Burt Freeman Bacharach ( BAK-@-rak; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, pianist, and singer who has composed hundreds of popular hit songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with popular lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach's songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists. As of 2014, he had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.

Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey.  In 1956, at age 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the German actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they weren't touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger.  In her autobiography, she remembered that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary," and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel," she says, where music was similarly "much revered." Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote his full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one."

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