Redford’s name placement was on a table in front, but he never came,” Thomas said. “I played a couple of times in Park City, one at a private thing where Mr. He says it almost happened several times, but it never quite panned out. He said he never met Paul Newman, Robert Redford or the director George Roy Hill - and I never have either! I thought over the years I should have at least met those guys.” “It’s funny, I just recently read a book by Burt Bacharach. “It was one of the best buddy films of all time and it’s got a lot of classic lines,” Thomas said. To this day, he’s in awe of the on-screen buddy team of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who honored the role by lending the name to the Sundance Film Festival. You needed to sing it as it was written.” I instinctively knew from the get go that his compositions and their songs weren’t stuff that you played with. “Burt Bacharach is obviously one of the greatest composers of all time,” Thomas said. “He wrote something that seemingly on the surface was not saying much, but in the long run … it was saying a very meaningful thing that rain falls on you, but if you’re free, nothing’s worrying you.”ĭavid’s lyrics were set to the music of legendary composer Burt Bacharach. “They had asked Hal to write a frivolous song, just kind of a throwaway song, and he said, ‘B.J., I don’t write frivolous songs,'” Thomas said. The lyrics were written by songwriting icon Hal David: “So I just did me some talkin’ to the sun, and I said I didn’t like the way he got things done, sleepin’ on the job.” It was kind of an art film, but it was also one of the best westerns ever made, too.” It wasn’t done with instruments for the most part, it was done with a ‘ba ba ba,’ kind of vocalizing things. Redford said they were making an art film. “They’re riding a bicycle like normal people,” Thomas said. The song’s bubbly bicycle scene signals a lighthearted tone. He, of course, was referring to the iconic buddy Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), which won four Oscars, including Best Original Screenplay for William Goldman.
Raindrops keep fallin on my head movie#
“Actually, the song came out in October of ’69 and it wasn’t until the movie came out as a Christmas release that the radio wanted the record. “It’s a distinct high point for me,” Thomas told WTOP in 2020. On Saturday, five-time Grammy winner B.J. He won an Oscar for his chart-topping hit “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (1970). Business & Finance Click to expand menu.The songs are known and the arrangements are comfortably plush, which means it felt cozy in 1970 and it remains comforting decades later, because it manages to meld memories of Mathis' Mitch Miller peak with the paisley overtones of the '60s hangover, so it feels of its time and out of it.
"Alfie" is best understood as part of the dominance of sophisticated craft in MOR at the dawn of the '70s, a horizon to which Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head is proudly a part of. Perhaps it's possible to read Mathis' interpretation of "Alfie" as pushing homoerotic boundaries, but the message at best feels coded. Mathis, who last saw the inside of Billboard's Top 40 in 1963, had his eyes on the times, as did Gold, who helped give the LP a feel that's certainly lush but determined to dodge the Mitch Miller-endorsed middle of the road. These are overshadowed by numbers by George Harrison ("Something"), Paul Simon ("Bridge Over Troubled Water"), and Fred Neil ("Everybody's Talkin'"), every one of which defines the transition from the '60s to the '70s. Gold continued with this formula on 1970's Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head, an album filled with modern classics, including selections from McKuen, Webb, and three from Bacharach & David. Johnny Mathis began working with Jack Gold in 1969 and the producer helped nudge the singer into the modern age, having him cover songs from Rod McKuen, Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach & Hal David, and songs from hit films.