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Burt Bacharach

Burt Freeman Bacharach (May 12, 1928 – February 8, 2023) was an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist who is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music. Starting in the 1950s, he composed hundreds of pop songs, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. Bacharach's music is characterized by unusual chord progressions and time signature changes, influenced by his background in jazz, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output.

Over 1,000 different artists have recorded Bacharach's songs. From 1961 to 1972, most of Bacharach and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to 1963) saw the composing duo work with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach wrote hits for singers such as Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, and B.J. Thomas.

Bacharach wrote fifty-two US Top 40 hits. Those that topped the Billboard Hot 100 include "This Guy's in Love with You" (Herb Alpert, 1968), "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (Thomas, 1969), "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (the Carpenters, 1970), "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross, 1981), "That's What Friends Are For" (Warwick, 1986), and "On My Own" (Carole Bayer Sager, 1986). His accolades include six Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and one Emmy Award.

Bacharach is described by writer William Farina as "a composer whose venerable name can be linked with just about every other prominent musical artist of his era"; in later years, his songs were newly appropriated for the soundtracks of major feature films, by which time "tributes, compilations, and revivals were to be found everywhere". A significant figure in easy listening, he influenced later musical movements such as chamber pop and Shibuya-kei. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Bacharach and David at number 32 for their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. In 2012, the duo received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first time the honor has been given to a songwriting team.

Early life and education
Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1946. He was the son of Irma M. (née Freeman) and Mark Bertram "Bert" Bacharach, a well-known syndicated newspaper columnist. His mother was an amateur painter and songwriter and encouraged Bacharach to practice piano, drums and cello during his childhood. His family was Jewish, but he said that they did not practice or give much attention to their religion. "But the kids I knew were Catholic," he added. "I was Jewish, but I didn't want anybody to know about it."

Bacharach showed a keen interest in jazz as a teenager, disliking his classical piano lessons, and often used a fake ID to gain admission into 52nd Street nightclubs. He got to hear bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, whose style influenced his songwriting.

Bacharach studied music (Associate of Music, 1948) at McGill University in Montreal, under Helmut Blume, at the Mannes School of Music in New York City, and at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. During this period he studied a range of music, including jazz, whose sophisticated harmony is a distinctive feature of many of his compositions. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud, Henry Cowell, and Bohuslav Martinů. Bacharach cited Milhaud, under whose guidance he wrote a "Sonatina for Violin, Oboe and Piano", as his greatest influence.

1950s
Bacharach was drafted into the U.S. Army in the late 1940s and served for two years. He was stationed in Germany and played piano in officers' clubs there, and at Fort Dix and Governors Island. During this time, he arranged and played music for dance bands.

Bacharach met the popular singer Vic Damone while they were both serving in the army in Germany. Following his discharge, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for Damone, who recalled, "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in a similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers, and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey.

In 1956, at the age of 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became a part-time music director for Dietrich, the actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s. When they were not touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger.

In her autobiography, Dietrich wrote that Bacharach particularly loved touring in Russia and Poland, because he thought very highly of the violinists performing there, and appreciated the public's reaction. According to Dietrich, he also liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel", she wrote, "where music was similarly much revered". In the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, their working relationship ceased, with Bacharach telling Dietrich that he wanted to devote himself full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one."

Also in 1956, Bacharach and lyricist Hal David, who were both working in the Brill Building in New York City for Famous Music, published their first songs as co-writers. The songs published in 1956 included "I Cry More" (featured in the motion picture Don't Knock the Rock), "The Morning Mail", and "Peggy's In The Pantry". The two received a career breakthrough when their song "The Story of My Life" was recorded by Marty Robbins, becoming a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Country Chart in 1957. Soon afterward, "Magic Moments" was recorded by Perry Como for RCA Records, and reached No. 4 on the Most Played by Disc Jockeys chart. These two songs were also the first singles by a songwriting duo to ever reach back-to-back No. 1 in the UK (The British chart-topping "The Story of My Life" version was sung by Michael Holliday). Between 1956 and the dissolution of their partnership in the mid-1970s, Bacharach and David wrote over 230 songs together for the pop market, motion pictures, television, and Broadway.

1960s
Despite Bacharach's early success with Hal David, he spent several years in the early 1960s writing songs with several other lyricists in addition to continuing his work with David. During this period, Bacharach found the most success with songs written with lyricist Bob Hilliard, including "Please Stay" (The Drifters, 1961), "Tower of Strength" (Gene McDaniels, 1961), "Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)" (Chuck Jackson, 1962), and "Mexican Divorce" (The Drifters, 1962). In 1961, Bacharach was credited as arranger and producer, for the first time on both label and sleeve, for the song "Three Wheels on My Wagon", written jointly with Hilliard for Dick Van Dyke.

Bacharach's career received a boost when singer Jerry Butler asked to record "Make It Easy on Yourself" and also wanted him to direct the recording sessions. It became the first time Bacharach managed the entire recording process for one of his own songs.

In 1961 Bacharach discovered singer Dionne Warwick, who was working as a session backup singer at the time. That year the two, along with Dionne's sister Dee Dee Warwick, released the single "Move It on the Backbeat" under the name Burt and the Backbeats. The lyrics for this Bacharach composition were provided by Hal David's brother Mack David.

Bacharach and Hal David were both excited by Warwick's singing and decided to form a production company, Blue JAC Productions, so they could write for Warwick and produce her recordings. Warwick signed with Bacharach and David's new company, and the team subsequently secured a recording contract with Scepter Records for Warwick's recordings. Warwick made her solo recording debut in 1962 with "Don't Make Me Over", which also became her first hit. As business partners, Bacharach and David began writing almost exclusively with each other from 1962 until the dissolution of their partnership in the mid-1970s.

Bacharach and David's partnership with Warwick became one of the most successful teams in popular music history. Over the next 20 years, Warwick's recordings of Bacharach and David songs sold over 12 million copies, with 38 singles making the charts and 22 in the Top 40. Among the hits were "Walk On By", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Alfie", "I Say a Little Prayer", "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose".

Bacharach released his first solo album in 1965 on the Kapp Records label. Hit Maker!: Burt Bacharach Plays the Burt Bacharach Hits was largely ignored in the U.S. but rose to No. 3 on the UK album charts, where his version of "Trains and Boats and Planes" had become a top five single. In 1967, he signed with A&M Records both as an artist and a producer, recording several solo albums (all consisting in a mix of new material and rearrangements of his best-known songs) until 1978.

In addition to having his work recorded by pop and R&B acts, Bacharach's songs were occasionally recorded during these years by jazz and rock acts. The Bacharach/David composition "My Little Red Book", originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the film What's New Pussycat?, was also recorded by the psychedelic rock band Love and released as the band's first single. The Love version of the song went to number 52 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart and is considered by some writers to be a 1960s rock classic. In 1968, jazz musician Stan Getz recorded twelve Bacharach and David songs for What the World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Bacharach expressed delight and surprise for this choice, saying quote, "I've sometimes felt that my songs are restrictive for a jazz artist. I was excited when [Stan] Getz did a whole album of my music". His songs were also adapted by several other jazz artists of the time, such as Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans, and Cal Tjader.

Bacharach also continued to get commissions for film scores, including those for the 1966 heist comedy After the Fox and the 1967 James Bond spy parody Casino Royale. The music for Casino Royale included "The Look of Love", performed by Dusty Springfield, and the instrumental title song, which was a Top 40 single for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The soundtrack album is widely considered to be one of the finest engineered vinyl recordings of all time, and is much sought after by audiophile collectors.

Bacharach and David also collaborated with Broadway producer David Merrick on the 1968 musical Promises, Promises, which yielded two hits, including the title tune and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again". Bacharach and David wrote the latter song when the producer realized the play urgently needed another before its opening the next evening. Bacharach, who had just been released from the hospital after contracting pneumonia, was still sick, but worked with David's lyrics to write the song which was performed for the show's opening. It was later recorded by Dionne Warwick and was on the charts for several weeks. Promises, Promises was the second musical created by Bacharach and David who had earlier written the 1966 television musical On the Flip Side for the anthology program ABC Stage 67; a work which starred Ricky Nelson and Joanie Sommers.

Also in 1968, the duo's song "This Guy's in Love with You" was recorded by Herb Alpert, who was best known at the time as a fellow songwriter and a trumpet player as the leader of the Tijuana Brass. The song went on to reach the top spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart later that year, becoming the first No. 1 hit for Alpert and his label, A&M Records.

The year 1969 marked, perhaps, the most successful Bacharach-David collaboration, the Oscar-winning "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", written for and prominently featured in the acclaimed film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two were also awarded a Grammy for Best Cast album of the year for Promises, Promises; the score was nominated for a Tony Award, as well. Bacharach and David's other Oscar nominations for Best Song in the latter half of the 1960s were for "The Look of Love", "What's New Pussycat?", and "Alfie".

1970s and 1980s
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bacharach continued to write and produce for artists, compose for stage, TV, and film, and release his own albums. He enjoyed a great deal of visibility in the public spotlight, appearing frequently on TV and performing live in concert. Between November 1969 and January 1974, Bacharach and his music were the focus of nine U.S. network television specials, including five on NBC, three on ABC, and one on CBS. Newsweek magazine gave him a lengthy cover story entitled "The Music Man 1970".

In 1971, Barbra Streisand appeared on the special Singer Presents Burt Bacharach, where they discussed their careers and favorite songs and performed songs together. The other guests on the television special were dancers Rudolph Nureyev and Bettie de Jong, and singer Tom Jones.

In 1973, Bacharach and David wrote the songs for Lost Horizon, a film-musical remake of the 1937 dramatic adventure film of the same title. A conflict arose between the two songwriters during the film's production, and strained their professional relationship to the point that they stopped working together regularly. As Bacharach explained the situation in his 2013 memoir, he grew dissatisfied with his share of the potential film profits, because, in addition to providing the music for the songs, he was also doing underscore music for the film, which he felt he was not being fairly paid for. Bacharach asked David for a larger share of the profits, and David refused to renegotiate. When the film was released, it was poorly received and lost an estimated $9 million, but by that point, Bacharach was refusing to work on additional projects with David. Dionne Warwick, whose lucrative 1971 Warner Bros. Records contract was based on having Bacharach and David as her production team, sued the songwriters because they could not fulfill the terms of their agreement with her, putting her relationship with Warner Bros. Records in jeopardy. David in turn sued Bacharach for abandoning their legal partnership, and the lawsuits among the three parties took many years to resolve.

