Anyone Who Had a Heart

March 25, 2013
Though he’s clearly a gifted songwriter, Bacharach as a memoirist disappoints. While Bacharach, writing with Greenfield, certainly has a story to tell (he was married to Angie Dickinson; toured with Marlene Dietrich; wrote mega-hits like “Walk on By” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”; won Grammys and Oscars), he’s in too much of a hurry to get to the end of his book to really dig in and tell readers what it was like to cut his teeth in the infamous Brill Building, work with (and sever ties with) his frequent collaborator Hal David, or even address his daughter’s battle with Asperger’s and depression that led her to commit suicide; he prefers to let Angie Dickinson and others do most of the talking. Bacharach spends more time talking about his tennis game and various marriages than his approach to songwriting (much more detail is given to who he worked with on a particular song than the song itself) . Moments of humility and candor, such as a blown opportunity to work with Sinatra, peek through, but it’s not enough to save what could have been an illuminating work on many levels. Amy Schiffman, Intellectual Property Group.