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Burt Bacharach, born May 12, 1928 in Kansas City, Missouri, is an award-winning American pianist and composer.

He is best known for his many pop hits from 1962-70, with lyrics written by Hal David, many of which were recorded by Dionne Warwick. As of 2006, Bacharach had written a total of 70 Top 40 hits in the U.S., and 52 Top 40 hits in the UK.

Bacharach studied music at McGill University, the Mannes School of Music, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud, Bohuslav Martin?, and Henry Cowell. In the 1950s and early 1960s he was the pianist, arranger and bandleader for Marlene Dietrich, with whom he toured.

Bacharach's music is characterized by unusual chord progessions, striking syncopated rhythmic patterns, irregular phrasing, frequent modulation, and odd and changing meters. It tends toward a greater climactic effect than most popular music, especially greater than most popular music of the period in which he is most associated. Bacharach is more than just a songwriter, having himself arranged, conducted, and co-produced much of his recorded output. An example of his use of distinctive use of changing meter is found in "Promises, Promises" (from his score for the musical of the same name). In this song, he incorporates a very complex time signature sequence of |3/8|÷|4/8|3/8|÷|4/8|.

In 1957, Bacharach and lyricist Hal David were introduced at the famous Brill Building in New York City, and began their songwriting partnership. Almost a year later, they received a major career break when their song "The Story of My Life" was recorded by Marty Robbins for Columbia Records, becoming a #1 hit on the U.S. Country charts in late 1957. Soon afterwards, "Magic Moments" was recorded by Perry Como for RCA Records, and became a #4 U.S. hit in February of that year.

Other hits quickly followed. "Heavenly" was recorded by Johnny Mathis and became a gold record in the UK. Later the same year another Bacharach song, "Faithfully", also achieved gold record status with Mathis in the UK. In the early 1960s, Bacharach wrote well over a hundred songs with David, including a wealth of popular hits throughout the 1960s and 1970s, many of which still enjoy popularity today.

Bacharach and David were associated throughout the sixties with Dionne Warwick, a conservatory-trained vocalist whom the duo met in 1961. She began working for the duo when they needed a good singer to "demo" their songs properly for other artists. Bacharach and David noticed that Warwick's demos often exceeded the quality of the performances others were recording. They started writing a portion of their work specifically with Warwick in mind, which led to one of the most successful teams in popular music history.

Over a twenty year period, beginning in the early 1960s, Warwick managed to chart 38 singles co-written or produced by Bacharach, including twenty-two Top-40 hits on the American Billboard Hot 100 charts. During the early '60s, Bacharach also collaborated with Bob Hilliard on a number of songs such as "Mexican Divorce" for The Drifters and "Any Day Now" for Chuck Jackson. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bacharach's songs were made famous by a number of popular singers in addition to Warwick, including The Shirelles, The Beatles ("Baby, It's You"), The Carpenters, Aretha Franklin, B.J. Thomas ("Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head"), Tom Jones ("What's New, Pussycat"), The Stranglers, Dusty Springfield ("The Look of Love"), The Drifters, Jack Jones ("Wives and Lovers"), Jackie DeShannon ("What the World Needs Now is Love"),Gene Pitney, Herb Alpert, Jerry Butler and Luther Vandross in the 1980s and 1990s.

In addition to mainstream pop, many Bacharach songs were adapted by jazz artists of the time, such as Stan Getz and Wes Montgomery. The Bacharach/David composition, "My Little Red Book", originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the film What's New, Pussycat, and promptly covered by Love in 1966, has become a rock music standard; however, according to Robin Platts' book "Burt Bacharach and Hal David", the composer did not like this version.

Bacharach composed and arranged the soundtrack of the 1967 film Casino Royale. Bacharach and David also collaborated with Broadway producer David Merrick on the 1968 musical production of Promises, Promises, which yielded several major hit songs (including the title tune).

1969 saw, perhaps, the most successful Bacharach-David collaboration ever, with the song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", which was prominently featured in the acclaimed film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and also was Bacharach's biggest worldwide hit.

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