Burt Bacharach / various artists - Dream Big!: The First Decade Of Song / 4CD set

Four CD collection following the songwriting beginnings of Burt Bacharach. Featuring vintage Bacharach interpreted by Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Frankie Avalon, Gene Pitney, Andy Williams and many more. Including a CD of Bacharach's Influences and Inspirations.

Burt Bacharach revolutionised popular songwriting, employing a previously unimagined technical sophistication that would find full expression in the 1960s, when with an astonishing run of memorable hits, he and his lyricist partner Hal David ruled the pop charts. Inspired by his love of the French Impressionist composers, Brazilian folk music, Bebop and modernist jazz, Bacharach won the respect of everyone from Brian Wilson to Bill Evans, to Frank Zappa, but his early years had been ones of struggle and frustrating compromise.

This collection reveals an eclectic apprenticeship (a dizzying world of Frankie Avalon- esque US teen idols, male and female soul singers, doo-wop and close harmony groups, B movie theme tunes, torch singers, crooners and novelty records) that culminated in the landmark first hits; 'Magic Moments', 'The Story of My Life', 'Make It Easy on Yourself', 'Baby It's You', 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself' and (with the emergence of Bacharach & David's greatest interpreter Dionne Warwick) 'Don't Make Me Over'.

    - Disc 1 -
    1 Nat King Cole - Once in a Blue Moon
    2 Patti Page - Keep Me in Mind
    3 Mel Torme - These Desperate Hours
    4 Sherry Parsons - Peggy's in the Pantry
    5 The Gallahads - the Morning Mail
    6 Alan Dale - I Cry More
    7 June Valli - Beauty Isn't Everything
    8 Della Reese - How About?
    9 Johnny Mathis - Warm and Tender
    10 Jo Stafford - Underneath the Overpass
    11 Marty Robbins - the Story of My Life
    12 Michael Holliday - the Story of My Life
    13 Jerry Lewis - Sad Sack
    14 Gale Storm - Winter Warm
    15 Peggy Lee - Uninvited Dream
    16 Bob Manning - Love Bank
    17 Perry Como - Magic Moments
    18 The Four Preps - Humble Pie
    19 Bernie Nee - Country Music Holiday
    20 Patti Page - Another Time, Another Place
    21 Margaret Whiting - Hot Spell
    22 Mary Mayo - It Seemed So Right Last Night
    23 Marty Robbins - Sitting in a Tree House
    24 Tony Bennett - the Night That Heaven Fell
    25 The Five Blobs - the Blob
    26 The Four Coins - Wendy Wendy
    27 Marty Robbins - the Last Time I Saw My Heart
    28 Sonny James - Dream Big
    29 Steve Lawrence - Loving Is a Way of Giving
    30 Jack Jones - Make Room for the Joy
    31 Four Aces - Paradise Island
    32 Burt Bacharach - Searching Wind
    33 Burt Bacharach - Rosanne

    - Disc 2 -
    1 Gloria Lambert - Moon Man
    2 John Ashley - the Hangman
    3 Jane Morgan - with Open Arms
    4 Johnny Mathis - Heavenly
    5 The Eligibles - Faker Faker
    6 Gene McDaniels - in Times Like These
    7 Johnny Mathis - Faithfully
    8 Larry Hall - a Girl Like You
    9 Rosemary June - Your Lips Are Warmer Than Your Heart
    10 Paul Hampton - Two Hour Honeymoon
    11 Paul Hampton - Creams
    12 The Avons - You're Only Young Once (Yeh Yeh Yeh)
    13 Keely Smith - Close
    14 Charlie Gracie - I Looked for You
    15 Diana Trask - Long Ago Last Summer
    16 Everit Herter - Boys Were Made for Girls
    17 Rusty Draper - Ten Thousand Years Ago
    18 The Wanderers - I Could Make You Mine
    19 Buddy Clinton - Joanie's Forever
    20 Dick Van Dyke - Three Wheels on My Wagon
    21 Frankie Avalon - Gotta Get a Girl
    22 Connie Stevens - and This Is Mine
    23 The Turbans - Three Friends (Two Lovers)
    24 The Rangoons - Moon Guitar
    25 The Drifters - (Don't Go) Please Stay
    26 Tommy Sands - Love in a Goldfish Bowl
    27 Chuck Jackson - I Wake Up Crying
    28 Del Shannon - the Answer to Everything
    29 The Shepherd Sisters - Deeply
    30 Gloria Lynne - You Don't Have to Be a Tower of Strength
    31 The Four Coins - the Miracle of St. Marie
    32 The Shirelles - Baby It's You

