Drop by drop from the world – Culture – Kommersant

American composer and pianist Burt Baccarac died at his home in Los Angeles. The causes of death are not mentioned in the obituaries, but whether the public needs these reasons – suffice it to say that the legend of popular music of the twentieth century was 94 years old.

Burt Baccarac caught the golden age of popular music – the 1960s – and was one of its main characters. But he (albeit, just a child) caught the golden age of cinema, and then he was so brightly noted in film music that the American Film Academy noted his achievements with three Oscars.

Very simple and at the same time the main competitive advantage of Bert Baccarat at the dawn of his career was a phenomenal sense of melody. He was even ashamed of it at first.

But upon hearing the young composer’s first piece for violin, oboe and clarinet, Darijus Milhaud, then teaching at the Academy of Music in Santa Barbara, said: “Bert, never be ashamed to compose melodies that people remember, sing and whistle. Mozart was also whistled.

In our area, the most frequently whistled was his theme “Raindrops Keep Fallin` on My Head” from George Hill’s western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. All moviegoers know the scene where Paul Newman and Katherine Rose are riding a bike, this is exactly the melody that sounds there. She also brought Baccarat an Oscar, and more than one – academics noted both the song and Hill’s original music for the film. At the same time, our compatriots did not know the original source and did not see the film. It was sung by Engelbert Humperdinck and Raffaella Carra, beloved in the USSR, and it came to us thanks to the Melodiya company – the carefree motive was recorded on the bestseller “Paul Mauriat Orchestra (France)” and indicated on the cover as “All my raindrops.”

In general, in Soviet times this melody was used very actively in our country. For example, the heroine of Lyudmila Gurchenko sings it in the film “Station for Two”. What can we say about world cinema. “Raindrops Keep Fallin` on My Head” has been featured in hundreds of tapes and has had hundreds of interpretations. But “the key to all doors” was still another song by Baccarat.

It was the song “Alfie”, written for the advertising campaign of the film “Alfie” (1966) starring Michael Caine. Michael Caine (as long-lived in movies as Baccarat is in music) created the image of a typical London dandy from swinging London. The canonical version of the song was recorded by English actress and singer Cilla Black, who was managed by The Beatles manager Brian Epstein. During its recording at one point – in the Abbey Road studio – several pivotal people of the era converged at once. Silla Black sang, Burt Baccarac conducted the orchestra, and George Martin was behind the sound engineer’s console. Cher recorded the song for the American version of the film. After “Alfie” Baccarac didn’t have to do anything else.

The lyrics to “Alfie” were written by Hal David, whom Burt Baccarac met back in 1957 at New York’s famous Brill Building, a stronghold of major record labels and a nest of hit-makers. The alliance between Baccarat and David lasted 55 years. The composer and lyricist wrote together, among others, “Walk On By” for Dionne Warwick, “Magic Moments” for Perry Como, “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself” for Chuck Jackson, “What’s New Pussycat?” for Tom Jones, “I Say a Little Prayer”, which became popular performed by Aretha Franklin, and “The Look Of Love”, which was conceived as an instrumental composition, and in the version with vocals by Dusty Springfield hit the soundtrack to the “unofficial” Bond film “Casino Royale”. Burt Baccarac’s third Oscar was for the theme from Arthur, but he co-wrote it with songwriter Christopher Cross.

Most of these melodies did not reach the Soviet listener immediately and most often – not in the original versions. The American listener from childhood knew several dozen songs of Baccarat, this is what settled on the subcortex and entered into jokes. Suffice it to say that Baccarac starred as himself in three episodes of Austin Powers.

Baccarat’s top hits overshadowed, perhaps, the most spectacular page of his biography – the period of cooperation with Marlene Dietrich. In the second half of the 1950s, the actress needed an arranger and conductor for a show she was preparing to show in nightclubs. It seems that it was the endless tours with Marlene Dietrich, performances on all continents and writing sessions in between tours that became those “10,000 hours of work” that ensured the entire further triumphant career of the master. According to Dietrich’s memoirs, Bert Baccarat was especially fond of touring in Russia and Poland, since the best violinists played in the orchestras there.

Baccarat’s “easy” music of the 1950s and 1960s inspired new generations of musicians for half a century and even catalyzed the easy listening fashion in the 1990s and 2000s. Moreover, the very genre of the song about “how good it is to wake up alone in your cozy bachelor flat” has never gone out of fashion.

Newspaper The New York Times in an obituary, Baccaracoo called his style “Wagner-like lounge.” Professional musicians and arrangers could appreciate how seriously the composer took his work. “The song was unbelievably difficult,” Cilla Black recalled of working on “Alfie,” the transitions of keys were so sharp that I literally had to muster all my energy, from the toes of my shoes to the vocal cords, to perform it. Unobvious twists in Baccarat’s composing thought were appreciated not only by publishers and film producers, but also by talents from the cutting edge of the pop genre. For example, in 2010, Jim O’Rourke of Sonic Youth produced an entire tribute album to Baccarat, featuring leading Japanese musicians.

In the late 1960s, Baccarac was unable to compete with a generation of new miracle melodists led by The Beatles and Elton John.

However, in 2008, he received the last of his many Grammys as “the greatest living composer.” Baccarat is a global phenomenon, and the song “Raindrops Keep Fallin` on My Head”, like the entire record of the Paul Mauriat orchestra, among other things, shaped the approach to composing music by a whole galaxy of Soviet pop composers.

Burt Baccarac considered his know-how to be direct contact with the audience. Don’t hide from people if you want to live to be Burt Baccarat’s age and be the best at what you do. “Most composers sit in a room and no one knows what they look like,” Baccarat wrote. “People have heard their songs but never seen them on stage or on TV. I contact them directly. I never shy away from a handshake or a conversation, I never refuse an autograph. This connection with the listeners has a deep meaning and gives me strength.”

Igor Gavrilov