Experts: Bacharach Defined ‘A Major Era of Songwriting’

02/14/2023

Media Contacts: Emily Gowdey-Backus and Nancy Cicco 

Burt Bacharach’s talent defined a major era in American songwriting, according to UMass Lowell music experts Gena Greher and Alan Williams.

Bacharach, a music composer whose prolific partnership with lyricist Hal David produced Broadway shows and hit records, died Wednesday at 94. His songwriting skills earned him six Grammys, three Academy Awards, induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2012, the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song for his lifetime contributions to popular music. 

Greher, whose father was a French horn player in pit orchestras on Broadway, remembers seeing the duo’s 1968 musical “Promises, Promises,” as a child. 

“They really pushed the envelope with “Promises, Promises.” Having attended Broadway shows since the age of 5, I remember watching the show and being blown away by the use of amplified instruments and a rock band, in combination with the typical Broadway orchestra. They helped paved the way for a more contemporary sound in musical theater,” said Greher, a music education expert.

Bacharach and David met and worked in the famed Brill Building in what was known as New York City’s “Tin Pan Alley,” a business hub for many songwriters and publishers who defined popular music in the late 19th through 20th centuries.

Both Greher and Williams noted Bacharach’s songs – still in rotation on radio today – helped grow a generation of pop stars who admired and benefitted from his craft, notably Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick. Musicians to follow including Elvis Costello and Aimee Mann, were likewise influenced.

“Bacharach pursued a form of progressive pop music in the midst of the first flowering of the rock era. Though his music seemed outside, perhaps even counter to rock, many musicians embraced his adventurous explorations of melodies and rhythms, sounds that broke from the Tin Pan Alley norms as much as any Beatles or Dylan song,” Williams said. 

Greher leads UMass Lowell’s String Project, which provides K-12 students in the community with stringed instrument lessons and performance opportunities. She has contributed curriculum to mathsciencemusic.org, the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz website for music and STEM integration and helps lead UMass Lowell’s SoundScape, a technology-infused music intervention program for teenagers with autism spectrum disorders. 

Williams leads UMass Lowell’s music business program, where he serves as a music professor, sharing his talents and knowledge as a songwriter, bandleader, sound engineer and record producer. 

To arrange an interview with either Greher or Williams, contact Emily Gowdey-Backus or Nancy Cicco.