Despite the ongoing lawsuits, Bacharach and Warwick reunited in the studio in 1974 to record three new Bacharach songs for Warner Brothers, though the songs remained unreleased until 2013. Bacharach and David also reunited briefly, in 1975, to write and produce Stephanie Mills' second album, For The First Time, released by Motown.

Following the Stephanie Mills album, the Bacharach & David partnership was effectively over, and both songwriters began working with other collaborators. During the 1990s, they briefly reunited on two occasions, in 1993 to write a song for a Warwick album, and in 1999, to write two songs for the soundtrack of the film Isn't She Great. Bacharach eventually expressed regret over his actions during the Lost Horizon production, and wrote in his autobiography:

"It was all my fault, and I can't imagine how many great songs I could have written with Hal in the years we were apart. So I now know that on every level, it was a very bad mistake.'"

Bacharach also suggested in interviews he gave to promote his autobiography that he and David were out of inspiration by the time they stopped working together. Discussing the breakup of their artistic partnership in a 2013 interview with author Mitch Albom, Bacharach said:

"That's just vanity and saying 'yeah, I'll write with someone else'. Then the other question is what could we have written if we hadn't split up. I don't know what we would have written. Had we 'run out' a little bit? Had we been depleted and robbed of creativity?"

From 1975 to 1980, Bacharach wrote songs with a number of lyricists including Paul Anka, James J. Kavanaugh, Norman Gimbel, Libby Titus, Anthony Newley, and playwright Neil Simon. His solo albums from the late 1970s, including Futures and Woman, failed to yield hits.

By the early 1980s, Bacharach's marriage to Angie Dickinson had ended, but a new partnership with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager proved rewarding, both commercially and personally. The first song they collaborated on was "Where Did the Time Go" by The Pointer Sisters, released as a single in 1980. Bacharach and Bayer Sager co-wrote 11 of the songs on Bayer Sager's 1981 album Sometimes Late at Night, and Bacharach produced the album. Music critic Joe Viglione called the album "the Sgt. Pepper of singer/songwriter recordings" and "the epitome of '70s and '80s adult contemporary....a classic of the genre."

The two married and collaborated on several major hits during the decade, including "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross), co-written with Christopher Cross and Peter Allen, which won an Academy Award for Best Song; "Heartlight" (Neil Diamond); "Making Love" (Roberta Flack); and "On My Own" (Patti LaBelle with Michael McDonald).

Another of their hits, "That's What Friends Are For" in 1985, reunited Bacharach and Warwick. When asked about their coming together again, she explained:

"We realized we were more than just friends. We were family. Time has a way of giving people the opportunity to grow and understand ... Working with Burt is not a bit different from how it used to be. He expects me to deliver and I can. He knows what I'm going to do before I do it, and the same with me. That's how intertwined we've been."

Other artists continued to revive Bacharach's earlier hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Examples included Luther Vandross's recording of "A House Is Not a Home", Naked Eyes' 1983 pop hit version of "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me", and Ronnie Milsap's 1982 country version of "Any Day Now". Bacharach continued a concert career, appearing at auditoriums throughout the world, often with large orchestras. He occasionally joined Warwick for sold-out concerts in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York City, where they performed at the Rainbow Room in 1996.

1990s and beyond
Bacharach's visibility increased in the second half of the 1990s due to his appearances as himself in the Austin Powers films, a U.S. box set release of his music and a new songwriting partnership that produced a Grammy-winning album. Bacharach formed his songwriting partnership with Elvis Costello initially to write one song, "God Give Me Strength", for the 1996 film Grace of My Heart. The film told the story of a fictional 1960s female Brill Building songwriter and was inspired by songwriters like Carole King and Bacharach.

In 1998, Bacharach and Costello released the album Painted from Memory, on which the pair continued to work in the 1960s and 1970s pop style that they used for their initial collaboration. The album's song "I Still Have That Other Girl" won a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. The duo would later reunite for Costello's 2018 album, Look Now, working on several tracks together. Also in 1998, Rhino Records released a 3-CD box set, The Look of Love, that licensed the original recordings of most of his best-known songs. Music writer Richie Unterberger called the set "the best representation of [Bacharach's] music likely to ever be assembled."

In 2003, he arranged and produced Ronald Isley's album Here I Am, on which Isley sang a program of Bacharach songs mostly drawn from Bacharach's 1960s-era hits. Bacharach's 2005 solo album At This Time was a departure from past works in that Bacharach penned his own lyrics, some of which dealt with political themes. Guest stars on the album included Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, and hip-hop producer Dr. Dre.

In 2008, Bacharach opened the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse in London, performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra accompanied by guest vocalists Adele, Beth Rowley, and Jamie Cullum. The concert was a retrospective look back at his six-decade career. In early 2009, Bacharach worked with Italian soul singer Karima Ammar and produced her debut single "Come In Ogni Ora".

Bacharach's autobiography, Anyone Who Had a Heart, was published in 2013.

In June 2015, Bacharach performed in the UK at the Glastonbury Festival, and a few weeks later appeared on stage at the Menier Chocolate Factory in Southwark, South London, to launch ''What's It All About? Bacharach Reimagined'', a 90-minute live arrangement of his hits.

In 2016, Bacharach, at 88 years old, composed and arranged his first original score in 16 years for the film A Boy Called Po (along with composer Joseph Bauer ). The score was released on September 1, 2017. The entire 30-minute score was recorded in just two days at Capitol Studios. The theme song, "Dancing with Your Shadow", was composed by Bacharach, with lyrics by Billy Mann, and performed by Sheryl Crow. After seeing the film, a true story about a child with autism, Bacharach decided he wanted to write a score for it, as well as a theme song, in tribute to his daughter Nikki—who had gone undiagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and who committed suicide because of depression at the age of 40. "It touched me very much", the composer said. "I had gone through this with Nikki. Sometimes you do things that make you feel. It's not about money or rewards."

In 2018, Bacharach released "Live to See Another Day", co-written with Rudy Pérez and featuring the Miami Symphony Orchestra; the song was dedicated to survivors of gun violence in schools, as the proceeds from the release went to the charity Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit organization founded and led by several family members whose children had been killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

In July 2020, Bacharach collaborated with songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Tashian on the EP Blue Umbrella, Bacharach's first new material in 15 years. It earned Bacharach and Tashian a Grammy Award nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.

In March 2023, a collection of Bacharach's collaborations with Elvis Costello, The Songs of Bacharach & Costello, was released. The collection includes 16 tracks from the proposed stage musical Taken From Life.

Film and television
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bacharach was featured in a dozen television musical and variety specials videotaped in the UK for ITC; several were nominated for Emmy Awards for direction (by Dwight Hemion). The guests included artists such as Joel Grey, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, and Barbra Streisand. Bacharach and David did the score for an original musical for ABC-TV titled On the Flip Side, broadcast on ABC Stage 67, starring Ricky Nelson as a faded pop star trying for a comeback.

In 1969, Harry Betts arranged Bacharach's instrumental composition "Nikki" (named for Bacharach's daughter) into a new theme for the ABC Movie of the Week, a television series that ran on the U.S. network until 1976.

During the 1970s, Bacharach and then-wife Angie Dickinson appeared in several television commercials for Martini & Rossi beverages, and Bacharach even penned a short jingle ("Say Yes") for the spots. He also occasionally appeared on television/variety shows such as The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and others.

In the 1990s and 2000s Bacharach had cameo roles in Hollywood movies, including all three Austin Powers movies, inspired by his score for the 1967 James Bond parody film Casino Royale. Mike Myers said the first film in the series, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), was partially inspired by the song "The Look of Love". After hearing the song on the radio, Myers began reminiscing about the 1960s, which helped him conceive the film. Myers later said of Bacharach's appearance in the movie: "It was amazing working with Burt. His song "The Look of Love" was the inspiration for this film. It was like having Gershwin appear in your movie."

Bacharach appeared as a celebrity performer and guest vocal coach for contestants on the television show American Idol during its 2006 season, during which an entire episode was dedicated to his music. In 2008, Bacharach was featured in the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He performed similar shows the same year at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and with the Sydney Symphony.

Musical style
Bacharach's music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by jazz harmony, with striking syncopated rhythmic patterns, irregular phrasing, frequent modulation, and odd, changing meters. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output. Though his style is sometimes called easy listening, he expressed apprehension regarding that label, as some of his frequent collaborators did. According to NJ.com contributor Mark Voger, "It may be easy on the ears, but it's anything but easy. The precise arrangements, the on-a-dime shifts in meter, and the mouthfuls of lyrics required to service all those notes have, over the years, proven challenging to singers and musicians." Bacharach's selection of instruments included flugelhorns, bossa nova sidesticks, breezy flutes, tack piano, molto fortissimo strings, and cooing female voices. According to editors of The Mojo Collection, it led to what became known as the "Bacharach Sound". Bacharach explained:

"I didn't want to make the songs the same way as they'd been done, so I'd split vocals and instrumentals and try to make it interesting ... For me, it's about the peaks and valleys of where a record can take you. You can tell a story and be able to be explosive one minute, then get quiet as kind of a satisfying resolution."

While he did not mind singing during live performances, he sought mostly to avoid it on records. When he did sing, he explains, "I [tried] to sing the songs not as a singer, but just interpreting it as a composer and interpreting a great lyric that Hal [David] wrote." When performing in front of live audiences, he often conducted while playing piano, as he did during a televised performance on The Hollywood Palace.

Bacharach wrote fifty-two US Top 40 hits.

Personal life
Bacharach married four times. The first time was to Paula Stewart for five years (1953–1958). He was married to his second wife, actress Angie Dickinson, for 16 years (1965–1981), though they were separated the last five. They had one daughter, Lea Nikki Bacharach, who was born prematurely in 1966 and had Asperger syndrome. She committed suicide in 2007 after struggling with depression for many years.

Bacharach's third marriage, to lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, spanned nine years (1982–1991). The duo collaborated on a number of musical pieces and adopted a son, Cristopher Elton Bacharach, in 1985.

Bacharach married his fourth wife, Jane Hansen, in 1993. They had two children, son Oliver, born the year before their marriage, and daughter Raleigh, born in 1995.

