Always Magic in the Air by Ken Emerson

Author:Ken Emerson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

Chapter Twelve

THE MAGICIAN AND THE MENSCH

When Burt Bacharach encountered Marie Dionne Warrick at the August 13, 1961, session where Leiber and Stoller produced the Drifters singing Bacharach and Bob Hilliard’s “Mexican Divorce,” he recognized that even in pigtails and sneakers the backup vocalist possessed, in addition to a grin as toothy as his own, “a kind of regal elegance.” The twenty-one-year-old music major at Hartt College in West Hartford, Connecticut, hailed from East Orange, New Jersey, and a deep gospel background. Her mother sang with and managed a gospel group, her father promoted gospel music for Chess Records, and Warrick was a member, with her sister Dee Dee and their aunt, Cissy Houston, of the Gospelaires, who sang background vocals at the Apollo Theater and recording sessions.

Although Leiber felt that Warrick’s “piping voice” was too “high-pitched” to carry a pop song, Bacharach was captivated. Yet it was Warrick who made the first move, approaching him at the session in search of work as a demo singer. Later she auditioned for Bacharach and David in their Brill Building office. “After two or three songs,” David recalled, “Burt and I were impressed. We told her that the next time we wrote a song that was right for her we would ask her to make the ‘demo.’ ”

It would be well over a year before Warrick released her first single. In the interim, Bacharach, writing with David, Hilliard, and others, had four Top Ten singles, seven more in the pop charts, and at least two other records worthy of becoming hits. During these months David also wrote two minor and two major hits apart from Bacharach, most notably Don Gibson’s country ballad “Sea of Heartbreak” with Paul Hampton and, with Sherman Edwards, Joanie Sommers’s pert “Johnny Get Angry.” In other words, as fortunate as Bacharach and David were to find, in Warrick, their muse, they were already extremely accomplished songwriters when they consummated one of pop music’s most memorable ménages à trois.

For Bacharach the hits had begun with Gene McDaniels’s “Tower of Strength.” Born in Kansas City, raised in Omaha, and discovered in L.A., McDaniels was steeped in gospel and jazz. He had performed with jazz pianist Les McCann and cared little for the pop music he recorded for Liberty Records, beginning with a Bacharach-David song, “In Times Like These,” that sank like a stone. Although “A Hundred Pounds of Clay” made a big splash six months later, he loathed the genial update of Genesis by Bob Elgin, Eddie Snyder, and Luther Dixon, as he did Jeff Barry, Artie Resnick, and Cliff Crawford’s “Chip Chip.” A nimble tenor who could turn on a dime from a growl to a falsetto, McDaniels felt more kindly toward Bacharach and Hilliard’s “Tower of Strength,” appreciating its humor and hammy trombone solo. Bacharach felt that producer Snuff Garrett rushed the tempo, which may explain why the lead sheet for the next song of his that McDaniels recorded, “Another Tear Falls,” with a Hal David lyric, dictated the arrangement with penciled instructions such as “use Bass & Drums with or without Elect.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.