May 2013 Profile: Burt Bachrach

May 2013 Profile: Burt Bachrach

Burt Bacharach: American pianist, composer and music producer

Type: Emotional Manifesting Generator

Born: May 12, 1928 in Kansas City, Missouri at 1:15am (85 years old today!)

Burt Bacharach is celebrating his 85th birthday this week while at the same time he’s on a book tour coast to coast for the release of his new autobiography “Anyone who has a Heart”. This is the mark of a Manifesting Generator who has followed his strategy for a long time – busy throughout life and loving what he does! It doesn’t mean everything’s been perfect – but seeing him in an interview last week, he seems to be a contented man satisfied with his accomplishments and still going strong. Wouldn’t it be great to have that attitude at 85?

Burt’s prolific career as a pianist, composer and music producer has created the background music of our lives for the past 50 years, with a career that started in the mid-‘50’s, composing with Hal David until 1973, and continues to the present. He even wrote a few songs last year for TV and is credited often for continued use of the old standards. Through the years, he has had many concert tours, composed songs for TV, movies and Broadway, and has produced much of his own music on his own and for other artists. He has won many awards for his work, including Oscars and the 2011 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, bestowed by the Library of Congress.

Burt’s Incarnation Cross is the Right Angle Cross of Explanation, which says: “Ever the outsider, these are people who are constantly explaining themselves or their often unique concepts, principles or insights in order to integrate them into another person’s revolutionary or analytical process”. (The Definitive Book of Human Design, page 298) So Burt was able to “explain” himself through his unique and influential music, which was at the top of the charts over many years. The songs became so popular that many artists covered their songs, and some songs actually hit the top of the charts with multiple artists. As of 2012, he had written 73 Top 40 hits in the U.S. and 52 Top 40 hits in the U.K., at times having back to back hits in the same weeks. Some of the musicians that they worked with and helped to make famous with their partnerships included Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield, and Bobbie Gentry. Their songs also showed up on Broadway (Promises, Promises) and in films (“Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”). Other classics included: “The Look of Love”, “What’s New, Pussycat?”, and “Do you know the way to San Jose?”

His creativity is likely stoked by his defined Emotional Solar Plexus and the Channel 35-36, the Channel of Transitoriness, which is all about the conquest and the adventure. It’s about living in the moment, but then moving on to the next new thing, with an attitude of “been there, done that, what’s next?” Having one rather gentle emotional wave with ups and downs, Burt’s times of melancholy probably produced some of the most unusual song compositions in his long career, while the more buoyant times gave him ample time to perform his music, spend time in relationship or make the deals for the next new compositions. Like any successful creative with an emotional wave, he was able to make the best of any mood and generally go with the flow.

True to his 43-23 Channel of Structuring, Burt is a genius with an individual perspective and a very unusual message that wanted to be articulated – or in his case, composed – for the masses. People with the 43-23 are here to say something unique, and sometimes it takes a while to get the “phrasing” right. For Burt, it took the right partner to help to get the music out in a way that resonated in popular culture. First, he worked with Hal David for almost twenty years, then with his third wife, Carol Bayer Sager. Both were very successful partnerships in his career.

According to Wikipedia, “Bacharach’s music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, striking syncopated rhythmic patterns, irregular phrasing, frequent modulation, and odd, changing meters. Bacharach has arranged, conducted, and co-produced much of his recorded output.” Unusual, unique and a little odd, too! Of course, that’s from a “professional” musician’s point of view; to me and most of the public, his compositions seemed melodious, soothing and usually upbeat – just the thing to lift a mood, make us laugh, or be the background music as we make a lasting memory!