‘What the World needs now’

ON STAGE

All-star tribute tour salutes Burt Bacharach’s legendary catalog

Burt Bacharach speaks after receiving the 2012 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at The Library of Congress on May 8, 2012, in Washington, D.C. KRIS CONNOR — GETTY IMAGES

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Todd Rundgren is part of “What the World Needs Now — The Burt Bacharach Songbook in Concert.” PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREW POTTER

Recording artist Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick perform during the 15th annual Ella Awards on Sept. 12, 2006, in Beverly Hills, California. FREDERICK M. BROWN — GETTY IMAGES

Rob Shirakbari spent more than 35 years as the music director for Burt Bacharach. He’s now leading “What the World Needs Now — The Burt Bacharach Songbook in Concert,” a 22-date tour that features more than three dozen of Bacharach’s songs. PHOTO COURTESY OF ANGELO BUNDINI — MILES COPELAND PRODUCTIONS

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By Gary Graff

For MediaNews Group

There is, as the song says, always something there to remind Rob Shirakbari about Burt Bacharach.

The musician, producer, composer and orchestrator spent more than 35 years as the music director for Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick, on stage and in the studio. And when Bacharach died Feb. 8, 2023, at the age of 94, Shirakbari sat back and “didn’t want to rush anything” in the legend’s absence. But now he’s on the road paying tribute to Bacharach and his impactful body of work.

And he’s not alone.

Shirakbari is leading “What the World Needs Now — The Burt Bacharach Songbook in Concert,” a 22-date tour that features more than three dozen of Bacharach’s songs sung by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Todd Rundgren, “The Voice” runner-up Wendy Moten and newcomer Tori Holub, as well as by regular Rundgren bassist Kasim Sulton. Shirakbari acknowledges that it’s emotional to be performing the songs without Bacharach, but said it’s also cathartic.

“It’s a celebration, in a way,” Shirakbari, 61, explains via Zoom from his home studio in London, where he resides with his wife, British singer Rumer (nee Sarah Joyce). “It’s about doing honor to the songs. As big stars as we have on stage, the star of the show most certainly is the catalog.

“I’ve been living with this catalog for nearly 40 years now — playing with (Warwick), playing with Burt, playing with both of them together. That’s given me this sort of unique perspective on what his intent has always been with the material, and what (Warwick’s) interpretations and intent were. It’s a huge catalog, so it’s really ripe for bringing in different, special guest artists who all bring something special to the table.”

The material is, of course, among the greatest songbooks in popular music history, including 73 Top 40 hits in the U.S. (six No. 1s), six Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards and an Emmy. Bacharach, along with lyricist Hal David, received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2012, 40 years after their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Bacharach’s songs, with and without David, have been recorded by more than 1,000 artists — including Warwick and also Elvis Costello, who wrote and recorded an entire album, 1998’s “Painted From Memory,” with Bacharach.

And the songs — “Baby It’s You,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?,” “Promises, Promises,” “Always Something There to Remind Me,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” and more (even the ABC “Monday Night Football” theme) — are nothing less than classics of the highest magnitude.

Rundgren, 76, recalls that “in the midst of the British Invasion, there was this song by Dionne Warwick called ‘Walk on By,’ and I just heard something in it that seemed different from everything else in terms of the songcraft and musical detailing and that sort of thing — the way it would go from minor to major (keys), that sort of stuff. And I bought the Dionne Warwick album and listened to it to death, along with my Beatles albums and Yardbirds records.

“So in the same way that listening to the Yardbirds and listening to the Beatles became a seminal influence when I started playing (music) professionally, so was Burt Bacharach, just because even before I started writing I was listening too intently to the music he was writing.”

Rundgren adds that the first song he wrote, his 1968 single “Hello, It’s Me,” bore a Bacharach stamp. “It’s not the usual kind of pop song,” he explains. “It’s actually a song with no chorus, just three verses and a bridge. The voicings and things like that are plainly influenced by the more sophisticated modalities that Burt Bacharach tended to gravitate towards, and that’s stayed with me ever since.”

Rundgren has participated in other tribute tours, for the Beatles and David Bowie, and “wasn’t gonna do any more of these” in order to focus on his own music. But he could not say no to singing Bacharach’s songs.

“You could say it’s seminal,” he acknowledges. “The material means so much to be … and,” he adds with a laugh, “I would be envious of the people who did it. I would say, ‘Gee, I love that song. I wish I could’ve sung it.’ So I couldn’t resist.”

Shirakbari says putting the “What the World Needs Now” show together was “like a big puzzle because you’ve got a big, long song list and three primary singers, and all the band are pretty much singers. So it was a matter of deciding what songs suited which singers and then pacing that in a way that makes sense and feels good from a musical flow.

“It’s very much the same thing I did with Burt when we were putting his shows together in the mid-’90s with that big, big body of work. And we are going high with this — hit songs, hit songs, hit songs, and we’re also going deep. If you know the catalog, you’re gonna be pleased.”

And, he adds, the troupe is not shying away from taking liberties with the material.

“That’s the exciting thing with the show, when you bring an artist with their own personality and a lot of character that give the material a new life,” Shirakbari explains. “We’re spreading it out with a little bit of wings to find those moments and places to breathe new freshness into it.”

Shirakbari is hoping “What the World Needs Now” will continue after the U.S. run ends on April 23 in Florida. He envisions a European run, and bringing other singers and musicians into the mix for different locals — and, yes, wife Rumer is among those he’d like to have on board, especially since she released her own album of Bacharach-David songs back in 2016.

Mostly, however, Shirakbari wants to keep the songbook alive out of affection for the material, and for his old boss.

“I sort of had the best seat in the house for all those years — the string players on this side, the band here, (Bacharach sitting 6 feet away, close enough we could high-five,” Shirakbari recalls. “It was like a college education you could not afford — if you could even get in. I’m so grateful because certainly the musician I am now is absolutely the result of all that immersion time with both Burt and Dionne.

“So I want to do honor to that, and I’d like to think he’s gonna be proud, somewhere, looking down on this.”