Less Common Burt, Part 4--Love Bank; Wendy, Wendy; Fool Killer; Ten Times Forever More

A bunch of Burt (maybe that's what I should have called this series)--24 more tracks, to be precise.  Among the least-heard Burts are the rocking Love Bank (1957), the charming waltz I Need You (1957); the torchy Close (always wanted to type that) from 1960; Lost Little Girl (1964); and, perhaps for good reason, the Dick Van Dyke double-dose from 1961, Three Wheels on My Wagon and One Part Dog, Nine Parts Cat.  The awfulness of those last two titles can't be blamed on anyone but Burt and his lyricist Bob Hilliard, since it's their production.  Yikes.  I always figured both numbers had been written for a Disney comedy, or something along that line, which would have given the numbers an excuse, but no such luck.  At least the New Christy Minstrels did a much better, mildly amusing version of Three Wheels (only Dick Van Dyke can make Barry McGuire sound restrained and subtle in his comic approach), but no one could possibly do anything with One Part Dog.  Dick gets through the latter by channeling one of those broadly played, half-crazed grizzled prospector characters from Gunsmoke, a show I love but which couldn't do comedy to save its life.  And wouldn't you know it--I just turned on Matlock, and who's being cross-examined (in one of those "bottle," flashback-dominated episodes)?  Dick Van Dyke.

Matlock: "Did you not, in fact, record two of the worst Burt Bacharach numbers ever?"  Dick: "Yes."  Matlock: "I didn't get that.  You'll have to speak up so the jury can hear you."  Dick: "Yes!!"

I wouldn't be having to start this Burt post with Dick Van Dyke and Gunsmoke, but Bacharach and Hilliard gave me no choice.  I'll bet they even picked Dick to record the sides.  I can't take it.

Infinitely better Burts are waiting for us here, luckily.  Best of the bunch: 1965's Fool Killer, whose lyrics I don't completely understand but which move me, anyway.  Maybe it's the lovely melody, or Burt's splendid arrangement, or Gene Pitney's magnificent performance. And there's 1960's Close, which is very, very good, with Keely Smith's vocal terrifically so, but there's a slight disconnect between the jazzy, torch-style arrangement and the Burt lightness. It's like two eras clashing.  1961's Gotta Get a Girl doesn't have that problem--it's the best kind of Burt-light, with a memorable, minimalist bridge and a very nice vocal by Frankie Avalon.  Yeah, I know--Frankie Avalon.  But.... And Another Tear Falls, which totally failed to click with Gene McDaniels (not Gene's fault), is a miracle of a Walkers Brothers single--a single that somehow went nowhere.  I honestly regarded the tune as a total Burt misfire until I heard this recording.  I Need You, while another Burt song a bit out of its era, like Close, is an effective waltz with a lovely bridge, while The Last Time I Saw My Heart is an even more effective exercise in 3/4, with a brilliant arrangement and Marty Robbins at his best, which is kind of redundant, since when was Marty ever not?  And the slight but instantly touching Ten Times Forever More is maybe the ultimate example of Burt chord progressions that pause, change their minds, and go back to the tonic.  An effective device when used in tunes about separation and loss.  Unfulfilled hopes.

Wendy, Wendy is more interesting than I thought it would be, and maybe because I have another Four Coins Bacharach single that's pretty bad.  This one is halfway good, and I don't know if there's a name for the simple syncopated pattern the tune features.  Here it is in print--I happen to have it in a period song folio, only under the title Oh, Wendy, Wendy:

Just as in Promises, Promises, there's an accent (not marked as such here) on the fourth eight note, except that Wendy is in 4/4 (actually 2/2), whereas Promises is in 3/4.  Still, same general pattern: syncopated measure followed by non-syncopated measure.  I don't give much mind to what specific "beats" Burt uses--I find the different Latin types hard to memorize--nor do I notice his time-signature shifts unless they have a jarring effect, but that's mainly because of my piano-student days going through the first five volumes of Bartok's Mikrokosmos.  Once Bartok sounds normal to you, things have to be radically off to sound off.  That's my story, but back to Burt....

Billy Vaughn's Promises, Promises is way better than I thought it would be--I associate Billy with bland--but his version has a lot of energy, and it really brings back the era.  To me, at least.  Me Japanese Boy, I Love You, by all logic, should be one of the all-time incorrect AM radio hits, and not just because of its lack of PC, but because it's sung by Bobby Goldsboro, who gave us (gag!) Honey.  Indeed, he did, but despite that crime, the man has talent, and this Bacharach-arranged single is not only good, it's a minor Burt-Hal classic.  If we can excuse the "Me Japanese boy" part, it has a charming and sophisticated melody and much subtle rhythmic playfulness.

