Metro Detroiter remembers Burt Bacharach, owns musician's former piano
MILFORD, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Legendary composer Burt Bacharach died last week at age 94. One Metro Detroiter remembers the close connection he has to the musician.
Dan Yessian has had quite the career for years. He has written music for commercials and movies all across the world.
"Back in the day, I was writing a lot of local music commercials one of which was Dittrich furs...by the Dittrich family," Yessian said.
With Bacharach's passing, the musician is looking back on one of his idols.
"I followed Burt back in the 60s I was stunned by what he was writing more so because of his melodies."
Bacharach was the composer behind famed songs like "What the world needs now," and "That's what friends are for." He launched his career in the 1950s. Musicians from the likes of Elvis to Aretha Franklin performed his songs.
Yessian's connection is a bit more personal to Bacharach. Back in 2005, Yessian snagged one of Bacharach's first pianos, which was up for auction in Los Angeles.
"I had with me a bottle of scotch, I needed a drink because I needed to numb myself for the amount of money I was going to pay for this piano," he said. After a short back-and-forth bidding process, Yessian secured the item.
"I had tingles going through my spine I couldn't believe I was going to be the recipient of this man who's been, my musical hero."
Before the 1949 Steinway made its way to Metro Detroit, Yessian says the piano sat in Bacharach's ex-wife Angie Dickinson's apartment for years.
"She told me she could not relinquish the bench because that's where Burt had sat," Yessian said.
Bacharach wrote more than 500 songs, recorded by more than 1,000 artists. One of his most famous arrangments is "Raindrops keep falling on my head." The song was composed on the piano Yessian now owns.
Inside the piano, there's also a personal message from Bacharach. It reads, "I wrote a lot of good music on this piano."
With the piano in the Yessian family for years, the family also created its own memories with the piece of musical history.
"Everybody comes in my family that is to sing Christmas carols, and then I'll lunge into some Burt Bacharach pieces, and everybody currently knows the lyrics to these things," Yessian said.
Yessian has zero plans to let the piano out of sight. With his children also working in the music industry, he hopes to have the piece of history around for generations to come.
"I have no misunderstanding about what this is. This is a moment in time that I can relish in that gives me great pleasure to know that I have a piece of history that exemplifies what I consider to be my musical hero," he said.