Bacharach once owned the Dover House restaurant, which was located across the street from Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury, New York. It was the site of a press conference in which the New York Islanders unveiled their name and logo and introduced Bill Torrey as their first general manager.

Bacharach died of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, California, on February 8, 2023, at the age of 94.

Television and film appearances

 * An Evening with Marlene Dietrich
 * Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
 * Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
 * Austin Powers in Goldmember
 * Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song
 * Nip/Tuck
 * The Nanny
 * Jake in Progress

Solo albums

 * Hit Maker!: Burt Bacharach Plays the Burt Bacharach Hits (1965)
 * Reach Out (1967) (US: Gold)
 * Make It Easy on Yourself (1969) (US: Gold)
 * Burt Bacharach (1971) (US: Gold)
 * Living Together (1973)
 * Futures (1977)
 * Woman (1979)
 * At This Time (2005)

With Elvis Costello

 * Painted from Memory (1998)

With Ronald Isley

 * Isley Meets Bacharach: Here I Am (2003)

With Daniel Tashian

 * Blue Umbrella (2020)

Live albums

 * Burt Bacharach in Concert (1974)
 * One Amazing Night (1998)
 * Marlene Dietrich with the Burt Bacharach Orchestra (2007)
 * Burt Bacharach: Live at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2008)

Films

 * What's New Pussycat? (1965)
 * After the Fox (1966)
 * Casino Royale (1967)
 * Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) (US: Gold)
 * Lost Horizon (1973)
 * Together? (1979)
 * Arthur (1981)
 * Night Shift (1982)
 * Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988)
 * Isn't She Great (2000)
 * A Boy Called Po (2016)

TV

 * On the Flip Side (1967)

Theatrical works

 * Marlene Dietrich (1968): concert – music arranger and conductor
 * Promises, Promises (1968): musical – composer (Tony Nomination for Best Musical)
 * André DeShield's Haarlem Nocturne (1984): revue – featured songwriter
 * The Look of Love (2003): revue – composer
 * The Boy from Oz (2003): musical – additional composer
 * Some Lovers (2011) – composer with Steven Sater
 * My Best Friend's Wedding (2021) – composer with Hal David

Compilations

 * Portrait in Music (1971)
 * Portrait in Music Vol. II (1973)
 * Burt Bacharach's Greatest Hits (1973)
 * The Best of Burt Bacharach (1999)
 * The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection (U.S. edition 1998)
 * Motown Salutes Bacharach (2002)
 * Blue Note Plays Burt Bacharach (2004)
 * The Definitive Burt Bacharach Songbook (2006)
 * Burt Bacharach & Friends Gold (2006)
 * Colour Collection (2007)
 * Magic Moments: The Definitive Burt Bacharach Collection (2008)
 * Anyone Who Had a Heart – The Art of the Songwriter (2013)
 * The Songs of Bacharach & Costello (2023)

For Marlene Dietrich

 * Live at the Café de Paris (1954)
 * Dietrich in Rio (1959)
 * Wiedersehen mit Marlene (1960)
 * Dietrich in London (1964)
 * Мари = Marie–Marie (1964)

For Neil Diamond

 * Heartlight (1982)
 * Primitive (1984)
 * Headed for the Future (1986)

For Dionne Warwick

 * Reservations for Two (1987)
 * Friends Can Be Lovers (1993)

For Carole Bayer Sager

 * Sometimes Late at Night (1981)

For Roberta Flack

 * I'm the One (1982)

For Patti LaBelle

 * Winner in You (1986)

For Natalie Cole

 * Everlasting (1987)

For Ray Parker Jr.

 * After Dark (1987)

For Barbra Streisand

 * Till I Loved You (1988)

For Aretha Franklin

 * What You See Is What You Sweat (1991)

For Carly Simon

 * Christmas Is Almost Here (2002)

For Ronan Keating

 * When Ronan Met Burt (2011)

For Elvis Costello

 * Look Now (2018)

title: Burt Bacharach


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Remy de Gourmont

Remy de Gourmont (4 April 1858 – 27 September 1915) was a French symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars and Georges Bataille. The spelling Rémy de Gourmont is incorrect, albeit common.

Life
Gourmont was born at Bazoches-au-Houlme, Orne, into a publishing family from Cotentin. He was the son of Count Auguste-Marie de Gourmont and his countess, born Mathilde de Montfort. In 1866 he moved to a manor close to Villedieu near La Manche. He studied law at Caen, and was awarded a bachelor's degree in law in 1879; upon his graduation he moved to Paris.

In 1881, Gourmont was employed by the Bibliothèque nationale. He began to write for general circulation periodicals such as Le Monde and Le Contemporain. He took an interest in ancient literature, following the footsteps of Gustave Kahn. During this period, he also met Berthe Courrière, model for, and heir of, the sculptor Auguste Clésinger, with whom he formed a lifelong attachment, he and Berthe living together for the rest of their lives.

Gourmont also began a literary alliance with Joris-Karl Huysmans, to whom he dedicated his prose work Le Latin mystique (Mystical Latin). In 1889 Gourmont became one of the founders of the Mercure de France, which became a rallying point of the Symbolist movement. Between 1893 and 1894 he was the co-editor, along with Alfred Jarry, of L'Ymagier, a magazine dedicated to symbolist wood carvings. In 1891 he published a polemic called Le Joujou Patriotisme (Patriotism, a toy) in which he argued that France and Germany shared an aesthetic culture and urged a rapprochement between the two countries, contrary to the wishes of nationalists in the French government. This political essay led to his losing his job at the Bibliothèque Nationale, despite Octave Mirbeau's chronicles.

During this same period, Gourmont was stricken with lupus vulgaris. Disfigured by this illness, he largely retired from public view appearing only at the offices of the Mercure de France. In 1910, Gourmont met Natalie Clifford Barney, to whom he dedicated his Lettres à l'Amazone (Letters to the Amazon).

Gourmont's health continued to decline and he began to suffer from locomotor ataxia and be increasingly unable to walk. He was deeply depressed by the outbreak of World War I and died in Paris of cerebral congestion in 1915. Berthe Courrière was his sole heir, inheriting a substantial body of unpublished work which she sent to his brother Jean de Gourmont, and dying within the year. Gourmont and Courrière are buried Chopins tomb in Père-Lachaise Cemetery.

Works
Gourmont was a literary critic and essayist of great importance, most notably his Le Problème du Style. Created in response to Antoine Albalat's The Art of Writing in Twenty Lessons (1899), Le Problème du Style was a source book for many of the ideas that inspired the literary developments in both England and France and was also admired by T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound in that capacity.

His novels, in particular Sixtine, explore the theme of Schopenhauerian Idealism with its emphasis on individual subjectivity, as well as the Decadent relationship between sexuality and artistic creativity. In 1922 Aldous Huxley translated Gourmont's novel A Virgin Heart.

Gourmont's poetic works include Litanies de la Rose (1892), Les Saintes du Paradis (1898), and Divertissements (1912). His anthology Hieroglyphes (1894), contains his experiments with the possibilities of sound and rhythm. It plunges from perhaps ironic piety to equally ironic blasphemy, reflecting, more than anything else, his interest in medieval Latin literature, and his works led to a fad for late Latin literature among authors like Joris-Karl Huysmans. Pound observed in 1915 that the English Imagist poetic movement derived from the French Symbolistes, Eliot describing Gourmont as the "critical conscience of his generation".

Poetry

 * Litanies de la Rose (1892).
 * Fleurs de Jadis (1893).
 * Hiéroglyphes (1894).
 * Les Saintes du Paradis (1899).
 * Oraisons Mauvaises (1900).
 * Simone (1901).
 * Divertissements (1912).
 * Poésies Inédites (1921).
 * Rimes Retrouvées (1979).
 * L'Odeur des Jacynthes (1991).

Fiction

 * Merlette (novel, 1886).
 * Sixtine (novel, 1890).
 * Le Fantôme (1893).
 * Le Château Singulier (1894).
 * Proses Moroses (short stories, 1894).
 * Histoire Tragique de la Princesse Phénissa (1894).
 * Histoires Magiques (1884).
 * Le Pèlerin du Silence (1896).
 * Phocas (1895).
 * Les Chevaux de Diomède (novel, 1897).
 * D'un Pays Lointain. Miracles. Visages de Femmes (1898).
 * Le Songe d'une Femme (novel, 1899).
 * Une Nuit au Luxembourg (1906).
 * Un Cœur Virginal (1907).
 * Couleurs, Contes Nouveaux Suivi de Choses Anciennes (1908).
 * Lettres d'un Satyre (1913).
 * Lettres à l'Amazone (1914).
 * Monsieur Croquant (1918).
 * La Patience de Grisélidis (1920).
 * Lettres à Sixtine (1921).
 * Le Vase Magique (1923).
 * Fin de Promenade et Trois Autres Contes (short stories, 1925).
 * Le Désarroi (novel, 2006).

Theatre

 * Lilith (1892).
 * Théodat (1893).
 * Le Vieux Roi (1897).
 * L'Ombre d'une Femme (1923).

