Sunday Music Extra - Odds And Ends - Vale Hal David

Today’s extra music video is Odds And Ends  from Dionne Warwick. This song was written by the legendary songwriting duo Hal David (lyrics) and Burt Bacharach (music). Sadly, today we mark the passing of Hal David.

Link to Video at You Tube

This video was posted to You Tube by The1962driftingaway

Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Yesterday, another of those huge icons from the music industry passed away. Hal David has the status of legend, in a day and age when that word is often bandied about for a plethora of artists, but in the case of Hal David, he has to be close to the top of that pile.

Hal was not a singer or a member of a famous band. What he did do however was to write the words of the songs that those of us who grew up when the music changed, (the late 50′s and early 60′s) remember the most.

Hal was the lyricist, and teamed up with the writer of the music, Burt Bacharach, this pair wrote so many huge songs, there is not enough room to mention even the best of them.

He was already a lyricist with a long career behind him when he met, and then teamed up with Burt Bacharach in 1957. They met in that famous Music building in New York, the Brill Building.

Their first composition as a team was The Story Of My Life, made into a huge smash hit by Marty Robbins, and a song I have featured at this link, as part of my regular Sunday Music Posts. Their next song was also another smash hit, this time for Perry Como, his wonderful song, Magic Moments.

From then on, virtually everything this pair wrote was made into a smash hit by so many artists, and just some of those are Dionne Warwick, The Carpenters, Dusty Springfield, B. J. Thomas, Gene Pitney, Tom Jones, Jackie DeShannon and many many others.

This song may seem obscure at first, and in fact, this was not one of those major hits for the pair. It is however, one of my personal favourite songs, mainly because of that particular time, and who I was with at that time, my first girlfriend, and oddly, she was ambivalent about the song. Every time I heard it, I turned up the radio.

It was recorded by Dionne Warwick, released in 1969 and was a minor hit for her, but nowhere on the scale of the so many songs from this writing pair that went to Number One all across the Planet.

Because the song is not so well known, there are very few versions of it that I can Post here, hence the pretty cheesy video images that accompany this wonderful song from a singer with such a beautiful voice.

Johnny Mathis also released a version of this song as a Single as well.

Sadly, Hal David passed away yesterday, but as is the case with so many of these stars from the music genre, we will always have their music.

Vale Hal David.

Max Bygraves

By far a much lesser name in the U.S. than that of Hal David, Max Bygraves was a huge name, both in the UK, and also in the Country he moved to in later life, Australia. Max passed away peacefully at his family’s home on Queensland’s Gold Coast yesterday.

Max had a huge career in the UK, both as a singer, and also as a star of many TV variety shows, both as a singer and also a stand up comedy artist.

Max was a regular on the Australian club touring scene, and following his huge number of tours throughout Australia, he moved here from the UK in 2005. I actually saw Max perform at one of those club venues here in Australia.

Of the huge number of songs he recorded, Max had eight songs in all that made it into the Top Ten in the UK, mainly in the 50′s and into the early 60′s. He also brought out 14 albums in all, and was part of 10 TV variety shows.

By far his biggest hit was the song featured today, Tulips From Amsterdam, which was his highest charting song, reaching Number Two on the UK charts in 1958.

Vale Max Bygraves.

Tagged: Music, Music Video, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Dionne Warwick, Max Bygraves, Hal David

Posted in: Videos, Music