Warwick, Dionne
Dionne Warwick
Singer
The elegant Dionne Warwick was one of the first black recording artists to reach a mainstream pop audience that knew no racial or ethnic barriers. In the late 1960s Warwick sold a phenomenal twelve million albums and placed numerous singles in the Top Ten as the result of her association with quirky songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David. During those years, writes People magazine correspondent Rich Wiseman, Warwick was “a red-hot singer of cold-hearted hits spanning pop, jazz and R…B.” Indeed, Warwick’s voice and manner were ideally suited to the sometimes coy, sometimes plaintive Bacharach-David tunes, and her work independent of that team has followed the same formula.
A Newsweek reporter describes Warwick’s style as “deliciously phrased, uncontrived and in a polished, flexible voice that [is] deep purple below and sky-blue above… a dazzling acrobatic display of vocal weightlessness, changing colors and dynamics with chilling impact.” The reporter adds, “Cushioning all her songs is an uncanny rhythmic sense…. Her body pulsates and twitches, and her voice seems somehow to swing to its own built-in rhythm section. Her songs become dramatic monologues, building tensions until the wild finish.” In the Washington Post, William makes a similar observation. According to Rice, Warwick “can produce the impression of a ’soul singer’s scream’ without raising her voice and so practiced is her vocal control and her technical mastery that she glides from a gospel chant to a torchsinger’s moan with disarming ease.”
It should come as no surprise that Warwick has perfected the gospel sound. She began her professional career as a gospel singer, working with the well-known Drinkard Singers and with her own group, the Gospelaires. Ironically, Warwick has claimed that she did not want to go into show business at all; instead, she wanted to teach music to schoolchildren. Warwick was born Marie Dionne Warrick in the comfortable middleclass community of Orange, New Jersey. Her mother, Lee, managed the Drinkard Singers from a base at the New Hope Baptist Church in nearby Newark, and as a teenager Dionne was often called in as a substitute singer when a regular group member was missing. Warwick was also in her teens when she formed the Gospelaires with her sister Dee Dee and two cousins. Gospel, she told Newsweek, “is the Bible in the form of song. It’s open prayer. Religion gives me comfort and complete freedom.”
Warwick attended Hartt College of Music on a scholarship, studying piano, voice, and music theory. Between terms she worked as a backup singer for Sam (” the Man”) Taylor and the Drifters, among others. In 1959
For the Record…
Name originally Marie Dionne Warrick; born December 12, 1941, in East Orange, N.J.; daughter of Mancel (a butcher) and Lee (manager of a gospel group) Warrick; married Bill Elliott, 1967 (divorced, 1975); children: David, Damion. Education: Attended Hartt College of Music, Hartford, Conn.
Gospel singer and organist with the Gospelaires and the Drinkard Singers, 1955–60; solo performer, 1960—. Signed with Scepter Records, 1961; released first hit single, “Don’t Make Me Over,” 1962. Had string of hit singles written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, including “Walk On By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” “What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love),” “Message to Michael,” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” Signed with Arista Records, 1979, produced hits “I’ll Never Love This Way Again,” “Deja Vu,” and “Heartbreaker.” With Stevie Wonder, recorded “That’s What Friends Are For,” 1986, to benefit medical research on AIDS.
Has made numerous television and film appearances, including “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Red Skelton Show,” “Solid Gold” (host, 1981), and “A Gift of Music.” Star of “The Dionne Warwick Special.”
Awards: Recipient of Grammy Awards for best female vocal performance, 1969, 1970, and 1980.
Addresses: Office —c/o 6464 Sunset Blvd., #1030, Hollywood, CA 90028.
Warwick was working on a Drifters recording when she caught the eye of Burt Bacharach, then a relatively unknown composer. “She was singing louder than everybody else,” Bacharach told Ebony, “so I couldn’t help noticing her. Not only was she clearly audible, but Dionne ’had something.’ Just the way she carries herself, the way she works, her flow and feeling for the music—it was there when I first met her. She had, and still has, a kind of elegance, a grace that very few other people have.” Bacharach and his partner, Hal David, invited Warwick to record some of their songs on demonstration records, and by 1961 the pretty young singer had signed a contract with Scepter Records. She had her first hit, “Don’t Make Me Over,” the following year. When the record company misspelled her name on a label, Marie Dionne Warrick became Dionne Warwick, and her fortunes began to rise.