Pat Boone singing Burt?  Yup.  Looks like Say Goodbye was written for Pat, and he does well with it.  Pleasant, middling Burt.  Deeply is surprisingly good, and I say "surprisingly," because any 1961 Burt number by a duo called the Shepherd Sisters has "Of curio interest only" written all over it (took me a whole bottle of Goo Gone to get it off), but it's quite catchy and well done, and it's very 1961--full of treble and danceable.  Old-time theater organist Jesse Crawford signs in (on?) with a delightful version of Magic Moments, one of two contemporary covers that I know of, Johnny Mathis does a Math-terful rendition of the A+ Burt number Make It Easy on Yourself, and Gene Pitney would have even the most ardent skeptic convinced that True Love Never Runs Smooth.  ("I was sure that true love ran smooth.  Now, I just don't know.  I just don't know.")

Love Was Here Before the Stars is one of my all-time favorite Burts, and I think Engelbert Humperdinck was one of the ideal Burt-Hal interpreters.  Yet another recording that should have been a hit.  The lovely Come Touch the Sun is from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and it's performed by the Charles Randolph Grean Sounde, a group best known for its big 1969 hit, Quentin's Theme (from the Gothic soap Dark Shadows).  Sun appeared on the group's second LP, and we recognize the melody as that of Where There's a Heartache, which the Sandpipers recorded in 1970 (featured in the last Burt post).   Charles Grean, of course, was Eddy Arnold's manager for a time, and, in addition to writing The Thing and Sweet Violets, he produced Jim Lowe's Green Door and Merv Griffin's I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.  I mean, everyone knows that.

Tom Jones' version of I Wake up Crying misses the mark, somehow, which surprises me, since he usually did so well with Burt's stuff, but great artists are allowed their off days.  I don't know what I think of Lost Little Girl.  I might warm it up to at some point, though I doubt it.  1964 seems a bit late for whatever style this is, though it does have a common, if soft-pedaled, kind of rock beat.  But it's not rock.  It's not folk.  It's a whole lot of nots.  If anything is lost, it's the song.  It's Burt, failing to cohere.  The quick fade-out had to be the engineer saying, "I don't know if you guys are done, but I know I am."

What can I say about Love Bank?  Musically, it's not a bad rocker, though the lyrics make about as much sense as the title. 




DOWNLOAD:  Less Common Burt, Part 4





All titles by Bacharach-David, except where indicated:


Ten Times Forever More--Johnny Mathis, Arr. and Cond. by Perry Botkin, Jr., 1971
Love Bank (Bacharach-Melamed-David)--Bob Manning w. Sid Bass and his Orch. and Chorus, 1957
Fool Killer--Gene Pitney, 1965
Close (Bacharach-Sydney Shaw)--Keely Smith, Arr. by George Greeley, 1960
Deeply (Bacharach-Gimbel)--The Shepherd Sisters, Prod. by Leiber-Stoller, 1961
Gotta Get a Girl--Frankie Avalon,. Cond. by Jerry Ragavoy, 1961
Lost Little Girl--The Light Brothers, 1964
Odds and Ends--Tony Sandler and Ralph Young, 1969
A House Is Not a Home--Perry Como, Arr. Don Costa, 1970
Come Touch the Sun (Bacharach)--The Charles Randolph Grean Sounde, 1970
Another Tear Falls--The Walker Brothers, 1965
Say Goodbye (Bacharach-David)--Pat Boone, 1965
I Wake Up Crying--Tom Jones, 1968
The Last Time I Saw My Heart--Mary Robbins w. Ray Conniff and his Orch., 1958
I Need You (Bacharach-Wilson Stone)--Priscilla Wright w. Don Wright and his Orch.; 1957
Love Was Here Before the Stars--Engelbert Humperdinck, 1969
Promises, Promises--Billy Vaughn; 1969
Three Wheels on My Wagon (Bacharach-Bob Hilliard)--Dick Van Dyke, Prod. Hilliard and Bacharach, 1961
One Part Dog, Nine Parts Cat (Bacahrach-Bob Hilliard)--Same
Me Japanese Boy, I Love You--Bobby Goldsboro, Arr. Burt Bacharach, 1964
Magic Moments--Jesse Crawford, 1958
Make It Easy on Yourself--Johnny Mathis, Arr. D'Arneill Pershing, 1972
Wendy, Wendy (Bacharach)--The Four Coins, Orch. Dir. by Marion Evans, 1958
True Love Never Runs Smooth--Gene Pitney, Arr. by Burt Bacharach, 1963

Lee