Kansas City native Burt Bacharach, who died at 94, has eerie link to midtown street

Eight years ago, Burt Bacharach took a concert audience at the Kauffman Center on a stroll down memory lane. For the legendary songwriter, who died Wednesday at 94, those memories began here.

Bacharach was born in Kansas City on May 12, 1928.

His father, Bert Bacharach, also a Kansas City native, worked as a buyer for the department store Woolf Brothers of Kansas City before launching a career as a syndicated columnist. His mother, Irma, was an amateur singer and pianist who encouraged her son to study music. Priceless advice, as it turned out.

The Bacharachs moved from Kansas City to New York — Forest Hills, Queens — in 1932, according to the New York Times.

When the elder Bacharach died in 1983, his obituary referenced his son’s fame — Academy Awards for the score of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” the movie’s theme song, “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” and “Arthur’s Theme” from the Dudley Moore movie.

Bacharach often credited the influence of a fellow Kansas Citian, jazz icon Charlie Parker.

In November 2014 Bacharach performed his biggest hits, Oscar and Grammy winners among them, for about 1,400 people at Muriel Kauffman Theatre.

The Star wrote that he told the audience he had visited his onetime family home on Warwick Boulevard the day before the concert. (In 2013, The Pitch located the house where Bacharach spent his toddler years and shared the address with him.)

“How is that for an odd coincidence, since many of these songs were sung by Dionne Warwick?” he asked the audience.

With collaborator Hal David, Bacharach produced a lengthy list of hits with Warwick, including “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Walk On By” and “I Say a Little Prayer.” She was also the original vocalist for several of his songs, including “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.”

One out-of-town fan in that audience couldn’t wait to share the news with his blog readers.

“Burt and his manager Sue Main arrived on Thursday in Kansas City. Burt went to the house where he lived until 1 year of age. Guess what the street name that he lived on? It was, Warwick Street!,” he gushed.