“I came along in an era when kids were tired of hearing songs that just said, ’Boo-boo-boo,’” Warwick told the New York Times. “I had a different kind of sound that was accepted by both the R…B audience and the pop audience.” Young and old, white and black listeners alike responded to Warwick’s gentle songs—and two decades have hardly dimmed the appeal of “Walk On By,” “Alfie,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” In four years the entertainer sold twelve million records and made the Top Forty charts thirty-one times. She also gave solo concerts in Europe and at New York’s prestigious Philharmonic Hall in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “Show Warwick told People, “became my life.”
Pop careers are notoriously fragile, as Warwick discovered in 1975. First, Bacharach and David dissolved their partnership, leaving Warwick with a five-record contract to fulfill. Then her marriage fell apart, and her husband sued for alimony. Warwick found herself immersed in legal battles with her former spouse and with Bacharach and David, whom she sued for breach of contract. She managed to release the contracted albums as planned, but as Wiseman notes, the efforts “bombed her into obscurity.” She was rescued from the slump by Barry Manilow, who produced gold album, Dionne. The album contained two hit singles, “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” and the mysterious “Deja Vu.”
On the strength of that comeback, Warwick was invited to host a weekly syndicated music show, “Solid Gold.” She worked on the show for a year, eventually parting on bad terms with its producers. Answering charges that she had been “temperamental” during filming, Warwick told Ebony, “I’m a perfectionist. I won’t stand for less than the best…. What’s wrong with that?” Warwick returned to recording, this time working with ex-Bee Gee Barry Gibb. Her 1983 release, Heartbreaker, was yet another million seller.
More recently, Warwick lent her voice to a project to benefit AIDS research, producing the hit single “That’s What Friends Are For.” She claims that her career was salvaged by a 1979 move to Arista Records. “Now, once again, everything is being done absolutely for me,” she old Rolling Stone. “There’s no overshadowing. I’m sitting on top of everything, which is the way it should be.” The mother of two sons, Warwick lives in a Beverly Hills mansion. She rarely socializes with the Hollywood “party crowd,” preferring a degree of discretion in her personal life. After more than two decades as a top performer, Warwick feels secure in her ability and confident about her future. “Talent will prevail,” she told People. “Nobody, bar none, can do what Dionne Warwick does.”
Selected discography
Presenting Dionne Warwick, Scepter, 1964.
Anyone Who Had a Heart, Scepter, 1964.
Make Way for Dionne Warwick, Scepter, 1964.
The Sensitive Sound of Dionne Warwick, Scepter, 1965.
Here I Am, Scepter, 1965.
Dionne Warwick in Paris, Scepter, 1966.
Here Where There Is Love, Scepter, 1967.
On Stage and in the Movies, Scepter, 1967.
Windows of the World, Scepter, 1967.
The Magic of Believing, Scepter, 1967.
Valley of the Dolls and Others, Scepter, 1968.
Soulful, Scepter, 1969.
Greatest Motion Picture Hits, Scepter, 1969.
Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits, Volume 1, Scepter, 1969.
Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits, Volume 2, Scepter, 1970.
I’ll Never Fall in Love Again, Scepter, 1970.
Very Dionne, Scepter, 1971.
Promises, Promises, Scepter, 1971.
From Within, Volume 1, Scepter, 1972.
Dionne, Warner Brothers, 1973.
Just Being Myself, Warner Brothers, 1973.
Then Came You, Warner Brothers, 1975.
Track of the Cat, Warner Brothers, 1975.
Love at First Sight, Warner Brothers, 1977.
Dionne, Arista, 1979.
No Night So Long, Arista, 1980.
Hot! Live and Otherwise, Arista, 1981.
Heartbreaker, Arista, 1983.
Finder of Lost Loves, Arista.
Dionne and Friends, Arista, 1986.
Anthology, 1962-1971, Rhino, 1986.
Then Came You, Arista, 1986.
Masterpieces, Arista, 1986.
Reservations for Two, Arista, 1987.
Sources
Ebony, May, 1968; May, 1983.
Newsday, May 12, 1969.
Newsweek, October 10, 1966.
New York Times, May 12, 1968.
People, October 15, 1979.
Rolling Stone, November 15, 1979.
Washington Post, December 22, 1967.