Nonfiction

 * Un Volcan en Éruption (1882).
 * Une Ville Ressuscitée (1883).
 * Bertrand Du Guesclin (1883).
 * Tempêtes et Naufrages (1883).
 * Les Derniers Jours de Pompéi (1884).
 * En Ballon (1884).
 * Les Français au Canada et en Acadie (1888).
 * Chez les Lapons, Mœurs, Coutumes et Légendes de la Laponie Norvégienne (1890).
 * Le Joujou Patriotisme (1891).
 * Le Latin Mystique. Les Poètes de l'Antiphonaire et la Symbolique au Moyen Âge (with a preface by J. K. Huysmans, 1892).
 * L'Idéalisme (1893).
 * L'Ymagier (with Alfred Jarry, 1896).
 * La Poésie Populaire (1896).
 * Le Livre des Masques (1896).
 * Almanach de "L'Ymagier", Zodiacal, Astrologique, Littéraire, Artistique, Magique, Cabalistique et Prophétique (1897).
 * Le Deuxième Livre des Masques (1898).
 * Esthétique de la Langue Française (1899).
 * La Culture des Idées (1900).
 * Preface to Les Petites Revues (1900).
 * Le Chemin de Velours (1902).
 * Le Problème du Style (1902).
 * Épilogues: Réflexions sur la Vie, 1895-1898 (1903).
 * Physique de l'Amour. Essai sur l'Instinct Sexuel (1903).
 * Promenades Littéraires (1904).
 * Judith Gautier (1904).
 * Promenades Philosophiques (1905).
 * Dante, Béatrice et la Poésie Amoureuse. Essai sur l'Idéal Féminin en Italie à la Fin du XIIIe Siècle (1908).
 * Le Chat de Misère. Idées et Images (1912).
 * La Petite Ville (1913).
 * Des pas sur le Sable (1914).
 * La Belgique Littéraire (1915).
 * Pendant l'Orage, Bois d'André Rouveyre (1915).
 * Dans la Tourmente (Avril-juillet 1915) (with a preface by, 1916).
 * Pendant la Guerre. Lettres pour l'Argentine (with a preface by Jean de Gourmont, 1917).
 * Les Idées du Jour (1918).
 * Vol. I: (Octobre 1914-avril 1915).
 * Vol. II: (Mai 1915-septembre 1915).
 * Trois Légendes du Moyen Âge (1919).
 * Pensées Inédites (with a Preface by Guillaume Apollinaire, 1920).
 * Le Livret de "L'Ymagier" (1921).
 * Petits Crayons (1921).
 * Le Puits de la Vérité (1922).
 * Dernières Pensées Inédites (1924).
 * Dissociations (1925).
 * Nouvelles Dissociations (1925).
 * La Fin de l'Art (1925).
 * Les Femmes et le Langage (1925).
 * Deux Poètes de la Nature: Bryant et Emerson (1925).
 * Le Joujou et Trois Autres Essais (1926).
 * Lettres Intimes à l’Amazone (1926).
 * Promenades Littéraires (1929).

In English translation

 * A Night in the Luxembourg (with preface by Arthur Ransome, 1912).
 * "A French View of 'Kultur'," The New Republic (1915).
 * Theodat, a Play (1916).
 * Philosophic Nights in Paris (1920).
 * "Dust for Sparrows," Part II, Part III, Part IV, The Dial, Vol. LXIX, 1920; Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, The Dial, Vol. LXX, 1921.
 * The Book of Masks (1921).
 * A Virgin Heart (1921).
 * Decadence, and Other Essays on the Culture of Ideas (1922).
 * The Natural Philosophy of Love (1922).
 * Mr. Antiphilos, Satyr (1922).
 * Very Woman: A Cerebral Novel (1922).
 * The Horses of Diomedes (1923).
 * Epigrams of Remy de Gourmont (1923).
 * Stories in Yellow, Black, White, Blue, Violet, and Red (1924).
 * Stories in Green, Zinzolin, Rose, Purple, Mauve, Lilac, and Orange (1924).
 * Dream of a Woman (1927).
 * The Prostituted Woman: The Sexless One in the Singular Château (1929).
 * Letters to the Amazon (1931).
 * Lilith, a Play (1946).
 * The Angels of Perversity (1992).
 * French Decadent Tales, by Stephen Romer (2013).

Quotation

 * Que tes mains soient bénies, car elles sont impures!
 * Elles ont des péchés cachés à toutes les jointures;
 * Leur peau blanche s'est trempée dans l'odeur âpre des caresses
 * Secrètes, parmi l'ombre blanche où rampent les caresses,
 * Et l'opale prisonnière qui se meurt à ton doigt,
 * C'est le dernier soupir de Jésus sur la croix.

 * ---Oraisons mauvaises

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Remy de Gourmont


text:
Art of Noise

Art of Noise (also The Art of Noise) were a British avant-garde synth-pop group formed in early 1983 by engineer/producer Gary Langan and programmer J. J. Jeczalik, along with keyboardist/arranger Anne Dudley, producer Trevor Horn, and music journalist Paul Morley. The group had international Top 20 hits with its interpretations of "Kiss", featuring Tom Jones, and the instrumental "Peter Gunn", which won a 1986 Grammy Award.

The group's mostly instrumental compositions were novel melodic sound collages based on digital sampler technology, which was new at the time. Inspired by turn-of-the-20th-century revolutions in music, the Art of Noise were initially packaged as a faceless anti- or non-group, blurring the distinction between the art and its creators. The band is noted for innovative use of electronics and computers in pop music, particularly its innovative use of sampling.

Beginnings
The technological impetus for the Art of Noise was the advent of the Fairlight CMI sampler. With the Fairlight, short digital sound recordings called samples could be played using a piano-like keyboard, while a computer processor altered such characteristics as pitch and timbre. Music producer Trevor Horn was among the early adopters of Fairlight. While some musicians were using samples as adornment in their works, Horn and his colleagues saw the potential to craft entire compositions with the sampler.

In 1981, Horn's production team included programmer J. J. Jeczalik, engineer Gary Langan and keyboard player/string arranger Anne Dudley. The team produced ABC's 1982 debut album The Lexicon of Love, increasingly using the Fairlight to tweak live-based elements of performance but also to embellish the compositions with sound effects such as a cash register's bell on "Date Stamp" (Dudley also co-wrote a track on the album, which launched her scoring career). The team also worked on Malcolm McLaren's 1982 album Duck Rock and would go on to work with Frankie Goes to Hollywood on what would become the album Welcome to the Pleasuredome (realised predominantly on Fairlight).

During January 1983, Horn's team were working on the Yes comeback album 90125 – Horn as producer, Langan as engineer, and Dudley and Jeczalik providing arrangements and keyboard programming. During the sessions, Jeczalik and Langan took a scrapped Alan White drum riff and sampled it into the Fairlight using the device's Page R sequencer (the first time an entire drum pattern had been sampled into the machine). Jeczalik and Langan then added non-musical sounds on top of it, before playing the track to Horn. This in turn resulted in the Red & Blue Mix of Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" single, which showcased the prototype sound of The Art of Noise.

Seeing further potential in the idea, Horn teamed Jeczalik and Langan with Dudley in February to develop the project and brought in one of his business partners, ex-NME journalist Paul Morley, as a provider of concepts, art direction and marketing ideas. Morley came up with the project name (taken from the essay "The Art of Noises" by noted futurist Luigi Russolo, and finalised at Jeczalik's request by dropping the final 's'). Much later, in a July 2002 article penned for The Guardian, Morley wrote "I loved the name Art of Noise so much that I forced my way into the group. If over the years people asked me what I did in the group, I replied that I named them, and it was such a great name, that was enough to justify my role. I was the Ringo Starr of Art of Noise. I made the tea. Oh, and I wrote the lyrics to one of the loveliest pieces of pop music ever, Moments in Love." Horn himself joined the new group as production advisor and provider of further ideas. This was the first time that he had been part of a group since parting company with his The Buggles' partner Geoff Downes (after they had been part of Yes). It would also be the first and last time that he would enjoy chart success as an artist since the new wave hit in 1979 with "Video Killed the Radio Star" (not counting writing credits on The Dollar Album).

Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? (1983–1984)
The debut Art of Noise EP, Into Battle with the Art of Noise, appeared in September 1983 on Horn's fledgling ZTT label. Many of the samples originally used on 90125 reappeared on the EP, which immediately scored a hit in the urban and alternative dance charts in the US with the highly percussive, cut-up instrumental track "Beat Box", a favourite among body-poppers.

The first Art of Noise album, Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? was released in 1984. During this period, the group presented themselves as faceless (using masks, minimal personal appearances, or even absence from promotion to indicate that the Art of Noise was not a standard rock or pop band which promoted and mythologised its members as individuals).

"Anne: When the group first started, we thought it would be a good idea to have an image that wasn't based around a fashion look. We thought it would encourage people to look at the music instead of the members of the band. It didn't last for long, though.

Gary: It really doesn't seem a lot different, actually; the responsibility a lot more different; it's probably more fun, more risk to it.

Anne: There's a very big risk in America because they think we're black; we were voted the second best new black act. We are wondering how we can quite cope with this.

Gary: There was at one point there came along an instrument that nobody had really used and we were lucky that we had one we could use. There are certain things you can do with it that you're not able to do with anything else. So it was a question of experimenting with that, and things really took off from there.

Anne: This is the famous Fairlight music computer, which you may have heard of.

Gary: Which plays an important part. I really think that the music is more important than the personality. The fashion around a personality seems to change a lot quicker than that around music."

"Moments in Love", a ten-minute instrumental ode to sensuality that appeared on both Into Battle and Who's Afraid, was remixed and released as a single in 1985. The song was first released in the US in 1985, where it was a moderate hit on the US R&B singles chart. It was played at one of Madonna's weddings; sampled by Mýa in her hit single "It's All About Me," which featured Sisqó; used in the soundtrack of the movie Pumping Iron II: The Women; featured in the Indian movie Koi...Mil Gaya; name-dropped in the opening pages of Sister Souljah's 2011 novel Midnight and the Meaning of Love (as "Moments of Love"); interpolated in King Sun's song “Hey, Love”; used in a number of advertisements; and remixed, covered, and sampled by numerous other artists. It has also appeared in numerous chill out compilations and has become a staple of smooth jazz radio station playlists. "Moments in Love" has been remixed many times, with names such as "Moments in Bed" and "Moments in love 7" Master Rejected". Most "Moments in Love" remixes can be found in the box set And What Have You Done with My Body, God?

An October 1984 feature in Smash Hits magazine indicated several of Morley and Horn's plans for the group's subsequent projects. These included a cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star", originally by The Buggles (Horn and Geoff Downes); Raiding the 20th Century, an album using sounds from throughout the 20th century as source material; the score for The Living End, a film written by Morley and directed by Godley & Creme; and the soundtrack for a ballet.

"Close (to the Edit)" was issued in October that year. The single was Art of Noise's first major UK hit, reaching number eight in the UK Singles Chart in November 1984.

Split of original line-up (1985)
In 1985, Dudley, Jeczalik, and Langan made an acrimonious split from Morley and Horn as well as from the ZTT label.

In a post-split interview for Melody Maker in October 1985, Jeczalik indicated that he and Morley did not get along and that he felt Morley's writing was pretentious. Jeczalik responded to a question about the level of Morley and Horn's involvement in Who's Afraid by saying, "It's difficult to tell. We say approximately 1.73 percent, but it could even be as high as two percent. You see, all that has happened is that Gary and I started something, it was taken away, and we have taken steps to get it back." In the same interview, Dudley indicated she felt parts of Who's Afraid were of dubious quality.

