Barbra sings Bacharach

Brian Barlow brings Burt’s music to Base31

Juno-nominated singer-songwriter Barbra Lica wowed a nearly full house in the Sergeants Mess at Base31 last Wednesday evening with a selection of Burt Bacharach songs, the first time she had ever performed his works in public. Accompanied by Brian Barlow on drums, Scott Alexander on guitar and Gordon Sheard on piano, Lica performed a suite of Bacharach’s hits plus a few of his lesser-known tunes. When she was approached by Barlow to take part in this concert, she asked “Who’s Burt Bacharach?” She had never sung any of his songs before that, and she went into a deep dive researching his music, as well as looking into the lives of singers such as Dionne Warwick who built their fame on Bacharach songs. “I’ve been driving my family crazy with practising. It is undoubtedly the most difficult repertoire I’ve ever done in my life, and I went to jazz school for four years, so this is harder than that,” she said. “But it’s amazing how natural it feels after you sit and break it down. He has so many weird things happening with time that it makes your brain have this reaction where you’re ‘Oh, oh!’, but at the same time it’s so natural and the lyrics just fit it perfectly.”

On stage, Barlow and Lica have the banter of old friends. They built on each other’s stories and swapped jokes. They have known each other since Lica graduated from the University of Toronto and Barlow invited her as one of the Rising Stars in the Prince Edward County Jazz festival. “He already had a Rising Star, but he brought me in anyway. I did a few things over the years with his orchestra, and he’s naturally a really funny guy. I feel that when I’m playing with him it’s like playing with family. I’m always excited to perform with Brian, and I know some of the people involved with Base31, so I was sure that between the venue and the band, there was just going to be a killer time,” she said. Lica started her set with some of Bacharach’s top hits, such as I’ll Never Fall in Love Again and Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head. She looked the happiest while singing Close To You, where she explained that she was more partial to brunets rather than blonds, but this song reminded her of her lovely goldenhaired child, and she made a subtle change to the lyrics in that direction. She had a humorous exchange with Barlow when he asked her to sing a feminist Bacharach song. She threw up her hands after a verse or two from One Less Bell to Answer and Wishin’ and Hopin’. She did say however that Bacharach was deeply romantic in his songwriting and “had a passion for passion.”

Lica has released six albums of her original music, which she describes as a mix of folk, R&B and a little bit of alternative pop. She will be on tour over the next few months, first journeying to the East Coast, then west to Victoria and Vancouver Island before travelling across the prairies and back to Ontario. This show at Base31 was the first of four performances of Barbra Sings Bacharach, with additional performances on July 28, August 9 and September 1. Lica says the repertoire, which was arranged for her by Barlow, will stay mostly the same. “We’ll keep to the same set, so that we get really good at it by the fourth show. It’s really hard music. It’s not even just the time signature changes, they’re also so rangy—they start so low and end so high, it was even hard to pick keys. I need four shows to get really good at this.” For more information, please visit base31.ca.