Burt Bacharach, the prolific composer and songwriter who penned some of the most iconic tunes of the 20th century, has died. He passed away due to natural causes Wednesday in his Los Angeles home, his publicist confirmed to the Associated Press. He was 94.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Bacharach grew up in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York. He developed a fascination with bebop as a teen in the ’40s, sneaking into midtown Manhattan clubs to hear legends like Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie play. After studying under composer Darius Milhaud at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California and doing an army stint in Germany, he returned to the east coast, gigging at Catskill resorts throughout the early and mid ’50s.

In 1956, he scored a job as a conductor and arranger for Marlene Dietrich’s nightclub shows. The following year, he met lyricist Hal David and formed the foundation of one of the most fruitful musical partnerships in history. Together, they’d pen dozens of charting hits including timeless classics such as “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Walk On By,” “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” and “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me.” Their primary muse was Dionne Warwick, though they also worked with Aretha Franklin, Neil Diamond, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, Bobbie Gentry, Barbra Streisand, Herb Alpert, the Carpenters, and countless others.

Bacharach maintained a steady work rate for more than 60 years, continuing to release music until close to the end. His music sits comfortably in the pop canon, but his stylistic innovations — from the blending of complex jazz harmony with pop melodies to the use of irregular phrasing and striking syncopation — earned him the respect of artists who worked outside the mainstream. His work has been acknowledge with six Grammy wins (out of 21 nominations), two Oscars, and an Emmy. With David, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972 and awarded the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2012, the same year David passed away.

“I didn’t want to make the songs the same way as they’d been done, so I’d split vocals and instrumentals and try to make it interesting,” he once told Mojo. “For me, it’s about the peaks and valleys of where a record can take you. You can tell a story and be able to be explosive one minute, then get quiet as kind of a satisfying resolution.”

“The shorthand version of him is that he’s something to do with easy listening,” said Elvis Costello, who worked with Bacharach on the 1998 album Painted From Memory, in a 2018 interview with the AP. “It may be agreeable to listen to these songs, but there’s nothing easy about them. Try playing them. Try singing them.”

Bacharach is survived by his fourth wife, Jane Hansen, and their two children, Oliver and Raleigh, as well as a son Cristopher from a previous marriage with Carole Bayer Sager. Nikki, the daughter of Bacharach and actress Angie Dickinson, died in 2007.