Burt Bacharach and Hal David composed many awesome hits of the 1960s including Dionne Warwick's "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and Herb Albert's "This Guy's In Love with You." They also made it into the 1980s charts with Naked Eyes' version of "Always Something There to Remind Me."
Cher recorded Bacharach/ David songs in the 1960s as well. In 1966 she recorded the first version of "Alfie," later made into a hit by Warwick. And in 1968 she tried them again on her album Backstage with the song "This House is Not a Home."
To be honest, I do love Bacharach/David songs but I did not think they were well suited to Cher and her image at the time. Bacharach/David material, although catchy and infectious, seemed very suburban and mainstream. Cher's image was a bit too groovy and even her version of the lite-hippie was still too gritty for these songs. She scored more when she was covering sounds more "alternative" like Sonny's songs, Dylan's gems and other folk-rock ballads.
Personally, I will never forget moving to Los Angeles in early 2002 and ingratiating myself to the streets of the city while singing "and all the stars are parkin cars and pumpin gas."
Boom boom boom!
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