Publisher: Burt Bacharach working on memoir

[January 19, 2012]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Burt Bacharach will be handling the words for his next project: a memoir.

The award-winning collaborator on such hits as "I Say a Little Prayer" and "What the World Needs Now" has a deal with HarperCollins for a memoir due in November. The publisher announced Wednesday that his book will be called "Anyone Who Had a Heart," named after one of many songs Bacharach and lyricist Hal David wrote for Dionne Warwick.

According to HarperCollins, Bacharach will open up about professional success and personal troubles. His partnership with David broke up bitterly, and he has been divorced three times, from singer Paula Stewart, actress Angie Dickinson and fellow songwriter Carole Bayer Sager. His daughter, Nikki, committed suicide at age 40.

Bacharach, 83, has won three Academy Awards and eight Grammys. He helped write dozens of top 40 songs, covered by everyone from Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin to Alicia Keys and the cast of "Glee." His career spans decades of music history: He was Marlene Dietrich's arranger in the 1950s and `60s and caught on with audiences in recent years through his work with Elvis Costello, Dr. Dre and others and through his cameos in the "Austin Powers" movies.

His book, like so many of his songs, will be a team effort. Robert Greenfield, whose biography of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun came out in 2011, will assist with a story "told in Bacharach's own words."

[Associated Press; By HILLEL ITALIE]

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