clear that Burt Bacharach and his music was truly beloved around the world, and very apparently so in Japan based on the amount of covers and tributes to his songs.