Much later, Morley would comment "When Trevor and I left, (Jeczalik, Langan and Dudley) became a novelty group who had hits with Tom Jones." His disdain for the artistic direction of The Art of Noise once he was no longer involved with it was even more evident in other articles he penned, including the liner notes of the 1986 compilation album Daft (under the name Otto Flake) and a September 2002 article for The Observer.

In Visible Silence (1986)
After the split, Dudley, Jeczalik, and Langan moved to the UK-based China Records label, taking the Art of Noise name with them. Some of the band's original imagery and ethos was retained for their second album, In Visible Silence. This album spawned the Grammy Award-winning cover of the Peter Gunn theme, recorded with Duane Eddy, who had a hit with Peter Gunn in 1959. The Art of Noise collaboration reached number two on the Billboard dance charts. The Peter Gunn video featured comedian Rik Mayall in a parody of the private eye film genre. The piece would later be used as the theme music for the 2008 BBC TV series Bill Oddie's Wild Side.

From the same album, the "Beat Box"-like single "Legs" (using the same drum sounds) was a mild underground hit in dance clubs. In 1986, the album track "Paranoimia" achieved some success when a remix of it was released as a single with overdubbed vocal samples provided by Matt Frewer as the supposedly computer-generated character Max Headroom. Frewer also appeared as Max Headroom in the music video for the track.

Around 1986, Jeczalik and Dudley started appearing in photographs without masks, alienating some fans that had come to appreciate Morley's "art for art's sake" aesthetic. The upcoming soundtrack pieces continued The Art of Noise's evolution into a pop band and away from Morley's faceless "non-group."

In No Sense? Nonsense!, Below the Waste, and the split (1987–1990)
By 1987, the band's membership was down to just Jeczalik and Dudley. That year saw the release of their album In No Sense? Nonsense! The album featured Jeczalik's most advanced rhythmic collages to date, plus lush string arrangements, pieces for boys' choir, and keyboard melodies from Dudley. It did not produce any hits, although their record label made efforts to push remixes of "Dragnet" into the dance clubs and the single reached No. 60 on the UK Singles Chart.

In 1987, The Art of Noise provided the score for two movies, Hiding Out and Dragnet, and one particular movement was used in both films. Their brass-based connecting passage between sections from the original Dragnet television show's theme song was used as incidental music during a dramatic scene—an armed chase through the rafters of a gymnasium—near the end of Hiding Out.

In 1988, a one-off collaboration with singer Tom Jones (a cover of Prince's "Kiss" – a staple in Jones' stage shows) renewed the public's interest in the Art of Noise and provided the group's biggest hit in the mainstream. The track appeared on several albums by Jones, and China Records included the song on the greatest hits compilation The Best of The Art of Noise, the first edition of which also contained tracks licensed from ZTT.

The follow-up album, Below the Waste, failed to achieve much success upon its release in 1989. It did spawn the memorable single "Yebo!" (featuring the unique vocals of Zulu performers Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens). Both cassette and CD versions include two bonus tracks in the form of "Robinson Crusoe", and the "James Bond Theme".

In 1990, Dudley and Jeczalik declared that the Art of Noise had officially disbanded.

Interim (compilations, failed reformations and solo work)
Although Dudley and Jeczalik had already dissolved the group, in 1990 they assisted in the promotion of the lightly remixed compilation The Ambient Collection, which the China label released to cash in on the burgeoning ambient house scene. Jeczalik approved the remixes that appeared on The FON Mixes the following year. The rest of the decade saw China Records releasing further Art of Noise compilations: The Drum and Bass Collection, Art Works, and reissues of Best of without the ZTT-era tracks. Some of these featured new remixes by other artists.

According to an interview with J.J. Jeczalik reported in the ZTT fanzine Outside World in 1991, Jeczalik, Dudley and Langan were inspired by the commercial success of The FON Mixes and had discussed reuniting the group as a trio again. In preparation to record a new album, Jeczalik and Langan travelled to Cuba to gather new source material. However, no new recordings were produced with the new line-up, and the Art of Noise remained defunct.

Dudley became well known for composing numerous film and television scores during the 1990s. The most famous of these is probably The Full Monty, which won an Academy Award for Original Music Score. She also collaborated with Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman on the 1990 album Songs from the Victorious City (inspired by a trip the two made to Egypt) and produced two tracks for the 1993 Deborah Harry album Debravation ("Strike Me Pink", which she also co-wrote and played keyboards on, and "Mood Ring"). She has scored orchestrations for dozens of pop releases over the years, and both scored and produced the album Voice for her neighbour Alison Moyet. Cathy Dennis added lyrics to one of Dudley's compositions and recorded it as "Too Many Walls", which became a US Top 10 hit in 1991.

In 1995–1997, Jeczalik and ''In No Sense? Nonsense! coengineer Bob Kraushaar produced a number of instrumentals oriented toward dance clubs under the name Art of Silence, issuing an album titled artofsilence.co.uk''. Jeczalik also embarked on a new career in trading in futures contracts.

The Art of Noise also received a full writing credit for The Prodigy's "Firestarter", which samples the female "hey, hey" voice from "Close to the Edit". The Prodigy also contributed the remix "Instruments of Darkness (All of Us are One People)" to the 1991 compilation The FON Mixes. Also, an edited version of "Close to the Edit" is featured on the monthly educational Amiga game Ready Robot Club. The Art of Noise are also credited for the music to the ITV series The Krypton Factor.

The reunion and The Seduction of Claude Debussy (1998–2000)
In 1998, Horn, Morley, and Dudley began talking about the original intent of the project, its relevance in 20th-century music, and the impending turn of a new century. The group temporarily reformed, adding guitarist Lol Creme, but without J.J. Jeczalik and Gary Langan. Their engineering, programming and production tasks were carried out by dance act Way Out West. An album was recorded – Balance – Music for the Eye – but was never released, although several tracks from this project were included on the 2010 retrospective album Influence. and the whole album was released as part of At the End of the Century box set. Instead, a new single called "Dream On" – which featured remixed versions of the forthcoming album track "Dreaming in Colour" – was released to club DJs later in 1998, showcasing mixes by Way Out West.

A second single, "Metaforce", featuring a rap by Rakim, preceded the 1999 release of the concept album The Seduction of Claude Debussy, a cohesive concept album depicting the life and works of Claude Debussy, on the ZTT label.

This album later formed the basis of a 17-minute soundtrack for London's Millennium fireworks celebrations on the banks of the River Thames. The firework display was synchronised to an edit of "Seduction" which also featured a collage of samples from some of Britain's most famous pop and rock songs, plus classical composers. It was broadcast live on 95.8 Capital FM and BBC London 94.9. Trevor Horn worked on the project with Jill Sinclair, Bob Geldof, Capital Radio executive Clive Dickens and producer Ross Ford.

After performing a handful of live shows in the UK and US, the band dissolved. A DVD (Into Vision) and CD (Reconstructed) were released in 2002 and 2003 respectively, featuring music recorded and filmed in Chicago, at the Coachella Festival (10 September 1999), at the Shepherd's Bush Empire (22 March 2000) and Fountain Studios, Wembley, London (1 June 2000).

Later work
A reunion of sorts occurred at a 30 November 2013 live performance by the BBC Concert Orchestra (with a live BBC radio broadcast) including Dudley's orchestral arrangement of the band's EP Into Battle and a new piece entitled "Rhythm of a Decade" by Dudley and narrated by Morley. In their programme notes, they explain "Rhythm of a Decade" was inspired by an unreleased Art of Noise piece: "Of the many Art of Noise albums that did not appear – even if they were recorded – was one that set out to represent various decades through the rhythms that appeared during that particular decade – charting the development of rhythmical patterns and the physical changes in drum sounds throughout the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s".

On 25 May 2017 Art of Noise members Langan, Dudley and Jeczalik reunited as Reboot Art of Noise, performing at Liverpool Sound City as special support for The Human League during the festival's Pioneers of British Electronic Music.

The three appeared again when they played highlights from their In Visible Silence album plus other career highlights as "Dudley, Jeczalik, Langan" at the British Library in London on 9 March 2018 as part of the library's "Season of Sound" celebrating 140 years of recorded sound. This performance included a recorded video intro and outro from Paul Morley.

Most recently, Jeczalik and Langan have been performing intermittent live dates as The Art of Noise/Revision/VJ Set, with a four-person line-up also including video operator Ian Peel (a long-term Art of Noise chronicler) and Chilean musician/producer Raimundo Ladrón de Guevara (and following "very good-humoured discussions and input from Trevor Horn, Anne Dudley and Paul Morley").

Re-releases
In 2003, a 20th-anniversary edition of Into Battle was released the first time in CD form in Germany, including bonus tracks and a bonus DVD of their promo videos and a selected discography slideshow of album art. The CD substituted the original version of "Beat Box" with the later "Diversion One".

In early 2004, the Karvavena label released an Art of Noise tribute album, The Abduction of The Art of Noise. This album contains covers of various tracks, including a new version of "Beat Box" performed by J.J. Jeczalik under his Art of Silence moniker. 2004 saw Dudley and Horn perform "Close (To the Edit)" together at a The Prince's Trust charity event.

In 2006, Lol Creme and Trevor Horn formed Producers, a band made up of renowned record producers and musicians. Gary Langan is the band's audio engineer.

21 August 2006 saw ZTT release a 4-CD Art of Noise box set, titled And What Have You Done with My Body, God?, which consisted of tracks exclusively from the 1983–85 ZTT era, from the initial tentative demos created by Gary Langan and J.J. Jeczalik in the wake of the Yes 90125 sessions, to selections from the Ambassadors Theatre performances featuring Horn and Morley, recorded at concerts profiling ZTT acts—prior to which, Langan, Jeczalik, and Dudley had abandoned the label (and, for the time being, the band). The set featured over 40 unreleased remixes, demos, and works in progress, as well as the complete vinyl version of Into Battle... – sourced from the original masters – for the first time on CD. The project was conceived, researched and compiled by music journalist (and Art of Noise aficionado) Ian Peel, who also wrote the box set's accompanying 36-page book, which featured new interviews with all of the original members.

