“Wonderful” was the word that music icon Dionne Warwick used when asked how she felt about working with some of today’s hottest R&B artists on her duets album, “Feels So Good.”
“It was wonderful working with them and it was nice that they knew who Dionne Warwick was; they know good music and they know what I contributed to the music industry,” explained Warwick who worked with the likes of Ne-Yo, Mya, Cee-lo Green, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Ray Cyrus and Gladys Knight for her 28th album and second duet effort.
“The duet partners choose their favorite Dionne songs,” continued the 74 year-old. “It’s wonderful that they were able to get the songs and do a new spin on them.”
Warwick said she wanted to conjure up a feeling of goodness for fans who listened to “Feels So Good.”
“I want people to know that there is no difference in music. Everyone can relate to music. There are only eight bars in a song and everybody uses them,” she said.
Warwick has been a constant in the often turbulent music business for more than five decades. She comes from a family of singers with her mother, aunts and uncles being members of the gospel group, the Drinkard Singers. The group, which recorded on RCA Records, often performed throughout the New York Metropolitan area. Warwick performed her first gospel solo at the tender age of six at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., and cut her singing teeth when she would occasionally join her family’s group.
In 1958, Warwick, her sister Dee Dee, Myrna Utley and Carol Slade formed their own girl group, the Gospelaires. The group performed at the Apollo Theater where they won the weekly amateur contest. The group became highly sought-after background singers and performed for such artists as the Drifters, Jerry Butler, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin and Solomon Burke.
While performing background vocals on the Drifters’ “Mexican Divorce,” Warwick’s amazing voice and obvious star presence was noticed by composer Burt Bacharach, who penned “Mexican Divorce” and who was writing songs with other song writers including lyricist, Hal David. Bacharach asked the young Warwick if she would be interested in recording demonstration songs of his work that he used to pitch the songs to record labels.
The demo, “It’s Love that Really Counts” (which was ultimately recorded by the Shirells) caught the attention of Scepter Record’s president, Florence Greensburg. Warwick was signed to Bacharach and David’s production company, which was signed to Scepter Records in 1962.
Her debut album, “Presenting Dionne Warwick,” was released in early 1963 and included her demonstration song, “It’s Love that Really Counts.”
To whet the public’s appetite, the label released her first solo single, the Bacharach and David composed “Don’t Make Me Over.” It would become the team’s first top-40 Pop and top 5 U.S. R&B hit.
Immediately following the success of “Don’t Make Me Over,” “This Empty Place” and “Make The Music Play” charted in the top 100. Warwick’s fourth single, “Anyone Who Had a Heart” was released at the end of 1963. It was her first top 10 hit—reaching number 8 on the charts—and was also an international million seller.
That success was followed by “Walk on By” in mid-1964, which solidified her place in music royalty. For the remainder of the 1960s, Warwick was a mainstay on the U.S. and Canadian music charts. The majority of the music she released from 1962 to 1971 were written and produced by the Bacharach/ David team.
January 1967 gave Warwick her first RIAA certified gold album with “Here Where There is Love.” The record featured her signature classic, “Alfie” and two other hits, “Trains and Boats and Planes” and “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.” “Alfie” became a radio hit when nationwide disc jockeys flipped the B-side of the single, “The Beginning of Loneliness” and made it a double-sided hit.
Bacharach had been hired to produce “Alfie” for the Michael Caine film of the same name and wanted Warwick to sing it, but the producers, who were British, wanted a British singer to record it. At first Warwick balked at the idea of recording “Alfie,” but she went into the studio to record Bacharach’s new arrangement of the song—which she completed in one take. Warwick’s version of “Alfie” peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on both the R & B Charts and the AC charts.
“I Say A Little Prayer” from her “Windows of the World” album reached number four on the U.S. and Canadian charts and number eight on the R&B charts. The song was also the first RIAA certified U.S.A. million seller for Bacharach and David.
Warwick’s next hit, the theme from the Valley of the Dolls, was not penned by the magical Bacharach and David team. It was the B-side to her “I Say a Little Prayer” single and she almost didn’t record it. While the film version of “Valley of the Dolls” was being made actress Barbara Parkins proposed that Warwick be considered to perform the Andre and Dory Pervin-penned song.
