Hal David Passes

HAL DAVID, 91, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning songwriter who asked the lyrical questions “What’s It All About?,” “What’s New, Pussycat?,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” and “What Do You Get When You Fall in Love?,” died Saturday from a stroke in L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. David was best known for the long string of hits that he and partner Burt Bacharach wrote for Dionne Warwick. David’s first Top 10 hit was “Magic Moments,” recorded by Perry Como in 1958, with his greatest achievements coming well after he turned 40. David’s words also found fertile ground on Broadway, in the hit musical Promises, Promises; in the Oscar-winning song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; and even at weddings, in the classic first-dance song “(They Long to Be) Close to You.” Warwick’s “I Say a Little Prayer,” a #4 hit in 1967, was the most successful of the three dozen or so singles that David and Bacharach wrote and produced for the singer, whom they met in 1961 when they were journeymen on the N.Y. music-publishing scene and she was a 20-year-old backup singer. David was President of ASCAP from 1980 to 1986 and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984. He and Bacharach were awarded earlier this year with the fourth Gershwin Prize by the Library of Congress. He is survived by his sons, Jim and Craig, his wife Eunice, and three grandchildren. His first wife, Anne, died in 1987. (9/4a)