In April 2011, Peel continued his archiving of classic and vaulted ZTT material, now named the Element Series, with a Deluxe Edition reissue of Into Battle with the Art of Noise. This was intended to be the first of a chronological remastering and repackaging of the Art of Noise's output, collating the original album or EP with extended and previously unavailable tracks. Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise?, considered the first 'true' AON album, was released as a Deluxe Edition on 19 September 2011.

In May 2017, a two-disc deluxe edition of In Visible Silence was released. Included is the remastered album, along with several remixes and B-sides, taken from previous 12" singles and available on CD for the first time. Also included are outtakes and unreleased material from the group's time with China Records. Shortly thereafter, a similar deluxe edition of their next album, In No Sense? Nonsense! was released.

Other work
The Art of Noise wrote and recorded the theme music to the popular British game show The Krypton Factor, which was used from 1986 to 1993; the group also composed the short music pieces that introduced each of the six rounds. The group also composed and performed the opening theme for the third series of the chat show The Max Headroom Show. The track, titled "Happy Harry's High Club" (after a phrase spoken by Max Headroom on Paranoimia), is featured on In Visible Silence.

Discography

 * Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? (1984)
 * In Visible Silence (1986)
 * In No Sense? Nonsense! (1987)
 * Below the Waste (1989)
 * The Seduction of Claude Debussy (1999)

DVD and video

 * "The Art of Noise in: Visible Silence" (1986) – a concert filmed in the Hammersmith Odeon on 15 August 1986.
 * The Art of Noise: "Into Vision" (2002) – four different concerts between 1999 and 2000 in Chicago; The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California; in Shepherd's Bush, London; and in Wembley, London.

title: Art of Noise


text:
Will Ferrell

John William Ferrell (born July 16, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. Ferrell is known for his leading man roles in comedy films and for his work as a television producer. He has earned five Emmy Awards and in 2011 was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. In 2015, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named the best comedian in British GQ.

Ferrell first established himself in the mid-1990s as a cast member on the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, where he performed from 1995 to 2002, and has subsequently starred in a string of comedy films. After starring in the 2003 comedy film Old School, Ferrell became considered a member of the "Frat Pack", a generation of leading Hollywood comic actors who emerged in the late 1990s and the 2000s, including Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Vince Vaughn, Paul Rudd, and brothers Owen and Luke Wilson. He founded the comedy website Funny or Die in 2007 with his former writing partner Adam McKay.

He starred in comedy films such as Elf (2003), Anchorman (2004), Kicking & Screaming (2005), Talladega Nights (2006), Blades of Glory (2007), Step Brothers (2008), The Other Guys (2010), Get Hard (2015), and Barbie (2023). Ferrell has also taken dramatic roles in Stranger than Fiction (2006), Everything Must Go (2010), and Downhill (2020). He has voiced roles in Curious George (2006), Megamind (2010), The Lego Movie film franchise (2014–2019) and Despicable Me 4 (2024).

He has received four Primetime Emmy Awards for his work as a producer on the drama series Succession (2019–2023) and for the specials Live in Front of a Studio Audience (2019–2022). He also produced the series I'm Sorry (2017–2019), the series Dead to Me (2019–2022), and the series Drunk History (2013–2019). For his work on Broadway he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Special Theatrical Event for his satirical portrayal as George W. Bush in You're Welcome America (2009).

Early life and education
John William Ferrell was born on July 16, 1967, in Irvine, California, to Betty Kay (née Overman; born 1940), a teacher who taught at Old Mill School elementary school and Santa Ana College, and Roy Lee Ferrell Jr. (born 1941), who played saxophone and keyboards for the Righteous Brothers. His parents were both natives of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. They moved to California in 1964. Ferrell's ancestry includes English, German, and Irish. As an infant Ferrell suffered from pyloric stenosis and had a pyloromyotomy to correct the condition. He has a younger brother, Patrick.

When he was eight years old, his parents divorced. Ferrell said of the divorce: "I was the type of kid who would say, 'Hey, look at the bright side! We'll have two Christmases'." The divorce was amicable, and both parents were committed to their children. The biggest problem was his father's line of work. As a person in show business, his paychecks were never steady, and he traveled from home for months at a time. Growing up in this environment made Ferrell not want to go into show business and instead have a steady job.

Ferrell first attended school at Culverdale Elementary and later attended Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, both in Irvine. He attended University High School in Irvine, and was a kicker for the school's varsity football team. He was also on the soccer team and captain of the basketball team, as well as serving on the student council. Ferrell called third grade "a pivotal year." He realized he could make his classmates laugh if he pretended to smash his head against the wall, or if he tripped and fell on purpose, and said it was a great way to make friends. He said the dullness of Irvine contributed to the growth of his humor:

"Growing up in suburbia, in safe, master-planned Irvine, there was no drama so we had to create it in our heads. My main form of entertainment was cracking my friends up and exploring new ways of being funny. I didn't have to have the survival mode instinct like other comics, who grew up in tough neighborhoods. I had the opposite. For me, I grew up in Mayberry, and the humor broke the boredom. And there was a lot to make fun of."

In his senior year of high school, Ferrell and a friend would perform comedy skits over the school's intercom system, with cooperation from the principal; the two had to write their own material. Ferrell also performed comedic skits in the school's talent shows. He was voted "Best Personality" by his classmates. He enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he studied sports broadcasting and joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. In college, he was known for a few pranks. On occasion, he would dress in a janitor's outfit and stroll into his friends' classes. He was also known for streaking around campus with a few other people from the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. Ferrell earned an internship at a local television station in the sports department, but he did not enjoy the work.

After graduating with a B.A. degree in sports information in 1990, he knew he did not want to do broadcasting. He took up a job as a hotel valet where, on his second day, he tore a baggage rack off the top of a van by trying to drive it under a low beam. He also worked as a teller at Wells Fargo, but came up short $300 the first day and $280 the second; he was not stealing the money, but was just careless and error-prone. In 1991, encouraged by his mother to pursue something he liked, Ferrell moved to Los Angeles. He successfully auditioned for the comedy group The Groundlings where he spent time developing his improvisation skills.

1994–2001: Saturday Night Live
Before joining The Groundlings, Ferrell's attempts at standup comedy had little success. He started in the advanced classes and grew to love improvisation. He realized he also liked to impersonate people, and one of his favorites was Harry Caray, the Hall of Fame baseball announcer. Soon he began to create original characters, and by 1994 he had joined The Groundlings. With fellow Groundlings member Chris Kattan, he created the Butabi Brothers, who go out to dance clubs to try to pick up women but are constantly rejected. While taking classes, Ferrell got a job at an auction house via his friend Viveca Paulin. The job was ideal as it was flexible enough for him to audition and go to rehearsals while also being employed. By 1995 he was receiving small roles, including appearances in TV series Grace Under Fire and Living Single, low-budget films such as A Bucket of Blood, as well as commercials. One winter, he served as a mall Santa Claus.

After SNL's decline in popularity in 1994–1995, and in need of new cast members for the next season, a producer saw The Groundlings and asked Ferrell, Kattan, and Cheri Oteri to audition for SNL's main producer, Lorne Michaels. Ferrell joined Saturday Night Live in 1995 and left in 2002 after a seven-year tenure. He has hosted the show five times, thereby becoming a member of the show's Five Timers Club.

During his time on SNL, Ferrell made a name for himself with his impersonations, which included US President George W. Bush, Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, singer Robert Goulet (crooning a cappella pieces of music by Sisqó, Baha Men, and The Notorious B.I.G.), singer Neil Diamond, Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton (who favored Ferrell's impersonation), Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, United States Attorney General Janet Reno, convicted Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, game show host Alex Trebek, fictitious private detective John Shaft, professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, US Vice President Al Gore, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and Cuban President Fidel Castro.

His original characters included Morning Latte co-host Tom Wilkins, Mister Ed the Horse's twin brother Ned, fictional Blue Öyster Cult member Gene Frenkle (physically modeled after the band's vocalist Eric Bloom), music teacher Marty Culp, cheerleader Craig Buchanan, Dale Sturtevant from Dissing Your Dog, Hank of the Bill Brasky Buddies, David Leary from Dog Show, angry and inattentive Dr. Beaman and night clubber Steve Butabi in sketches that were turned into a feature film in 1998's A Night at the Roxbury. Although a one-shot character, one of Ferrell's most memorable SNL characters is Dale McGrew, a "highly patriotic" office worker who comes to work wearing a half t-shirt and short shorts that Ferrell improvised into a thong just before the skit aired live, leading to genuine laughter from the cast and guest host Seann William Scott. Ferrell became the highest paid cast member of Saturday Night Live in 2001 with a season salary of $350,000. Ferrell returned to Saturday Night Live as a guest host on May 14, 2005; May 16, 2009; May 12, 2012; January 27, 2018, and November 23, 2019. For the first two hosting appearances, he reprised his role as Alex Trebek in the "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketches. On the May 14 appearance, Ferrell reprised his role as Robert Goulet in a fake commercial advertising a series of ringtones and, during the performance of the song "Little Sister" by musical guests Queens of the Stone Age, Ferrell came on stage playing the cowbell.

2002–2010: Film stardom
During his time on Saturday Night Live, Ferrell appeared in several movies: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), A Night at the Roxbury (1998), Superstar (1999), The Ladies Man (2000), Dick (1999), Drowning Mona (2000), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), and Zoolander (2001). His first starring role after his departure from Saturday Night Live was as Frank "The Tank" Richard in Old School (2003). The film "belongs to Mr. Ferrell," declared The New York Times, which described how he "uses his hilarious, anxious zealotry to sell the part." Old School was a success and Ferrell received an MTV Movie Awards nomination for Best Comedic Performance.

The title role in Elf (2003) followed, as did another MTV Movie Awards nomination. Ferrell continued to land comedy roles in 2004 and 2005 in films such as Melinda and Melinda, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and Starsky & Hutch earning himself a place among Hollywood's Frat Pack. In 2005, Ferrell earned $40 million. In 2006, Ferrell starred in Stranger Than Fiction, Curious George, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Both received critical and box office success. Ferrell's performance in Stranger Than Fiction introduced audiences to the dramatic potential of Ferrell's acting talents, while Talladega Nights was his highest grossing live-action opening as of 2010 at $47 million. On December 27, 2006, The Magazine named Ferrell as one of its three actors of the year in their 2006 year in review issue. A sequel to Anchorman, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, was released in 2013.