    - Disc 3 -
    1 Jerry Butler - Make It Easy on Yourself
    2 Sophia Loren - Donne Moi Ma Chance
    3 Jack Jones - Dreamin' All the Time
    4 Jack Jones - Pick Up the Pieces
    5 The Four Coins -
    6 The Windows of Heaven
    7 Gene McDaniels - Another Tear Falls
    8 The Drifters - Mexican Divorce
    9 Etta James - Waiting for Charlie to Come Home
    10 Jane Morgan - Forever My Love
    11 Gene Pitney - (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance
    12 The Fairmount Singers - (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance
    13 The Exotics - Manpower
    14 Chuck Jackson - Any Day Now (My Wild and Beautiful Bird)
    15 Babs Tino - Forgive Me (For Giving You Such a Bad Time)
    16 Timi Yuro - the Love of a Boy
    17 Andy Williams - Don't You Believe It
    18 Gene Pitney - Only Love Can Break a Heart
    19 Gene Pitney - Little Betty Falling Star
    20 Tommy Hunt - I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself
    21 Tommy Hunt - Don't Make Me Over
    22 The Shirelles - It's Love That Really Counts (In the Long Run)
    23 Jimmy Radcliffe-(There Goes)The Forgotten Man
    24 Helen Shapiro - Keep Away from Other Girls
    25 Dionne Warwick - Don't Make Me Over
    26 Dionne Warwick - I Smiled Yesterday
    27 Joey Powers - Don't Envy Me
    28 Bobby Vee - Anonymous Phone Call
    29 Paul Evans - the Bell That Couldn't Jingle
    30 Marlene Dietrich - Kleine Treue Nachtigall (Small True Nightingale)
    31 Marlene Dietrich - Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind (Where Have All the Flowers Gone)

    - Disc 4 -
    1 Mel Torme - the Christmas Song
    2 Claude Debussy - Reflets Dans L'eau from Images Pour Piano Book 1 - Marcelle Meyer (Piano)
    3 Maurice Ravel - Daphnis & Chloe - No2
    4 Lever Du Jour
    5 Pantomime
    6 Danse Générale - Detroit Symphony Orchestra / Paul Paray
    7 Darius Milhaud - from Saudades Do Brasil
    8 Overture
    9 Soracaba
    10 Botafogo
    11 Corcovado - Concert Arts Orchestra / Darius Milhaud
    12 Bohuslav Martinů - Parable of a Sculpture. Andante Pastorale from the Parables - Czech Philharmonic / Karel Ančerl
    13 Henry Cowell - Intro to the Tides of Manaunaun
    14 Henry Cowell - Tides of Manaunaun
    15 Arnold Schoenberg - Mondestrunken (Moonstruck) from Pierrot Lunaire - Jeanne Héricard (Soprano) / Hans Rosbaud
    16 Alban Berg - Allegro Misterioso from Lyric Suite Juilliard String Quartet
    17 Anton Webern - Langsam, Marcia Funebre (Funeral March) from 6 Pieces for Orchestra, Op 6
    18 SWR Baden-Baden / Hans Rosbaud
    19 Leonard Bernstein - Masque from the Age of Anxiety - Lukas Foss (Piano) New York Philharmonic / Leonard Bernstein
    20 Gil Evans Orchestra - la Nevada
    21 Tadd Dameron - Fontainebleau
    22 Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie - An Oscar for Treadwell
    23 Count Basie - April in Paris
    24 Agostinho Dos Santos and Roberto Menescal - a Felicidade (From Black Orpheus)