When the movie became a box office hit in early 1968, disc jockeys across the country once again flipped the record and made the record, which included “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” a double-sided hit.
Other songs followed including “There’s Always Something There to Remind Me” and “This Girl’s In Love With You.” Warwick became the top act of Scepter Records. In 1971, she left Scepter Records for Warner Bros. Records for a $5 million contract, the most lucrative recording contract ever given to a female vocalist at the time.
Written and produced by Bacharach and David, her debut for Warner Bros., “Dionne” peaked at number 67 on the Billboard 100 in January 1972. The team scored and wrote the songs for the motion picture “Lost Horizon” but the film was a flop and due to the fall out, Bacharach and David decided to cease their writing relationship, leaving Warwick adrift.
Warwick was contractually bound with the record company and ended up working with several producers and writers, which caused her career to take a hit. However, she did score a big hit with “Then Came You,” which she recorded as a duet with the Spinners. The song became her first U.S. hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Her five-year contract with Warner Bros. ended in 1977.
In 1979, now an artist on Arista Records, she released the Barry Manilow produced hit, “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” her companion album “Dionne” was certified platinum in the U.S. and peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Album Chart.
Her next big hit, “Déjà vu,” which was co-written by Isaac Hayes took the number one spot on the adult contemporary chart and No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1980 Warwick won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance Female for “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.” And Best R & B Vocal Performance Female for “Déjà vu.” She became the first female artist in the history of the awards to win in both categories the same year.
Her second Arista recording, 1980’s “No Night So Long” hit No. 1 on the adult contemporary and No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. In January of that year she hosted a two-hour special, “Solid Gold ’79,” which was turned into the hour-long music and dance show, “Solid Gold.” Warwick hosted it from 1980 to 1981 then again from 1985-1986.
“I would definitely like to host another show if something good like ‘Solid Gold’ came around,” she said. “But there’s nothing in the works right now.”
Warwick regained her post at the top of the charts with her full-album collaboration with Andy Gibb, “Heartbreaker.” The title song became one of Warwick’s biggest hits.
In 1983 she released the Luther Vandross-produced, “How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye,” which was a duet with the late velvet-voiced singer. It peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became a Top 10 hit on the adult contemporary and R & B charts.
“Finder of Lost Loves” followed in 1984 and reunited her with Manilow and Bacharach who was writing with his wife, Carole Bayer Sager. In 1985 Warwick contributed her signature voice to the American Foundation for AIDS Research benefit single, “That’s What Friends Are For” alongside Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Knight.
“That’s What Friends Are For” raised more than $3 million and sold close to 2 million singles in the United States alone. Two years later Warwick scored her eighth career number one adult contemporary hit with “Love Power,” which she sang with Jeffery Osborne. It was written by Bacharach and Sager.
During the 1990s, Warwick hosted infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network. Although that network was active from 1991 to 1998, Warwick did release the “Friends Can Be Lovers” album during the decade. Featured on the album was the song “Sunny Weather Lover” the first song that the Bacharach/David team had written for Warwick since 1972. Despite the reunion, the song failed to chart.
After a 15-year tenure with Arista Records, Warwick signed with Concord Records in 2006. Her only album for the label was “My Friends and Me,” a duet record containing reworking’s of her old hits, which is similar to 1998’s “Dionne Sings Dionne.” Her singing partners this time around were Gloria Estefan, Olivia Newton-John Wynonna Judd and Reba McEntire.
Just like “Feels So Good,” “Dionne Sings Dionne” was produced by her youngest son, Damon Elliot. “Dionne Sings Dionne” peaked at number 66 on the R & B and hip-hop charts. In 2011 she appeared on the Donald Trump’s NBC reality show “The Apprentice.” A year later she released “Now.”
“Feels So Good,” her first Bright Music/Caroline label release, is exciting to Warwick.
“Music makes my world and the world itself go around,” she said with a smile.
When she isn’t creating new music or touring, Warwick can be found working in her interior design company, WG Design Lab. She started the company three decades ago with her partner, Bruce Garrick.
“It’s been a well-kept secret,” she said. “There are different sides of Dionne that people get to know.”
Most recently the firm redecorated the Black Ensemble Theater in Chicago.
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