—Anne Janette Johnson
Warwick, Dionne 1940–
Dionne Warwick 1940–
Vocalist
A popular recording artist and concert performer since the early 1960s, Dionne Warwick has so firmly established herself with the public that hit records now seem icing on the cake rather than an attention getting neccessity. By becoming a trend-defying musical fixture, Warwick has achieved one of her early goals. “Someday I want the kind of loyalty among audiences that Ella Fitzgerald has. So that if I want to stop for two years or ten years, I could come back and still be Miss Dionne Warwick,” Warwick told Newsweek in 1966. Though more than three decades have passed since her initial success, and several years have gone by since she has had a hit record, Warwick can still sell out concert halls and supper clubs. “In an age when the music industry is crammed to bursting with pretentious one-hit wonders, it was an education and a privilege to witness an artist with true class, style and talent,” wrote a reviewer for Ethnic Newswatch about Warwick’s appearance with the BBC Concert Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1995.
Dionne Warwick was born Marie Dionne Warwick in East Orange, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City, in 1940. Her father, Mancei, worked as a chef and butcher. Her mother, Lee, managed a well-known gospel group called the Drinkard Singers. The family included Warwick’s two younger siblings, Dee Dee, and Mancei, Jr. Warwick’s parents were devout Methodists who gave their children a highly moral and extremely supportive upbringing. “They have always been 100 percent for me. As long as I’m happy and can earn a decent living, they’re happy for me,” Warwick said of her parents to Mary Smith of Ebony in 1968.
As a teenager in the mid-1950s, Warwick, her sister Dee Dee, and two cousins formed a group called The Gospelaires. The group performed locally and sometimes worked as back up singers for other acts. Planning to become a public school music teacher, Warwick accepted a scholarship to study at the University of Hartford,’s Hartford, College of Music. In 1961, during a summer vacation from college, Warwick rejoined The Gospelaires to sing back up on The Drifters recording of “Mexican Divorce.” Conducting the session was the song’s composer Burt Bacharach. “She was singing louder than everybody else so I couldn’t help noticing
At a Glance…
Born Marie Dionne Warrick, December 12, 1940, in East Orange, NJ; daughter of Mancel (a chef), and Lee Warrick (business manager for a musical group); married Bill Elliott (actor and jazz drummer), c. 1967 (divorced 1975); children: David and Damon. Education: Attended Hartt College of Music, University of Hartford. Hartford, CT. c. 1959-62.
Career: Sang with the Gospelaires, a musical group, from 1955 to early 1960s. Recording session back up singer for The Drifters, and other musical groups in the early 1960s. Solo performer with numerous hit records, beginning with “Don’t Make Me Over” in 1962. Other hits include “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Walk On By,” “Trains and Boats and Planes,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “I say a Little Prayer for You,” “Heartbreaker,” “Deja Vu,” and “That’s What Friends Are For.” Host of television program Solid Gold, 1980-81. Spokesperson for the Psychic Friends Network 1992-97. Made film appearances in Slaves, 1969, and Rent-A-Cop, 1987,
Awards: Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Pop Vocal (Female) for “Do You Know the Way to San lose? in 1968, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” in 1970, and “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” in 1979. Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and Blues Vocal (Female) for “Deja Vu” in 1979. Gold Records for “I Say a Little Prayer” In 1968, “l’ll Never Love This Way Again,” in 1979, “Then Came You” in 1974, and “That’s What Friends are For" in 1986, National Association of Colored People (NAACP) Entertainer of the Year Award, 1986; NAACP Key of Life Award, 1990; Jackie Robinson Foundattion Robie Award, 1992.
Addresses: Residence —Brazil; Business; —Arista Records, 6 W. 57th St, New York, NY, 10019.
her,” Bacharach recalled to Smith. “Not only was she clearly audible, but Dionne had something. Just the way she carries herself, the way she works, her flow and feeling for the music—it was there when I first met her. She had, and still has, a kind of elegance, a grace that very few other people have.”
Bacharach, and his lyricist partner Hal David, asked Warwick to sing on a demonstration record of one of their compositions. The record was heard by Florence Greenberg of Scepter Records, a small label specializing in rhythm and blues. Greenberg did not like the song but did like the singer and signed Warwick to a contract. Warwick’s first recording for Scepter, released in 1962, was more Bacharach-David material. Though Scepter was promoting the song “I Smiled Yesterday” as the potential hit, it was the record’s “B” side, the powerfully plaintive “Don’t Make Me Over,” that caught on and went to the number twenty-one position on the Billboard chart. A misspelling on the record—Warwick instead of Warrick—gave Warwick her stage name.
