BACHARACH’S BACK ON KEY AFTER 10-YEAR SLUMP

The memorabilia in the music room of Burt Bacharach’s Bel-Air home reflect the level of success he has attained in a three-decade pop-music career. Tucked between framed photos and gold records is a personal note from Marlene Dietrich, for whom Bacharach arranged and conducted in the ‘60s. There’s also a fan letter from another top songwriter of the period, Jimmy Webb, and this handwritten tribute from Ira Gershwin: “For Burt, the 5th ‘B’--in no particular order--Beethoven, Brahms, Berlin, Bach & Bacharach.�

And that’s just on one wall.

The accolades are a reminder of just how celebrated Bacharach, now 58, was in the ‘60s. By the age of 40, he had composed 22 Top 10 hits and had won an Emmy, two Oscars and three Grammys. He had also become the personification of urbane, sophisticated pop music.

Then suddenly, the hits stopped. From 1971 to 1981, Bacharach didn’t earn a single Top 10 hit. The 1973 film musical “Lost Horizon,� which he scored, was, in his words, “a colossal fizzle.� A 1978 album with the Houston Symphony Orchestra was also a flop.

But Bacharach’s luck began to return in 1981. With Carole Bayer Sager, whom he would marry in 1982, Christopher Cross and Peter Allen, Bacharach composed the Oscar-winning “Arthur’s Theme,� sung by Cross. More hits followed: Roberta Flack’s “Making Love,� Neil Diamond’s “Heart-light.�

And this year, Bacharach and Sager have landed two No. 1 singles: Dionne Warwick’s “That’s What Friends Are For� and Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald’s “On My Own.�

If things keep going like this, Bacharach may need a bigger wall.

Bacharach gets emotional when he talks about “That’s What Friends Are For,� the graceful ballad that Warwick recorded with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight.

One reason is that the record’s profits--$500,000 at last count--were donated to the American Foundation for AIDS Research (Amfar). Another is that it was one of Bacharach’s first sessions with Warwick following a decade-long falling-out.

But the biggest reason is more personal.

After waiting for years to adopt a baby, Bacharach and Sager were notified last December that a 1-week-old boy was available for adoption.

“We got the call the day the record went to No. 1 on KIIS (FM),� Bacharach said. “If you give, look what you get back. We got this wonderful baby. It fell out of the sky.� (They named the boy Christopher Elton.)

Bacharach and Sager wrote “That’s What Friends Are For� four years ago for the movie “Night Shift.� Rod Stewart sang the song over the end credits, though it was never released as a single. They remembered the song when they were gathering material for Warwick and played it for her. She liked it and asked Wonder to sing on it.

“When Stevie was putting his vocal on,� Bacharach recalled, “Elizabeth Taylor, Neil Simon and a couple other people came by the studio. Elizabeth had just become chairman of Amfar and was struck by the words and the emotion she was hearing. The song wasn’t written for the medical catastrophe that was going on, but a lot of Carole’s lyrics were so pertinent, so right for the climate of the country in this situation, that the idea was born.�

Of course, the record would never have been cut had Bacharach and Warwick not reconciled.

Said Bacharach: “There was a 10-year period where we not only hadn’t been in the studio, but we weren’t speaking more than ‘hello.’ When Hal (David, Bacharach’s former collaborator) and I started to come apart, we weren’t able to be there in the studio for Dionne. So she sued us, and Hal sued me and I sued Hal. It was all very messy. It’s great to leave all that stuff behind you, to clean out that excess baggage.

“It’s also very exciting to be happenin’ again, ‘cause this is a business where you can go up and you can go down.�

And after his 10-year slump, Bacharach knows about downs.

“I think I got in trouble in a couple of ways,� he said. “I got in trouble when I started to play Vegas, Tahoe and Reno a couple of times a year, because I would never write during that time.

“Also, I had a lot of things going on in my life that were chewing up creative energy. There was a long lawsuit with a business manager that consumed time. That wasn’t exactly sending me to the piano with a lot of joy.�

Looking back, Bacharach said he wasn’t completely surprised by his ‘70s slump.

“I always kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in the ‘60s,� he said. “It’s the old writers-running-dry theory: When will the notes stop? When will I be burned out? When will I have written everything I’m supposed to write? So when it did happen and there was a dry period, I guess that’s what I probably expected or was calling in all along.�

Bacharach’s most conspicuous bomb was “Lost Horizon.�

“I just kind of went down to the beach at Del Mar and sort of hid,� Bacharach said, wincing. “It was such a giant bust, I didn’t want to be (seen) walking around this community.�

Five years later, Bacharach recorded an album, “Woman,� with the 100-piece Houston Symphony Orchestra. It never dented the Top 200.

“I cut into that album very intensely,� Bacharach said. “It meant a lot to do. It didn’t turn out the way . . . I mean, it was a flop , you know, but it was something I had to do to get it out of my system.

“I thought it could be a huge commercial success, but I wasn’t reading the marketplace at all at that time. I was like a wild horse let loose. I could have been off this planet .�

Bacharach mused for a second. “We’re a very good team, Carole and myself. She reined me in a little bit. Carole has a good creative sense for what’s commercial and what’s not. I think she gave me an awareness of the pop music scene that I might have been missing at that time.

“It’s great to be able to share in something like this with somebody that you love,� Bacharach added.

LaBelle and McDonald’s “On My Own,� which had a three-week run as the nation’s No. 1 single, is an unusual record for Bacharach. The slow-boil ballad has a gritty R&B; undercurrent that sets it apart from the sprightly hits traditionally associated with the Bacharach sound.

Bacharach attributed the new style to the fact that he’s writing less on the piano and more on synthesizers and drum machines. But he doesn’t really buy the notion of a “Bacharach sound.�

“A lot of people talk about the Bacharach sound, but I don’t know what that is,� he said. “ ‘What’s New, Pussycat?’ was as far from ‘Walk On By’ as you could get. ‘Alfie’ was a straight-out ballad and ‘Wives and Lovers’ was a jazz waltz. I guess the key denominator was in the ups-and-downs, the peaks and explosions. The songs were like miniature films.�

With his renewed success, Bacharach said that he’s writing more. He and Sager have two songs on the new El DeBarge album and are planning to go into the studio with Warwick, Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin.

“The more you write, the easier it is to be sitting up here in this room by yourself,� he said. “I used to say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go up to the music room. What a drag, I’m going to work . I’m going to the dungeon.’ Now if I’m away for a while, I start to miss it.�

Bacharach is also thinking about cutting another album--a mix of instrumentals and vocal pieces similar in format to recent Quincy Jones albums.

“I’m still signed to A&M;,� he said, “and I guess if I came up with something that I’d like to do that wasn’t a 100-piece orchestra sitting in Texas, they might say ‘Go for it.’ �

Bacharach sees a parallel between the music business and his other passion, race horses. He and Sager own several thoroughbreds, including Heartlight No. 1, named after the Neil Diamond hit.

“One of the nice things I learned from being involved with horses is a certain amount of patience,� said Bacharach. “I see it all the time: If a jockey stops or gives up on himself, he loses a certain confidence. You have to learn that everything goes in cycles.