Burt Bacharach, the massively influential composer of dozens of hits like “Walk on By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” Alfie,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” died of natural causes Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94, Deadline reports.
His death was announced by his publicist Tina Brausam to the Associated Press today.
Burt Bacharach, whose elegantly melodic compositions, arrangements and production seemed an effective and calming response in the 1960s and ’70s to ever-louder rock music, collaborated with lyricist Hal David to provide Dionne Warwick with career-making hits in the early to mid-’60s, including now classics “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Walk On By,” “Alfie,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.”
Along with delivering signature hits to groups like The Carpenters (“Close To You”), Tom Jones (“What’s New Pussycat?) and Dusty Springfield (“Wishin’ and Hopin’,” “The Look of Love”) , Burt Bacharach would become one of Hollywood’s most reliable music-makers for movies. Reaching as far back as the ’50s sci-fi classic The Blob, Bacharach would compose songs and scores for such films as Arthur (1981), Casino Royale (1967), What’s New Pussycat? (1965) and Night Shift (1982).
But his signature movie song came with 1969’s massively successful Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, the buddy western starring as Paul Newman and Robert Redford as a doomed pair of outlaws on the run through America’s rapidly changing Old West. In a scene that has often been criticized as superfluous to the plot – if not the film’s popularity – Newman and costar Katherine Ross playfully try out a newfangled invention called a bicycle, all while B.J. Thomas croons the instantly catchy and eventual Oscar winner “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”
So associated with ’60s songs and films that Burt Bacharach himself appeared in 1997’s Mod Era-spoof Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, performing his 1965 song “What the World Needs Now Is Love.” He returned for the film’s two sequels.