The trio of Warwick-Bacharach-David followed up with a long string of top ten hits over the next decade, including “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and “Walk on By,” both in 1964, “Message to Michael” in 1966, “I Say a Little Prayer for You” in 1969, “This Girl’s in Love with You” in 1969. Other hits include “Trains and Boats and Planes,” “Alfie,” “You’ll Never Get to Heaven,” and “Make It Easy on Yourself.” Warwick took two songs from Bacharach and David’s 1968 Broadway musical Promises, Promises —“I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” and the title song—to the pop charts. She won the Grammy Award for Contemporary Pop Vocal twice during this period—for “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” in 1968 and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” in 1970.
Bacharach told Newseek that Warwick’s sound “has the delicacy and mystery of sailing ships in bottles. It’s tremendously inspiring. We cut songs for her like fine cloth, tailor-made.” Though numerous other performers made hits of Bacharach-David songs, including The Carpenters with “Close to You,” and B.J. Thomas with “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” it was their work with Warwick that best exemplfied their distinctive style. In The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, Phil Hardy and Dave Laing sum up the Warwick-Bacharach-David magic as follows—“Warwick provided the light, lithe voice, David the literate, witty lyrics and Bacharach the imaginative melodies, unusual arrangements and complex rhythms that few singers other than Warwick could have managed: on ’Anyone Who Had Heart,’ for example, she deftly weaves into and through 5/4 to 4/4 to 7/8.” Strangely enough, it was non-Bacharach-David song— “Theme from The Valley of the Dolls,” written by Andre and Dory Previn—that brought Warwick closest to the top of the chart in the 1960s. The song climbed to number two in early 1968.
Warwick’s appeal crossed racial barriers. She was to the 1960s what Nat King Cole had been to the 1950s—a mainstream performer who happened to be black. Nevertheless, Warwick occasionally faced race related problems such as bigoted hecklers in the audience and department store clerks who questioned her ability to pay for costly items (shopping is one of Warwick’s primary pastimes and for a time she rented an additional apartment just to store her clothes). Cool and confident, Warwick responded to anti-black sentiment with cutting remarks and, if neccessary, forceful letters to local authorities. Having grown up in a racially mixed, lower middle class community in the North, Warwick was never hesitant about appearing in the South. “To me, Mississippi is just a long word. They’ve got their problems, but they’re not going to make them my problems,” Warwick explained to Ebony in 1968.
In 1972, Bacharach and David brought their song writ-ing partnership to an acrimonious end. The split shocked Warwick and left her unable to fulfill her obligation to Warner Bros., the record company with which she had signed the previous year, to make a new album of Bacharch-David material. “I had heard the scuttlebutt but I thought if anybody would know, I would know. Famous last words. I found out in the paper like everybody else that they weren’t going to do the album, they weren’t writing together, they weren’t even talking to each other. What hurt me the most was that I thought I was their friend. But I was wrong. They did not care about Dionne Warwick. It was devastating,” Warwick told Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone Threatened with a breach of contract suit from Warner Bros., Warwick sued Bacharach and David and eventually won an out-of-court settlement.
Though her collaboration with The Spinners on the song “Then Came You,” went to the top of the Billboard chart in the autumn of 1974, Warwick’s career languished for much of the 1970s. Warwick’s personal life also reached a low point during this period. Her marriage to Bill Elliott, a musician and actor whom she had married in 1967, began to founder. On the advice of an astrologer and numerologist, Warwick added an e to the end of her last name in the hope improving her fortunes. The extra letter did not help. “Every place I worked that had the ‘e’ on the marquee, something went wrong,” Warwick told Rich Wiseman of People. Warwick and Eliot, who had two young sons together, were divorced in 1975. Two years later, Warwick’s father died suddenly and her mother suffered a stroke. To deal with her personal and professional troubles, Warwick turned to almost nonstop touring. “I felt I’d blow emotionally if I didn’t immerse myself in work. I pushed myself,” Warwick told Wiseman.
Warwick’s career got back on track when she signed with Arista records in 1979. Arista president Clive Davis, who has also been instrumental in the career of Warwick’s cousin, Whitney Houston, was excited and proud to have Warwick on his label. “I can see now that while I was at Warners, everything was wrong but me. Now, once again, everything is being done absolutely for me. There’s no overshadowing. I’m sitting on top of everything, which is the way it should be,” Warwick told Holden.
