In the 1960s, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Dionne Warwick captured lighting in a bottle, crafting some of the most sophisticated pop music of all time. Together, their small canon made an enormous impact on American Music, but they were three very distinct individuals. As a child, Burt hated taking piano lessons. At the age of 15, he started using a fake ID to sneak into 52nd street night clubs to see Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and other jazz legends. He studied with Darius Milhaud and apprenticed with Marlene Dietrich.
Hal grew up playing the violin. In his teens, he started a band that toured the Borscht Circuit in the Catskill Mountains. He loved Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and started writing songs and lyrics for an Army special services unit while serving during WWII. Dionne sang gospel as a child. At 14 years old, she founded The Gospelaires and performed with Dinah Washington, The Shirelles, and Ben E King, supporting herself and paying her tuition at the Hartt School of Music.
Bacharach’s soulful melodies and harmonies combine high craft with David’s eloquent, emotionally impactful lyrics which, when imbued with the wistful voice of Warwick, showed the tears behind the smile and created that mysterious alchemy required to make a song a “hit”. It’s time to listen to their works with fresh ears! Harriell and Iverson present just that with an evening of the trio’s masterpieces "straight"—with a flourish or two here and there. Iverson’s thoughtful
transcriptions of the original recordings lithely re-conceive the settings for quartet, opening the stage for Harriell’s passionately charismatic interpretations. The audience can’t help but tap a toe, hum along, and ultimately, leave feeling that this may very well be what the world needs now.
LEARN MORE ABOUT MARCY & ETHAN HERE: https://www.sandhillsbpac.com/marcy-ethan