LEGENDARY composer and Oscar winner Burt Bacharach has died aged 94.
He was celebrated as one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century, known for a string of blockbuster hits including Walk On By and Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head.
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He died of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, his publicist Tina Brausam said today.
In a stellar career spanning from the 1950s into the 21st century, Bacharach wrote era-defining music that was heard all around the world.
He and his songwriting partner Hal David worked with music greats such as Dionne Warwick - who he called his favourite - Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and Elvis Costello.
Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Frank Sinatra were among the countless artists who covered his songs.
More recent performers who sang or sampled his songs include Dr Dre, The White Stripes, Twista and Ashanti.
He was an eight-time Grammy winner, three-time Oscar winner and a prize-winning Broadway composer for Promises, Promises.
Bacharach was known for romantic and melancholic ballads crossing the border between jazz and pop, and regularly topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
A pianist passionate about jazz, he was born on May 12, 1928 in Kansas City, Missouri, and studied the art of composition in several American universities.
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After his military service, he was hired by Marlene Dietrich as an arranger and musical director for her tours.
In 1957, he met lyricist Hal David with whom he would form one of the most successful partnerships in the music industry.
Four years later, they discovered during a recording session a young chorus girl who will become their standard bearer: Dionne Warwick.
Between 1962 and 1968, they wrote 15 titles that rose into the American Top 40.
Burt Bacharach's top 10
- Walk On By - Dionne Warwick (1964)
- Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head - BJ Thomas (1969)
- Alfie - Cilla Black (1966)
- I Say A Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin (1968)
- Anyone Who Had A Heart - Dionne Warwick (1964)
- I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself - Dusty Springfield (1964)
- What's New Pussycat - Tom Jones (1965)
- What The World Needs Now Is Love - Jackie DeShannon (1965)
- (They Long To Be) Close To You - The Carpenters (1970)
- The Look Of Love - Dusty Springfield (1967)
The songwriting duo were also acclaimed by Hollywood.
In 1970 they won two Academy Awards: for the score of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and the breakout chart hit Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head by BJ Thomas.
In 1973, a financial dispute broke out between the two men that would cause them not to speak again for ten years.
In 1982, he and his then-wife, lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, won Oscars for Best That You Can Do, the theme from Arthur.
His other movie soundtracks included What's New, Pussycat?, Alfie and the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale.
Bacharach married four times but formed his most lasting ties to work.
He was wed to his first wife, Paula Stewart, from 1953-58.
And he was married to actress Angie Dickinson, from 1965-80, and to Sager from 1982-1991.
The music legend married for the fourth time, to Jane Hansen, in 1993.
In 2007 he suffered heartbreak when his daughter with Dickinson, Nikki Bacharach, took her own life aged 40.
He is survived by widow Jane, as well as his other children Oliver, Raleigh and Cristopher.
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"Music softens the heart, makes you feel something if its good, brings in emotion that you might not have felt before," he told AP in 2018.
"Its a very powerful thing if you're able to do to it, if you have it in your heart to do something like that."
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