Davis arranged for Barry Manilow to produce Warwick’s first Arista album, Dionne. Warwick was at uneasy at first about working with Manilow, fearing their differing styles would clash. She was especially concerned that the album might have a “disco” sound. Warwick was deliberately ignoring the disco trend. “I’m too much of a snob to do faddish material,” she explained to Wiseman. Happily, the Warwick-Manilow collaboration was spectacularly successful, resulting in the hits “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” and “Deja Vu.” Each song earned a Grammy award for Warwick (in the pop Female Vocal and in Rhythm and Blues Female Vocal categories, respectively). Manilow told Wiseman that “Dionne is one of the all-time best. She doesn’t have to snort coke and wait for the lightning bolt to strike.”
Warwick further increased her visibility by hosting the television show Solid Gold, which featured a countdown of the week’s top hits and guest appearances by popular recording artists. Warwick began hosting the show in July 1980 and was fired in the Spring of 1981. The official reason for the firing was that the producers wanted a younger host to attract a younger audience but there were rumors that the real reason was that Warwick was temperamental and difficult to work with. Warwick denied being temperamental, only perfectionistic, and said that sexism and racism had a great deal to do with her dismissal. She claimed that female performers who assert their opinions are unfairly labelled “difficult.” Also, one of her chief concerns as host was to insure that black performers had their share of attention and were presented in the best possible light. Warwick was critical of her replacement, singer Marilyn McCoo, formerly of The Fifth Dimension. “I’m angry at her, and it’s not sour grapes,” Warwick told Dennis Hunt of Ebony “She came in with an I’II-do-anything-you-want-me-to-do attitude … She came in at a subservient position, which is not right for a black woman. When I was with the show, I was always in a position of strength, I was the main person on the show, but she’s secondary… She’s a black woman, and she should not have settled for less. You have to fight for what you can get.”
The Solid Gold brouhaha had little effect on Warwick’s popularity. The title song from her 1982 album Heart-breaker took her yet again to the top ten on the Billboard chart. The song was written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, who also produced the album. As with Manilow three years earlier, Warwick was reluctant to work with Gibb, an established performer/composer whose style was very different from her own. Also, she was concerned that their collaboration might be replica of Gibb’s recent work on Barbra Streisand’s Guilty album. “There’s some of the Bee Gees sound on my album,” Warwick explained to Hunt. “But that’s Barry’s style, and you can’t avoid it. But at least the Bee Gee thing isn’t overwhelming. The main thing is that the album did not turn out to be Guilty II It just had to be different from Streisand’s. I think we were successful in that. The songs on this album are in my style, not hers.”
Since the early 1980s, Warwick has devoted much of her time to charitable activities. In 1984, she was one of 45 top performers to sing on the hit single “We Are the World,” the proceeds of which went to USA for Africa’s hunger relief program. Warwick brought together Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, and Elton John to join her on the recording “That’s What Friends Are For.” The song, written by Burt Bacharach, with whom Warwick had patched up her differences, and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, was a smash that went to number one on the Billboard chart in January 1986 and raised an estimated $2 million for AIDS research. Warwick, who has hosted countless fundraising benefits for AIDS research, has also been involved in raising awareness of other health issues, including Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Sickle Cell Anemia. In the mid-1980s she founded the group BRAVO (Blood Revolves Around Victorious Optimism) to raise awareness of blood diseases.
Bringing her social concerns to the music industry, Warwick served on the Entertainment Commmision of the National Political Congress of Black Women (NPCBW). In 1995, she co-chaired with Melba Moore, a special meeting of the commission during the NPCBW’s convention in Seattle. One of the commission’s major concerns was gangsta rap lyrics, which the NPCBW views as degrading and insulting to black women. “There are some songs that are just a little too much. I feel that our young people are creative enough musically to find positive sides of life and put them into songs. I know they can do it,” Warwick told Don Thomas of Ethnic Newswatch
A heavy schedule of charitable activities has not caused Warwick’s singing career to languish. She has continued to record and perform regularly. In 1987, her duet with Jeffery Osborne on the song “Love Power” went to number twelve on the Billboard chart. Among her notable albums is the 1992 release Friends Can Be Lovers, which featured the song “Sunny Weather Lover,” Warwick’s first Bacharach-David material in twenty years. Another song on the album, “Love Will Find a Way,” was written by Warwick’s son David Elliott and his songwriter partner, Terry Steele. The song was performed as a duet with cousin Whitney Houston. The album also features Warwick in a duet with close friend Luther Vandross on the song “Fragile,” written by pop star Sting. “The entire album feels the way that it actually happened, which is why I am so proud of it,” Warwick told Jet “It’s full of love. It’s full of friendship, it’s full of family and it’s full of people (producers) who wanted to give the very best that they could possibly give.”
