Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach - The Rainbow Room, New York City, 12-31-1996

Songwriter Burt Bacharach died in February 2023. He was 94 years old. Because he was such a musical giant, along with his songwriting partner Hal David, I wanted to post something from him in tribute. But there are virtually no Bacharach related bootlegs, and I had already posted seven albums of his songs in my Covered series. But finally, a couple of months later, I came up with something that serves as a good tribute, so here it is.

The person best known for singing Bacharach's songs is Dionne Warwick. The two of them occasionally went on tour together, and this concert is from one such tour. I found this because it was released on DVD as "Live from the Rainbow Room." But it seems to be a pretty obscure release, and it was never put out as an album.

Bacharach was a great songwriter, but although he put out many albums under his own name, his vocal abilities were limited. (Most of his solo stuff was instrumental.) He does sing a bit here, but, wisely, the vast majority of the lead vocals were done by Warwick. There are lots of songs here co-written by Bacharach and then made into hits by Warwick, plus a couple that were hits by others ("[They Long to Be] Close to You," "One Less Bell to Answer," and "What the World Needs Now Is Love"). But there are even more hits that they didn't get to. I could be wrong, but I think the only song here Bacharach didn't have a hand in writing is "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls."

This concert recording is rather strange in two respects. The first is that the vast majority of songs were done in truncated versions in medleys. I guess they really wanted to cram in as many songs are possible in a limited time. It's possible that the actual concert was different but things were edited down for the DVD release. The other strange thing is that there are some voice-overs by Warwick or Bacharach, where they talk about the song during instrumental sections. One can find the video of this concert on YouTube, and it's clear from that that much of the talking didn't take place during the concert. It's not a terrible thing, but I thought I'd point that out.

This concert is 56 minutes long.

01 talk (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
02 Don't Make Me Over - Walk on By (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
03 I Say a Little Prayer - Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
04 talk (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
05 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
06 I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
07 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
08 One Less Bell to Answer (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
09 Anyone Who Had a Heart (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
10 talk (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
11 Make It Easy on Yourself (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
12 I'll Never Love This Way Again (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
13 talk (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
14 Here I Am - The April Fools (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
15 Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
16 Arthur's Theme [The Best That You Can Do] - What's New Pussycat (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
17 [Theme From] Valley of the Dolls (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
18 The Look of Love (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
19 A House Is Not a Home (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
20 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
21 Alfie (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
22 talk (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)
23 That's What Friends Are For (Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15192198/DionneW_1996_RainbwRoomNYC__12-31-1996_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in June 2000.