New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Varèse Sarabande releases the PO - Original Motion Picture
Soundtrack digitally on January 13, 2017. The album features the original music composed by Burt Bacharach, winner of three Academy Awards and seven Grammy Awards. The album features the original song "Dancing With Your Shadow", composed by Bacharach, with lyrics by Billy Mann, and performed by Sheryl Crow.
PO follows the story of a recently widowed father struggling to raise his 10-year-old autistic son. The family drama stars
Christopher Gorham (COVERT AFFAIRS), Julian
Feder (WEINER DOG franchise) as Po, and Kaitlin Doubleday (EMPIRE). The film is completely authentic with Gorham, Asher and the writers, Colin Goldman and Steve C. Roberts, all having children with autism.
The subject of the film resonated with Bacharach, who had a daughter who suffered from Asperger's Syndrome and eventually took her own life. Originally he was approached to license a song to the film, but "The more I looked at the film, the more I kept getting drawn into it I started to think, maybe I'd like to score it for you," said Bacharach.
The score is mostly piano based, performed by Bacharach. "The music is tender and warm, melodic and unmistakably Bacharach," as described by Jon Burlingame of Variety.
For the original song "Dancing With Your Shadow," Bacharach reached out to lyricist Billy Mann, who is also raising an autistic child. "Burt gave me this magnificent melody," says Mann. "I had to work within that melody and at the same time try to narrow down lyrically what he was feeling, what I was feeling, and most of all what resonated with the film." He then brought in
Sheryl Crow to lend her vocals.
Burt Bacharach is six decades into one of songwriting's most successful and honored careers - marked by 48 Top 10 hits, nine #1 songs, more than 500 compositions and a landmark 49-year run on the charts A recipient of three Academy Awards and seven Grammy Awards (including the 1997 Trustees Award with collaborator Hal David), he revolutionized the music of the 1950s and 60s as one of a handful of visionaries who pioneered new forms of music from the second half of the
20th Century and into the 21st Century their song, "The Look of Love," was sampled in Ashanti's "Rain on Me." His songs have been recorded by legendary singers, such as Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond,
Linda Ronstadt, Dionne Warwick and Franklin. Other tributes to the diversity of Bacharach's music have been paid by, among others,
Elvis Costello ("I'll Never Fall in Love Again" and "God Give Me Strength"), REM, Diana Krall, Barenaked Ladies,
Sheryl Crow and
Wynonna Judd.
Bacharach has also enjoyed a celebrated career in film as well. His compositions include "
Alfie" (1966); "What's New Pussycat?" (1965) "Casino Royale" (1967); "Arthur (Best That You Can Do)" (1981; the picture's theme won the Academy Award for Best Song); "
Night Shift" (1982); "Making Love" (1982); "Baby Boom" (1987); and the film for which Bacharach received two Academy Awards and a Grammy award, "Butch
Cassidy And The Sundance Kid" (1969), where "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" first appeared. Other Bacharach-enriched films include "Spiderman-Man 2" (2004); "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" (2004); the three "Austin Powers" movies; and the Grammy-nominated
Elvis Costello collaboration "God Give Me Strength" (from 1996's "Grace Of My Heart").
