It’s Love That Really Counts: Él Continues Vintage Burt Bacharach Series

In 1962 alone, Burt Bacharach premiered more than 30 new compositions, recorded by a variety of artists from Marlene Dietrich to The Drifters.  It’s even fair to say that ’62 was the year the composer truly came into his own.  While previous years offered their share of hits for the songwriter – “I Wake Up Crying,” “Tower of Strength,” “Baby, It’s You,” “Magic Moments,” “The Story of My Life” – the Bacharach sound hadn’t completely crystallized.  With Jerry Butler’s July 1962 single of Bacharach and Hal David’s “Make It Easy on Yourself,” Bacharach became his own producer.  Vee-Jay’s Calvin Carter turned over the sessions to the songwriter when he realized “he felt the song better than anyone else did.”  The credit on the 45 still just read “Arranged by Burt Bacharach,” but a new chapter was being written.  That landmark song with melody, orchestration and production by Bacharach, gives the title to the third volume in a series of Bacharach collections from Cherry Red’s Él label.  Make It Easy on Yourself 1962 follows First Book of Songs 1954-1958 and Long Ago Last Summer 1959-1961 and compiles 27 of Bacharach’s songs (some in multiple versions) from one pivotal year with outgoing partner Bob Hilliard and incoming partner Hal David.

One of the essential “love triangle” songs in all of pop music, the stirring “Make It Easy on Yourself” was the fullest expression yet of the mature Bacharach style.  Ethereal backing vocals melded with majestic strings and wistful, sighing horns before Butler bleakly intoned, “Breaking up is so very hard to do…” in a way that Neil Sedaka couldn’t have imagined.  Bacharach and David found beauty and poetry in the blues: “And if the way I hold you can’t compare to his caress/No words of consolation will make me miss you less/My darling, if this is goodbye/Oh, I just know I’m gonna cry/So run to him before you start crying, too…”   Bacharach’s orchestration melded the above instruments with roiling drums, chiming percussion, and well-placed guitar licks, adding up to just over 2-1/2 minute of tension in which the music and lyrics were in perfect harmony.

The new compilation also makes room for the sublime original recording of “Any Day Now,” the most successful song penned by Bacharach with Bob Hilliard.  Soul great Chuck Jackson anticipates his lover’s departure (“My wild beautiful bird, you will have flown/Any day now, I’ll be all alone…”) with just enough anguish and pathos, finding the space in the offbeat arrangement which featured Bacharach playing an ashtray (!) as percussion.  (Jackson previously recorded Bacharach’s “I Wake Up Crying” in 1961; you can hear it on Long Ago Last Summer.)  A contemporary, more “pop” cover by Philadelphia’s Dee Dee Sharp is included for contrast’s sake.

Indeed, Bacharach and David were turning out stone-cold classics at quite a clip.  (After the success of “Blue on Blue” in 1963, Bacharach would make his partnership with David an exclusive one.)  Tremolo guitar and tinkling piano notes signify Tommy Hunt’s “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself,” another unbearably lonely, and unbelievably beautiful, song.  Hal David, as always, put into the words feelings that so many – perhaps everybody – had experienced at one time or another: “Goin’ to a movie only makes me sad/Parties make me feel as bad/When I’m not with you, I just don’t know what to do…”  Bacharach matched David’s words with another eloquent, sophisticated and dramatic melody that ran the gamut of emotions itself, veering from serene to pensive to pained.  It’s no wonder everybody from Elvis Costello to the White Stripes cottoned to the song.

Tommy Hunt is also the (unexpected) voice you’ll hear on “Don’t Make Me Over.”  This was the song that changed the lives of Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach and Hal David forever, beginning pop’s most successful “triangle marriage.”  But not long after Dionne charted with the defiant powerhouse of a ballad, Scepter reused its backing track for Hunt’s recording which sat on the shelf until 1986.  Much as “Any Day Now” was transformed from male to female, “Don’t Make Me Over” works just fine with a male singer, proving early on the adaptability of Bacharach’s hits.  Another great soul man, Jimmy Radcliffe, has his breakup moment with Bacharach and David’s deliciously offbeat, Latin-flavored “There Goes the Forgotten Man.”  One of the best of the quotient of (relatively) rare tracks here is “Don’t Envy Me,” which only received one other recording, by George Hamilton in 1963.  Both Powers’ vocal and the production by Hugo and Luigi are a touch histrionic, but the song has a killer melody rendered with almost reggae-style percussion, not to mention an amusing lyrical conceit from Hal David: the singer has lots of girls, but none of them love him…so he’s “filled with such misery,” imploring, “don’t envy me!”  Bobby Vee’s teen waltz “Anonymous Phone Call” is another enjoyable find, flecked with a light country sound.

There’s more after the jump, including the complete track listing with discographical annotation!

The Magic Touch: Kent Label Celebrates 30 Years with Soulful New Anthology

The Kent label (part of the Ace Records family) is turning 30, and you’re invited to the party.  In a year which has also seen celebrations for labels including A&M and GRP, Kent 30: Best of Kent Northern 1982-2012 stands out as the toe-tapping, floor-filling compilation most suitable for dancing!  With 30 selections in recognition of 30 years from soul greats like Chuck Jackson, Lorraine Chandler, Lou Johnson, Maxine Brown and Ben E. King, Kent 30 takes in previously anthologized tracks from the label’s catalogue as well as alternate versions and remixes.  (Nearly one-third of the CD is previously unreleased.)  It all makes for an enjoyable stand-alone collection of Northern Soul classics and rarities as well as a continuation of the label’s mission to preserve the best soul and R&B anywhere.

Compilation producer/annotator Ady Croasdell, a Kent mainstay from the very beginning, serves as tour guide in the 22-page full-color booklet that accompanies this release.  Croasdell’s notes entertainingly lay out the history of the label, but the real story is in the music, filled with big beats, irresistible hooks, impassioned vocals and potent brass.  All of the tracks on Kent 30 were recorded in the 1960s or early 1970s, but most weren’t heard until the Kent team rescued them from the vaults for one of the various-artists compilations that were, and are, the label’s calling card.

Some of these songs provided the title for beloved Kent compilations, such as Melba Moore’s “The Magic Touch,” recorded in 1966 for Musicor Records but unreleased at the time.  When the track saw the light, though, it became an instant classic.  As Croasdell writes, “if one record epitomizes the Northern Soul scene of the mid-‘80s, it is the thunderous production of ‘The Magic Touch.’”  Here, Kent introduces an alternate vocal from the singer, actress and Broadway star.  Musicor’s output has been anthologized by Kent on collections like Manhattan Soul (of which two volumes have been issued to date) along with New York’s Scepter and Wand labels.  Those labels have provided a true treasure trove for Kent over the years.  Florence Greenberg’s Scepter/Wand empire has yielded tracks including Chuck Jackson’s “I’ll Be a Millionaire,” written by the team of Luther Dixon and Van McCoy, and unearthed by Kent in 1987, and Maxine Brown’s “It’s Torture,” first released in 1985 but newly remixed here.  Another unexpected Scepter treasure is Johnny Maestro and The Crests’ dramatic and atypical “I’m Stepping Out of the Picture” from 1965.

There’s plenty more after the jump, including the track listing with discography, and an order link!