Burt Bacharach, noted composer of pop songs, dies at 94

Burt Bacharach, the composer who delighted millions with the quirky arrangements and unforgettable melodies of “Walk on By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and dozens of other hits, has died at 94. Bacharach died Wednesday at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, publicist Tina Brausam said.

Bacharach had a run of top 10 hits from the 1950s into the 21st century, and his music was heard everywhere from movie soundtracks and radios to home stereo systems and ipods, whether “Alfie” and “I Say a Little Prayer” or “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and “This Guy’s in Love with You.” Dionne Warwick was his favorite interpreter. Bacharach, usually in tandem with lyricist Hal David, also created prime material for Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and others. Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Frank Sinatra were among the artists who covered his songs, with more recent performers who sung or sampled him including White Stripes, Twista and Ashanti.

Bacharach was both an innovator and throwback, and his career seemed to run parallel to the rock

era. He grew up on jazz and classical music and had little taste for rock when he was breaking into the business in the 1950s. His sensibility often seemed more aligned with Tin Pan Alley than with Bob Dylan, John Lennon and other writers who later emerged, but rock composers appreciated his seemingly old-fashioned sensibility. “The shorthand version of him is that he’s something to do with easy listening,” Elvis Costello, who wrote the 1998 album “Painted from Memory” with Bacharach, said in 2018. “It may be agreeable to listen to these songs, but there’s nothing easy about them. Try playing them. Try singing them.”

Bacharach was an eight-time Grammy winner, a prize-winning Broadway composer for “Promises, Promises” and a three-time Oscar winner. He received two Academy Awards in 1970, for the score of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and for the song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” In 1982, he and his thenwife, 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 “Casino Royale.” Married four times, including to actress Angie Dickinson, Bacharach formed his most lasting ties to work.

OLI SCARFF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/TNS Burt Bacharach performs at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England, on June 27, 2015. Bacharach’s many hits, starting in the 1950s, include “What the World Needs Now is Love.”