In 2008, Ferrell starred in the movie Step Brothers with John C. Reilly. The movie also starred Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, Mary Steenburgen, and Richard Jenkins. It was directed by frequent Ferrell collaborator Adam McKay, who was also a co-writer of the movie. The movie earned $128 million worldwide. The film received mixed reviews but has since become a cult classic. Chris Hewitt of Empire praised the chemistry of two leads writing, "Ferrell and Reilly are a superb double-act, Reilly's cockiness meshing well with Ferrell's puppy dog innocence. They're fine separately, but when the two are together, be it during an extended fight scene with a bunch of kids, or a demented sleepwalking sequence, the movie is a blast."

Ferrell is also known for his promotional appearances including acting as part of a pre-game video package for the Rose Bowl along with University of Texas at Austin alum Matthew McConaughey. Ferrell sang a song at the ESPY Awards in 2006 about Lance Armstrong and Neil Armstrong. He and John C. Reilly performed a spot during the 2008 ESPY Awards within which they made demands in order for them to appear at the ESPYs, such as asking Portland Trail Blazers' center Greg Oden to tuck them in at night and tell them stories of the old times or to bring back the Cold War so the Olympics can be interesting again. Ferrell has worked as a voice actor in several animated television programs and films, including his portrayal of Bob Oblong, a 1950s-style father with no arms or legs, in the short-lived animated television series The Oblongs which ran on The WB and Adult Swim.

He has had several guest appearances on Family Guy where he played the Black Knight in "Mr. Saturday Knight", as well as Fat Greek Guy and Miles "Chatterbox" Musket in Fifteen Minutes of Shame. He had a recurring cameo role as Bitch Hunter in the sitcom 30 Rock. Ferrell also starred as Ted (a.k.a. The Man in the Yellow Hat) in the film Curious George and guest voiced on an episode of the FOX sitcom King of the Hill as a politically correct soccer coach. He voiced the title character in the 2010 DreamWorks Animation feature film Megamind (replacing both Robert Downey Jr., who dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, and Ben Stiller, who also turned down the role and was instead cast in a minor role as Bernard the curator) as well as President Business in The Lego Movie, released in 2014. He reprised the latter role in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, released in 2019.

Ferrell has presented numerous times at the Academy Awards. He sang a humorous song "Get Off the Stage" with Jack Black in 2004 and sang a song about comedies being snubbed by the voters in favor of dramas John C. Reilly and Jack Black in 2007. Ferrell made his Broadway debut taking on departing U.S. President George W. Bush in a one-man show called You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush. The show started performances on January 20, 2009, in previews—Bush's final day in office—at the Cort Theatre and opened officially on February 1. The limited engagement played through March 15, 2009.

In May 2009, it was announced that Ferrell was in talks to star in a feature film, Neighborhood Watch (later The Watch), a comedy about an urbanite who moves to the suburbs and uncovers a conspiracy. In negotiations to direct was David Dobkin, who gave Ferrell a cameo in Wedding Crashers. In August 2009, Ferrell decided not to do the film. Ferrell starred in the feature film Land of the Lost (2009). It was a commercial and critical flop, earning $19 million on opening weekend—about two-thirds of what the studio expected. In 2010, he was the executive producer and star of The Other Guys, a buddy cop film which also has an ensemble cast including Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan, Ray Stevenson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Dwayne Johnson. The film was a commercial success earning over $140 million and was positively reviewed by critics.

2011–2019: Career expansion
Ferrell appeared in the 2011 music video for "Make Some Noise" by the Beastie Boys, in the front of a limo playing a cowbell. He stars in Casa de Mi Padre, a telenovela spoof comedy set in a ranch with Mexican stars Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal. The movie is told in melodramatic telenovela form and features English-language subtitles. He starred alongside Zach Galifianakis in the 2012 political comedy The Campaign, which garnered mediocre reviews and grossed $104 million against a budget of $95 million. Also in 2012, he appeared in the comedy Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie and starred as Armando Álvarez in the Spanish-language comedy Casa de Mi Padre which was directed by frequent collaborator Matt Piedmont.

In a 2014 poll taken as part of a commemorative SNL feature on Grantland, Ferrell was voted the best Saturday Night Live cast member of all time. On December 12, 2015, Ferrell appeared in the cold open of the show in character as George W. Bush. He reprised this role when he returned as host in 2018.

Ferrell and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, who have had a long-running joke feud over their similar appearance appeared on the May 22, 2014 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for a charity drum-off battle. Despite Smith clearly giving the better performance, Ferrell was named the winner and awarded a giant gold cowbell. Both were joined by Smith's Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmates for a performance of "Don't Fear the Reaper", with Ferrell playing cowbell. On June 10, 2014, Ferrell and Smith challenged Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich to a drum-off with Ferrell, saying Ulrich looks "eerily similar" to the two of them. Ulrich accepted the challenge two days later.

In 2015, he starred in the buddy comedy Get Hard and the comedy Daddy's Home, with the latter reuniting him and The Other Guys co-star Mark Wahlberg. He reprised his role, Jacobim Mugatu, in the Zoolander sequel, Zoolander 2 (2016). He then reprised his character from Daddy's Home in the sequel, Daddy's Home 2 (2017).

In 2014, Ferrell filmed a role for the comedy-drama Zeroville, based on the novel of the same name. The film's release was delayed until 2019. Also in 2014, Ferrell signed on to portray director Russ Meyer in Russ and Roger Go Beyond, a comedic biopic documenting the making of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, alongside Josh Gad as Roger Ebert. In 2018, prior to filming, the project was cancelled due to the recent #MeToo movement and Meyer's association with sexploitation filmmaking.

In February 2019, Ferrell launched The Ron Burgundy Podcast in collaboration with the iHeart Radio Podcast Network. The show was originally slated for two seasons of twelve episodes each. In 2022, the podcast was renewed for a fifth live season. In October 2019, Ferrell partnered with iHeart Radio to launch his own podcast network, the Big Money Players Network. The partnership deal included 10 scripted and unscripted comedy podcasts set to be released over a two-year period.

2020–present
In 2020 Ferrell starred alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the remake of the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure, entitled Downhill which was directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. That same year he starred in the musical comedy film Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga with Rachel McAdams. In 2022 he starred in the Apple TV+ musical comedy film Spirited with Ryan Reynolds. He also served as the film's producer. The next year he played the CEO of Mattel in Greta Gerwig's comedy film Barbie (2023) starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling; the same year he produced and starred in the film Quiz Lady.

Creating and producing
In April 2007, Ferrell and Adam McKay launched "Funny or Die", a streaming video website where short comedy films are uploaded and voted on by users. One of the featured shorts, The Landlord, stars Ferrell as a man harassed for the rent by his landlady, a swearing, beer-loving, two-year-old girl, played by McKay's own daughter, Pearl. Child psychologists have criticized Ferrell and the McKay family for child exploitation, to which McKay responded, "Fortunately she is in this great stage now where she repeats anything you say to her and then forgets it right away, which is key. She has not said the 'B-word' since we shot the thing." They followed with the release of a video entitled "Good Cop, Baby Cop" which also starred baby Pearl; the end of the video stated that this would be her final appearance and wished her a happy "baby retirement".

In September 2008, Ferrell released another video entitled "Will Ferrell Answers Internet Questions" where he takes some pressing questions and comments from his fans. Another Ferrell appearance on "Funny or Die" is in the video called "Green Team", featuring also McKay and John C. Reilly. It shows militant ecologic activists terrorizing the crew on a filming set.

Ferrell co-produced (with Adam McKay) an HBO show starring Danny McBride called Eastbound & Down. He also had a recurring role as car dealer Ashley Schaeffer.

Ferrell was one of the executive producers of The Chris Gethard Show, which aired on Fusion from 2015 to 2016 and on truTV from 2017 to 2018.

Ferrell is one of the executive producers of Dead to Me (2019–2022), which stars Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini.

In 2019, Ferrell ended his personal and professional relationship with Adam McKay and closed their production company, Gary Sanchez Productions. It was later revealed the reason for the split was due to the fact that McKay cast John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss on the show Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, a role that Ferrell wanted, without letting Ferrell know.

Personal life
In August 2000, Ferrell married Swedish actress Viveca Paulin, whom he met in 1995 at an acting class. They live in New York City and Orange County, California, and have three sons, born in 2004, 2006, and 2010.

At USC, Ferrell was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and is now an active alumnus. Ferrell has worked with former head coach Pete Carroll to do motivational stunts for the players during the season.

Ferrell has run multiple marathons, including the Boston, New York, and the Stockholm marathons. He also raises money for charity, including his Scholarships for Cancer Survivors campaign, through a micro-donations fundraising platform.

In 2007, Autograph magazine named Ferrell the worst celebrity autographer. Its editor stated: "What's so frustrating about Will Ferrell being the worst autograph signer this past year is that he used to be so nice to fans and collectors and a great signer. What makes him so bad is that he'll taunt people asking for his autograph." In response, Ferrell stated: "I don't know how I got on the list. I sign a lot of autographs." He has, however, admitted to taunting autograph-seekers: "I do. I really do. I'm like, 'How badly do you want this autograph?' 'Are you sure?' 'You say you're my biggest fan, really, prove it.' I'll do things like that. They have to earn it."

Ferrell appeared on an episode of Man vs. Wild in which he traveled throughout the tundras of Sweden with the show's host, Bear Grylls. In the episode, Ferrell came across various unique situations, such as eating the eye of a reindeer.

On January 7, 2016, it was announced that Ferrell would become a part-owner of Los Angeles FC, a Major League Soccer team set to begin playing in 2018, as one of several celebrity co-owners of the team (including Mia Hamm and Magic Johnson).

On May 12, 2017, Ferrell was awarded an honorary D.H.L. degree by the University of Southern California.

On April 13, 2018, Ferrell was involved in a serious two-car collision in California. The SUV he was a passenger in flipped over during the crash. Ferrell was one of three passengers in the car. He was seen talking on his cellphone while being loaded into an ambulance. Ferrell, along with another passenger, was unhurt in the accident; two others were injured. He was released from the hospital shortly after said to be "doing fine."

Political views
Ferrell is a supporter of the Democratic Party and in 2018, canvassed on behalf of the party in the state of Georgia.

