Bacharach, Burt

American composer of popular songs; b. Kansas City, May 12, 1928. Bacharach began his career as a jazz pianist working in nightclubs while attending McGill University in Montreal. After graduation he took courses with modern composers DARIUS MILHAUD and HENRY COWELL at N.Y.'s New School for Social Research. Between 1958 and 1961, he toured with Marlene Dietrich as her accompanist.

In 1962 he joined forces with lyricist Hal David, and together they wrote such classic songs as Reach Out for Me, Make It Easy on Yourself, Walk on By, What the World Needs Now Is Love, Do You Know the Way to San Jose?, The Look of Love, and I'll Never Fall in Love Again, as well as the successful Broadway musical Promises, Promises in 1968. Many of their individual songs were recorded by vocalist Dionne Warwick (b. 1941), who was closely associated with their work through the 1960s.

Bacharach also wrote songs for the films What's New Pussycat?, Wives and Lovers, Alfie, Promise Her Anything, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. After many years of relative inactivity, Bacharach returned to writing pop songs in the 1990s, collaborating on an album with British songwriter ELVIS COSTELLO in 1998.