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Burt Bacharach is most definitely an Icon... you can totally identify him with certain sounRAB and mooRAB.... hence his obvious inclusion in the Austin Powers movies... not to mention his buttery smooth presentation... you'd have to be the biggest hardcore music Nazi to not appreciate his musical prowess and his body of recorded work...

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I'm in the mood for a rant :

Burt Bacharach & Hal David

Just thought it'd be worth bumping this old nugget of a thread again to flag up a couple of other folks who I reckon fit the old icon tag quite nicely. Like my last post here, it concerns a couple more artists who's most famous work took place well behind the scenes of the music industry - two more names who've been fairly influential, ridiculously prolific and very successful who've never really hogged the limelight from the artists they've worked with from their beginnings as a partnership some 50-odd years ago.

They are, in case you hadn't already noticed, the old Burt Bacharach/Hal David songwriting team. Having started work in the days well before the long-play album became the be-all and end-all of the industry, Bacharach and David would write songs to be handed to singers who were after that hit to call their own. Based on Bacharach's typically complex melodies and David's lyrics, this would often be the case, starting with the team's writing about 40 hit singles for their regular client Dionne Warwick. Throughout the 60s and early 70s the Bacharach/David team would compose songs which would be covered by quite a diverse bunch of artists, ranging from Isaac Hayes, the Beatles and Dusty Springfield to the Stranglers, Luther Vandross and even the Manic Street Preachers, not to mention scores of others.

I consider them icons myself if only for the reason that I've inadvertently heard so many of their songs in some way or another. What the World NeeRAB Now Is Love, Close To You, the Look Of Love, Anyone Who Had a Heart, Make It Easy On Yourself, the Last Town I Painted, This Guy's In Love With You - all songs I've heard covered by so many artists in some way, shape or form, and those are only the ones I can think of off the top of my head (along with the videos blow of course). Definitely among the most prolific, successful and influential songwriting partnerships in the history of the industry, and a couple of guys whose work I've found myself listening to a little lately, so I thought it was worth typing all this up. Maybe a bit old-hat for some of our tastes, but they're in my cool-books anyway.

A few renditions of their songs for you...

[YOUTUBE]FRsXHDYXafM[/YOUTUBE][YOUTUBE]RFKUGk-m5Hg[/YOUTUBE]
[YOUTUBE]X6Bdi_rTSig[/YOUTUBE]

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I'm not really his biggest hugest fan either, admittedly... he's alright, but when your first dose of him as a kid was his eighties persona, it's hard for the image to recover in your mind...

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My favorite Tom Waits photo ever.

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Awesome post on Michael Stipe. True American icon.

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George Ivan Morrison

There is nothing like it for me, the music rooted in the sounRAB the 1950's and 1960's the birth of Rock & Roll Soul, from the Rhythm & Blues roots of Southern Gospel and Soul music. Direct noRAB to Fats, Ledbelly, Jackie Wilson, Wilson Pickett and sound reminiscent of them that resonated with me from the very first note. It's the music of my childhood changing right along with me into teen years, bachelor years and through family life into the present day.

I love the music, the lyrics. the presentation. I love the way he murables, growls and snarls through his lyrics at times and the way he belts out poignant and powerful notes to finish a chorus or bridge. I love the acoustic guitar complimented by the flute or the violin, the horn sections he loved so much. I love the transition into Jazz-Rock. County-Rock, Adult Contemporary, none as much as his 1960's and 70's prime, but nonetheless I never lost interest for what's now nearly 40 years.

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

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i can't believe nobody's done Frank Zappa yet!!


i'd do it myself, but i have no where near the amount of his work to really justify me doing it.

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NeeRAB more

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Since they only publish the lyrics to their songs on a few occasions, nobody knows exactly what he's saying, but it's always pretty great. Some really fantastic lyrics in that song with Patti Smith (in the third video) actually.

This verse is particularly deep:

Code:

I cant look it in the eyes
Seconal, spanish fly, absinthe, kerosene
Cherry-flavored neck and collar
I can smell the sorrow on your breath
The sweat, the victory and sorrow
The smell of fear, I got it

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Maybe the third coolest black and white picture of a dude smoking, behind



and



MAYBE.

And it'd be a distant third.


But seriously, he didn't "form grunge". That's a little excessive, don't you think? Pixies were doing what he did years before. Novoselic himself said how much of a rip off of a pixies tune Teen Spirit was anyway. You know, that dynamic between soft in the verse and heavy in the chorus, or vice versa.