Ferrell had noted that, though he was well known for his SNL impersonation of President George W. Bush, he chose, for both professional and political reasons, not to meet the president on several occasions. Unlike his SNL predecessor Dana Carvey's famous relationship with George H. W. Bush, Ferrell has said: "I declined, partly out of comedic purposes, because when I was on the show Saturday Night Live at the time, it didn't make sense to really meet the people that you play, for fear of them influencing you. And then the other side of it is, from a political standpoint, I don't want to meet that guy."

In August 2012, while in Australia promoting The Campaign, Ferrell made a guest appearance on the Network 10 live panel news/comedy show The Project. He found himself speaking via video link to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, during which they had a light-hearted conversation about hairdressing.

Ferrell supported Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election and met him (along with his wife, Michelle) in 2011.

In February 2013, Ferrell endorsed Eric Garcetti for mayor of Los Angeles.

Sports
Baseball

On May 6, 2010, at a Minor League Baseball game at Dell Diamond in Round Rock, Texas, Ferrell was introduced between innings as a Venezuelan pitcher for the Round Rock Express named "Billy Ray 'RoJo' Johnson". Wearing a false mustache and carrying a bag of beer cans to the mound, Ferrell threw one pitch and was ejected after a staged fight and chase with an opposing batter. He revealed himself to the fans when his moustache fell off during the chase. A video of the skit went viral. The appearance was cooked up by Ferrell and the Express, who sent out a press release announcing Johnson's "signing" to promote a charity golf outing the following day at a nearby country club.

Ferrell played in five games of Major League Baseball spring training on March 12, 2015, for ten different Cactus League teams as a promotion for a Funny or Die charity special. He played for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, Cincinnati Reds, Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, and the San Francisco Giants, playing all ten positions (including designated hitter). According to Baseball-Reference, Ferrell faced and retired one batter – pitching on behalf of the Dodgers and ending with a 0.00 earned run average. The memorabilia from his one-day professional baseball career was sold and the proceeds donated to two cancer charities. Ferrell went 0–2 with two strikeouts that day but managed to foul off a 92 mph fastball from the Giants' Jean Machi.

Ice Hockey

Ferrell is an avid fan of the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL) and frequently partners with the club and attends games while seated in the front row. Ferrell has produced several video messages which the Kings have aired on the jumbotron during games throughout the years.

Ferrell has taken an active role in the Kings' fandom. During the 2023 playoffs matchups between the Kings and Edmonton Oilers, Ferrell appeared in his usual front row seats donning checkered faceprint in the Kings' colors, which circulated and drew parodies around the NHL.

In a March 21, 2019 game between the Kings and San Jose Sharks, Ferrell commentated the entire second period of the match on the local television broadcast in-character as Ron Burgundy. For the 2023–24 NHL season, Kings goaltender Cam Talbot, although himself not a member of the team at the time of the broadcast, bore a depiction of Burgundy in reference to the event.

Soccer

Ferrell took part in Soccer Aid 2012. In 2016, he became a part-owner of Los Angeles FC, which competes in Major League Soccer. When asked about why he became a co-owner Ferrell said "I don't really have a side per se until LAFC get started and that will definitely be, obviously, my team. But I just enough watching the fact that it's played all over the world. So many amazing players and so many top flight leagues. And hopefully MLS can be on par, eventually, with the European leagues."

Filmography
• Selected filmography

• Saturday Night Live (1995–2002)

• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

• A Night at the Roxbury (1998)

• Superstar (1999)

• Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

• Zoolander (2001)

• Old School (2003)

• Elf (2003)

• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

• The Producers (2005)

• Bewitched (2005)

• Kicking & Screaming (2005)

• Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

• Curious George (2006)

• Blades of Glory (2007)

• Semi-Pro (2008)

• Step Brothers (2008)

• Land of the Lost (2009)

• Everything Must Go (2010)

• The Other Guys (2010)

• Megamind (2010)

• The Campaign (2012)

• Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)

• The Lego Movie (2014)

• Get Hard (2015)

• Daddy's Home (2015)

• Zoolander 2 (2016)

• Daddy's Home 2 (2017)

• Holmes & Watson (2018)

• The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

• Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)

• Spirited (2022)

• Barbie (2023)

• Despicable Me 4 (2024)

Awards and honors
Over his career Ferrell has received various awards nominations including sixteen Primetime Emmy Award nominations winning three awards, one for Succession (2020), and twice for Live in Front of a Studio Audience (2019, 2020). Ferrell received two Golden Globe Award nominations for his comedian performances in The Producers (2005), and Stranger than Fiction (2006). He also received a Tony Award nomination for Best Special Theatrical Event for You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush (2009).

Ferrell also has received various honors including the James Joyce Award from the University College Dublin's Literary and Historical Society in recognition for "excelling in his field" in 2008. In 2011 he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Ferrell received the prize at a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts where he was honored by fellow comedians and collaborators Conan O'Brien, John C. Reilly, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Adam McKay, Tim Meadows, Matthew Broderick, and Ed Asner. In 2015, Ferrell received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in motion pictures.

In 2022, Los Angeles F.C. of Major League Soccer (MLS) – of which Ferrell is part owner – won the MLS Cup, thus giving him an MLS championship to his credit.

title: Will Ferrell


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Age Concern

Age Concern is the banner title used by several charitable organizations (NGOs) specifically concerned with the needs and interests of all older people (defined as those over the age of 50) based chiefly in the four countries of the United Kingdom.

In addition to providing practical support to individuals, Age Concern campaigns on issues such as age discrimination and pensions, influence public opinion and government policy about older people.

Numerous Age Concern organisations have been established throughout the UK, working at national and local levels. At the national level, four Age Concern organisations covered England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Local Age Concerns vary from small village groups to countywide organisations. In England, over 370 of the individual charities were members of a national federation. Although each was a separately registered charity working under the Age Concern banner, the federation allowed members to collaborate at local, regional, and national levels, to share resources, expertise, and influence.

Similar organisations also exist in New Zealand, Spain, Ukraine, and elsewhere under similar banners.

There was a merger of Age Concern England and Help the Aged, and somewhat later Age UK took over the mantle of the national face of concern for the aged in the UK, and several local organisations have also adopted the new name, but many local organisations continued to operate as local Age Concerns. One of these was Age Concern Manchester, and other examples are Age Concern Luton and Age Concern Central Lancashire.

History
Age Concern's origins are in the United Kingdom and can be traced back to a realisation in that country of the effects on aged people of the Second World War; the dislocation and breakdown of family life arising out of conscription led to a recognition that existing poor laws failed to provide effective support for old people separated from family support networks.

In 1940, the Old People's Welfare Committee (OPWC), chaired by Eleanor Rathbone, was formed as a forum for discussion between government and voluntary organisations. OPWC was a sub-committee of the Liverpool Personal Service Society (PSS). In 1944, the committee changed its name to the National Old People's Welfare Committee (NOPWC) and took on responsibility for coordinating the activities of numerous local OPWCs.

From the 1950s onwards, NOPWC accessed government and local funds associated with the post-war development of the welfare state, to provide services to local committees, and training to wardens of old people's homes.

In 1968 it became clear to Denise Newman. the then chairman of the NOPW council, an organisation funded within the government and run by unaccountable grandees was not an effective voice for the needs of the elderly. At that time the funding allocated from the government through the Department of Social Services was £40,000 a year.

One problem was that the minister responsible (Dick Crossman) was not in a position politically to guarantee that should the group break with the government that the funds would naturally follow to the new entity. So it was the taking of this funding risk which initially marked out Age Concern as part of a new way of dealing with what could be seen as a government-supported charitable exercise. Secondly, having successfully established itself with its premises and retained its £40,000 grant, Newman then insisted that the newly appointed CEO be salaried, and therefore accountable. This was the first salaried appointment of the senior executive of any charity in the UK.

In 1971, under the new direction of David Hobman, the NOPWC changed its public name to Age Concern, and separated itself from the government and the National Council for Social Service, now NCVO. It did so while also launching a 'manifesto for old age' and establishing itself nationally as a lobbying body as well as an organisation that engaged in service provision and enhancement, training, and research.

The directors of Age Concern England have included David Hobman, Baroness Greengross, and Gordon Lishman - the current Director General.

In 1986 Age Concern established an Institute of Gerontology at King's College London into which it folded its own Age Concern Research Unit.

Heyday
On 30 May 2006, Age Concern launched Heyday - marking the launch by carrying out the UK's biggest survey, asking 10 million people born in the 1940s and 1950s for views on issues such as ageism, pensions, and health.

Heyday was launched as a not-for-profit membership organisation for people planning for or in retirement. Heyday offered members access to expert advice on finances, work, retirement, and health, as well as putting them in touch with one another, for a small annual subscription.

With ambitious membership targets, Heyday proved an expensive and controversial exercise within the Age Concern Federation. Due to lower-than-expected membership take-up, Age Concern restructured the Heyday scheme to meet the low level of activity.

Shortly after a Charity Commission report made several recommendations, Heyday announced that the scheme would close on 31 March 2009, noting that Heyday would maintain a presence on the Age Concern website.

The charity commissioned Sir Christopher Kelly to investigate the project. His 2009 report concluded that Age Concern had lost over £22 million on the venture.

Merger
In May 2008, Age Concern England and Help the Aged announced plans for the two charities to merge. Following consultation, this was confirmed in September, when Dianne Jeffrey was confirmed as the new chairman of trustees.

Tom Wright CBE, currently chief executive of VisitBritain, and Trustee of the Imperial War Museum was appointed Chief Executive of the new charity in November 2008.

The merged charity, now known as Age UK was formed on 1 April 2009, and launched a major branding exercise in April 2010, featuring Brian Cox, Ian McKellen, and Eleanor Bron in the charity's first television campaign.

Many of the individual Age Concern charities, however, found the terms of the merger unacceptable and remain independent and have no connection with Age UK. Examples include Age Concern Luton, Age Concern Eastbourne and Age Concern Central Lancashire.

title: Age Concern


text:
Queen's University

Queen's or Queens University may refer to:

 * Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
 * Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
 * Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950)
 * Queen's University of Belfast (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency) (1921–1969)
 * Queen's University Belfast A.F.C.
 * Queen's University of Ireland (1850–1882)
 * Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
 * Queens University (Bangladesh) in Dhaka

title: Queen's University