Another notable album is Aquarela do Brasil (Watercolors of Brazil), a collection of Brazillian music released in 1994. Warwick first visited Brazil in the early 1960s and has become so entranced by the South American country that she has bought a home there and has studied Portuguese. “I love Brazil. I see there so much of what we’ve lost here in America. I see complete families, from grandmother to grandchild and in between at the malls on Saturdays together, on Sundays at the park together … I think the most important thing is that we all have problems obviously, but for whatever reasons it appears that through it all, people in Brazil still have the ability to smile, there is always tomorrow still. This attitude particularly captivated me,” Warwick told Cristina M. Eibscher of News from Brazil in 1995. Warwick has adopted a favela or shanty town in Rio de Janeiro. “The Brazillian people have been offering me so much that I felt that it was time for me to give something in return for their hospitality and friendship. That’s when I decided to adopt a favel and help people who are needy. It’s a great feeling to know that you can contribute for the happiness and well being of others, especially for the well being of Brazillian children,” Warwick explained to Eibscher.
Away from music, Warwick devotes her time to a Beverly Hills-based interior design business she operates with business partner Bruce Garrick. “It’s another extension of my artistic expression,” Warwick said of interior design to Ruth Ryon of the Los Angeles Times in 1992. Most of the firm’s work has been for private homes, including those of Burt Reynolds and Tom Jones. Warwick’s appearances on “infomercials” for the Psychic Friends Network is one of her best known nonmusical endeavors. “It’s the most successful infomercial of all time,” said Jack Schember, publisher of Response TV, a magazine that tracks the direct-response television, to David Barboza of the New York Times Warwick defends her sometimes mocked association with the Psychic Friends Network. She told Clarence Waldron of Jet, “I find psychics and astrologers and numerologists to be very fascinating people … I feel that there are people who have developed eyes and have an ability that we have to question because we can’t do it… God will always be first. God can’t be any place but first. And any of those who doubt that, then they have a problem.”
Selected discography
Presenting Dionne Warwick, 1964.
Anyone Who Had a Heart, 1964.
Make Way for Dionne Warwick, 1964.
The Sensitive Sound of Dionne Warwick, 1965.
Here I Am, 1965.
Dionne Warwick in Paris, 1965.
Here Where There is Love, 1967.
On Stage and in the Movies, 1967.
Windows of the World, 1967.
The Magic of Believing, 1967.
Valley of the Dolls and Others, 1968.
Soulful, 1969.
Greatest Motion Picture Hits, 1969.
Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits, Volume 1, 1969.
Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits, Volume 2, 1970.
I’ll Never Fall in Love Again, 1970.
Very Dionne, 1971.
Promises, Promises, 1971.
From Within, Volume 1, 1972.
Dionne, 1973.
Just Being Myself, 1973.
Then Came You, 1975.
Track of the Cat, 1975.
Love at First Sight, 1977.
Dionne, 1979.
No Night So Long, 1980.
Hot! Live and Otherwise, 1981.
Heartbreaker, 1983.
Finder of Lost Loves,
Dionne and Friends, 1986.
Anthology, 1962-1971, 1986.
Masterpieces, 1986.
Reservations for Two, 1987.
Dionne Warwick Sings Cole Porter, 1990.
Hidden Gems: The Best of Dionne Warwick, 1992.
Friends Can Be Lovers, 1993.
Aquarela do Brasil, 1994.
From the Vaults, 1995.
Sources
Books
Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1993.
Elrod, Bruce C. Your Hit Parade Ann Arbor, MI: Popular Culture Ink, 1994
Hardy, Phil, and Dave Laing. The Faber Companion to 20th-century Popular Music London: Faber and Faber, 1992.
Notable Black American Women. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, Inc., 1992.
Periodicals
Billboard, October 1, 1994, p. 14.
California Voice, June 18, 1995, p. 3.
Cincinnati Call and Post, January 26, 1995, p. 1B.
Contemporary Musicians, Volume 2, 1990, p. 244-246.
