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There aren’t too many composers and lyricists who have had their songs covered more frequently that Burt Bacharach and Hal David. In many cases, there is a definitive version of these songs. If a vocalist seeks to cover one of those compositions, he or she often tries to put their personal stamp on it. That’s how Isaac Hayes set his hot-buttered soul version of “The Look of Love” apart from Dusty Springfield’s brilliant recording.
Dionne Warwick is perhaps the best-known interpreter of the Bacharach/David songbook. She garnered major hits with the gems “Walk on By,” “Say a Little Prayer” and “A House is Not a Home.” Isaac Hayes transformed “Walk on By” into an opus in which the Baptist church intersects with the Church of Funk. Aretha Franklin recreated “Say a Little Prayer” into a straight up soul record. Luther Vandross’s impassioned vocals, combined with a sparse, jazz infused musical arrangement, so profoundly altered the way listeners approach “A House is Not a Home” that large segments of the public consider the piece to be a Vandross record that Warwick just happened to record first.
So vocalist Penny Wells knew the challenge she confronted when she decided to put her musical spin on the Bacharach/David canon on her latest CD, Close To You: Penny Sings Burt. Wells meets the challenge by fusing her R&B translation with a heavy dose of jazz. Jazz is an extremely versatile musical genre. Artists have been employing jazz to flip the arrangements of the American musical songbook for a century. Wells changes “The Look of Love,” into a mid-tempo R&B grove that features a guitar solo and the singer’s scatting. She eschews instrumentation on the first part of “Alfie,” opting instead to employ tight four-part a cappella harmony that then morphs smoothly into an arrangement featuring keyboard, bass and drums. Wells gives “The Look of Love” a Latin flair, which sets this version apart from other covers and Springfield’s famous interpretation.
The highlight of Close To You: Penny Sings Burt might very well be Wells’ sensual rendition of “This Girl’s in Love With You.” This is a slow, smoky piano driven version in which Wells pulls every trick out of the jazz singer’s playbook from a deft changing of the lyrics to drawing out the musical them to achieve the ultimate musical effect. Wells uses each tool in her musical box like a true craftswoman, and the result is an album of familiar songs that sound new all over again. Recommended
By Howard Dukes