09-02-2012, 12:38 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: North Australia
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Transitions : Hal David
American lyricist Hal David, who worked with Burt Bacharach to write some of the biggest hits of the 1960s and 70s, has died aged 91.
He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre of complications from a stroke, said Jim Steinblatt, a spokesman for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
David met Bacharach in New York in 1957, and they went on to write Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head, Walk On By and I Say A Little Prayer.
Earlier this year, the duo was awarded the prestigious Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at a tribute concert at the White House.
David and Bacharach's songs have been recorded by such artists as Dionne Warwick, Marty Robbins and Tom Jones.
Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head was written for the 1969 movie Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and won the Academy Award for Best Song.
The duo's other hits included Do You Know the Way to San Jose, and (They Long To Be) Close To You, which is best known from a version by The Carpenters.
David is survived by his wife Eunice and his sons Jim and Craig, three grandchildren and two stepsons.
Pop music expert Paul Gambaccini said Hal David would be remembered as one of the greats.
"Hal David is one of the giants of all time of popular music song writing," he told the BBC.
"His list of hits is so impressive. There are so many wonderful songs."
ASCAP president and chairman Paul Williams also paid tribute to David in a statement.
"As a lyric writer, Hal was simple, concise and poetic - conveying volumes of meaning in (the) fewest possible words and always in service to the music," he said.
"It is no wonder that so many of his lyrics have become part of our everyday vocabulary and his songs... the backdrop of our lives."
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