Todd Rundgren will bring his “What the World Needs Now: The Burt Bacharach Songbook Live in Concert” tour to the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts on Sunday, April 13 at 7 p.m.
Patchogue is one of the first stops on the tour and the only venue on Long Island. The tour started on March 22 at the Ventura Theater in Ventura, Calif., outside Los Angeles.
It’s a return to Patchogue for Rundgren, who brought his “Me/We” tour to the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts in 2024.
That concert featured Rundgren’s own music.
The current tour features the music of composer Burt Bacharach, who died Feb. 8, 2023, at age 94. Rundgren is one of six singers who perform Bacharach’s music, including Tori Holub, and Wendy Moten from Season 21 of TV’s “The Voice.”
Bacharach wrote the music for a score of memorable pop standards, including “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “Walk on By” and “I Say a Little Prayer for You.” Dionne Warwick and The Carpenters were among the many who popularized Bacharach’s tunes.
Bacharach, who grew up in Forest Hills, had numerous connections to Long Island.
He and his then-wife, actress Angie Dickinson, owned Rothmann’s steakhouse and the East Norwich Inn. Bacharach’s longtime lyricist, Hal David, lived for many years in Roslyn.
How did Rundgren, known for his own songs like “Hello, it’s Me,” wind up touring the country in a musical tribute to Bacharach?
He’d done a David Bowie tribute concert two years ago and didn’t want to do another show focused on another performer’s music. But when the same producer suggested they do a tour focused on Bacharach’s hits, Rundgren was eager to commit.
“Because it was Burt Bacharach, I made an exception, mostly because of what an early influence he was on me, even before I started writing my own songs,” Rundgren said in a phone interview with The Long Island Advance. “I would listen to that Dionne Warwick album where he wrote all the songs and did the arrangements, and I would listen to it for hours and hours, along with my Beatles records and my Yardbirds records. Years later, when I began writing my own songs, there was a built-in influence there that I wasn’t even fully conscious of. A lot of that came from listening to Burt Bacharach.”
The first song Rundgren remembers being aware that Bacharach had written was “Walk on By,” which was sung by Dionne Warwick.
“It’s got this big, lush arrangement that I was fascinated with, as I was fascinated with orchestration in general,” Rundgren said.
When Rundgren began writing songs, his first, “Hello it’s Me,” was “full of Bacharachian modulations,” Rundgren said.
“It was there, even though I wasn’t thinking about it,” he said.
Rundgren never had the chance to meet Bacharach. The closest they came was several years ago when Rundgren found out after a concert that Bacharach had been in the audience.
What makes Bacharach’s songs, so many of which deal with love and heartbreak, so enduring for audiences so many years later?
“It takes you back to a certain place when you were younger, less experienced at romance,” Rundgren said.
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