Composer Burt Bacharach, author of the legendary Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head or I Say a Little Prayer, dies

Songwriter

whose hits like

and

provided a smooth alternative soundtrack to rock and roll in the 1960s and '70s, has died 94 years old, his publicist told Reuters on Thursday.

Bacharach passed away Wednesday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, along with his family.

Their songs, many written with lyricist Hal David in a 16-year collaboration, were neither rock nor strictly pop.

They filled American radio and appeared in big movies, which is why in the '60s and early '70s they were heard as often as the works of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan.

Bacharach wrote more than 500 songs, many featuring tinkling piano and subtle, seductive backing vocals.

He was the author of hits for singers like

.

More than 1,200 artists performed his songs, which won six Grammys and three Oscars.

Bacharach and David had

.

"It was different," David once told an interviewer.

. I heard his melodies and his lyrics. I heard rhymes, I heard thoughts, and I heard them almost immediately."

For Bacharach, his talent was simple: "I'm a person who always tries to deal with the melody."

Good-natured in appearance and cool in demeanor, Bacharach was described by composer Sammy Cahn as

.

Married four times, his wives included fellow composer Carole Bayer Sager and actress Angie Dickinson.

Bacharach's songs were recorded by a literally endless list of artists, from Aretha Franklin to Zoot Sims.

The Bacharach-David collaboration "(They Long to Be) Close to You" was a worldwide hit for the Carpenters in 1970 and

, originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon, was covered more than 150 times.

Bacharach and David frequently displayed a magic touch for Warwick, penning his hits "Walk on By,

," "In Between the Heartaches" and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?"

Bacharach's "Alfie" for the Michael Caine film of the same name was a hit for Cilla Black and Tom Jones sang her theme song for

by Woody Allen.

Other Bacharach music for films was

from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," for which Bacharach and David won two Academy Awards and a Grammy for Best Score.

Baby, It's You" was recorded by the Beatles, Elvis Costello, Gene Pitney and Perry Como.

Christopher Cross 's "Arthur's Theme"

from the Dudley Moore comedy "Arthur" earned Bacharach a third Oscar.

It was a collaboration with Bayer Sager, who became his third wife in 1982. They had a son, Christopher, in 1986 and divorced in 1991.

Bacharach and David wrote Neil Simon's Broadway musical "Promises, Promises," which earned them two Tony Awards and a Grammy.

He continued composing with partners like British rocker Elvis Costello.

She recorded several songs with

during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The couple hosted a Tiny Desk (at home) concert for National Public Radio in September 2020 with Bacharach on piano from his Los Angeles home and Tashian singing from his Nashville garage.

"I'm so grateful to be home in Los Angeles when this shutdown happened," Bachrach said in an interview after the concert shown on YouTube.

"We were supposed to be on tour when the pandemic hit."

At 92, Bachrach also collaborated with Seattle artist Melody Federer.

When asked what it was like to work with a lyricist

"only matters if you've lost your edge, your sharpness or your way of writing. ... you're supposed to grow and get better with time."

pass of the time".

Born Burt Freeman Bacharach in Kansas City, Missouri, on May 12, 1928, he learned to play the piano—he hated it at first, but his mother insisted—when his family moved to New York.

Bacharach served in the US Army during the Korean War, but wore a tuxedo instead of a military uniform and played the piano in officers' clubs across the United States.

Later, he worked in New York clubs and became a pianist-arranger for singers such as Marlene Dietrich, Vic Damone, the Ames brothers, Polly Bergen, and Paula Stewart,

.

Over time, he decided that he could write better melodies than the ones that were proposed to the singers he worked for.

Early in his career, he worked with other composers at the famous Brill Building in New York.

"Those were exciting times, because the Brill Building had seven floors of music publishers," she recalls in a 2016 interview with the Huffington Post.

"I didn't succeed overnight. I

a long time , so you have to have the stomach for that too."

Bacharach and David were responsible for a string of hits including Dusty Springfield's "The Look of Love" for the movie

's "This Guy's in Love With You

," their first number 1 hit. broke up in 1973 after a rare flop: the remake of the Frank Capra film "Lost Horizon."

Bacharach married his fourth wife, ski instructor Jane Hanson, in 1993. In 2007, his only child with Angie Dickinson, Nikki, committed suicide at age 40 after a lifelong battle with autism.

In the late 1980s he composed a song and the score for the movie "Po," about a man raising an autistic daughter.

Although his songs became hits for star performers, Bacharach said he

and making a personal connection with smaller audiences.

"What I try to do ... is get on stage and meet people through music," he said in the Huffington Post interview, recalling a cancer survivor who said his song

relieved the discomfort of chemotherapy.

"You get it from people wherever you are... You get a reaction from the public that makes you feel good."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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