Ebony, May 1968, p. 37-42; May 1983, p. 95-100; April 1995, p. 22.
Jet, March 29, 1993, p. 54-58; January 17, 1994, p. 56.
Los Angeles Times, October 4, 1992, p. K1, 10.
Miami Times, February 23, 1995, p. 1B.
Michigan Chronicle, February 13, 1996, p. 1D.
News from Brazil, October 31, 1995, p. 41.
Newsweek, October 10, 1966, p. 101-102.
New York Beacon, July 31, 1996, p.26.
New York Times, May 12, 1968, p. D17, 20; December 7, 1995, p. D8.
Oakland Post, December 10, 1995, p. 8B.
People, October 15, 1979, p. 85.
Rolling Stone, November 15, 1979, p. 16-17.
Other
Information also obtained from Ethnic Newswatch, Softline Information, Ine, Stamford, CT.
—Mary Kalfatovic
Warwick, Dionne
Dionne Warwick
Singer
The elegant Dionne Warwick was one of the first black recording artists to reach a mainstream pop audience that knew no racial or ethnic barriers. During the 1960s Warwick sold a phenomenal 12 million albums and placed numerous singles in the Top Ten as the result of her association with successful songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David. During those years, wrote Rich Wiseman of People, Warwick was "a red-hot singer of cold-hearted hits spanning pop, jazz and R&B." Indeed, Warwick's voice and manner were ideally suited to the sometimes coy, sometimes plaintive Bacharach-David tunes, and her work completed independently of that team has followed the same formula.
A Newsweek reporter described Warwick's style as "deliciously phrased, uncontrived and in a polished, flexible voice … a dazzling acrobatic display of vocal weightlessness, changing colors and dynamics with chilling impact." The reporter added, "Cushioning all her songs is an uncanny rhythmic sense…. Her body pulsates and twitches, and her voice seems somehow to swing to its own built-in rhythm section." In the Washington Post, William Rice observed that Warwick "can produce the impression of a 'soul singer's scream' without raising her voice and so practiced is her vocal control and her technical mastery that she glides from a gospel chant to a torchsinger's moan with disarming ease."
Warwick was born Marie Dionne Warrick in the comfortable middle-class community of Orange, New Jersey. She began her professional career as a gospel singer, working with the well-known Drinkard Singers and with her own group, the Gospelaires. Ironically, Warwick has claimed that she did not want to go into show business at all; instead, she wanted to teach music to schoolchildren. Her mother, Lee, managed the Drinkard Singers from a base at the New Hope Baptist Church in nearby Newark, and as a teenager Dionne was often called in as a substitute singer when a regular group member was missing. Warwick was also in her teens when she formed the Gospelaires with her sister Dee Dee and two cousins. Gospel, she told Newsweek, "is the Bible in the form of song. It's open prayer. Religion gives me comfort and complete freedom."
Discovered by Bacharach and David
Warwick attended Hartt College of Music on a scholarship, studying piano, voice, and music theory. Between terms she worked as a backup singer for Sam ("the Man") Taylor and the Drifters, among others. In 1959 Warwick was working on a Drifters recording when she caught the eye of Burt Bacharach, then a relatively unknown composer. "She was singing louder than everybody else," Bacharach told Ebony, "so I couldn't help noticing her. Not only was she clearly audible, but Dionne 'had something.' Just the way she carries herself, the way she works, her flow and feeling for the music—it was there when I first met her. She had, and still has, a kind of elegance, a grace that very few other people have." Bacharach and his partner, Hal David, invited Warwick to record some of their songs on demonstration records, and by 1961 the pretty young singer had signed a contract with Scepter Records. She had her first hit, "Don't Make Me Over," the following year. When the record company misspelled her name on a label, Marie Dionne Warrick became Dionne Warwick, and her fortunes began to rise.
Possessing a vocal style that alluded as much to Ella Fitzgerald as to classic soul, Warwick was as popular with listeners of adult contemporary as she was with dreamy-eyed teens. "I came along in an era when kids were tired of hearing songs that just said, 'Boo-boo-boo,'" Warwick told the New York Times. "I had a different kind of sound that was accepted by both the R&B audience and the pop audience." Young and old, white and black listeners alike, all responded to Warwick's gentle songs, and the passing decades have hardly dimmed the appeal of "Walk On By," "Alfie," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." In four years during the 1960s the entertainer sold 12 million records and made the Top Forty charts 31 times. She also gave solo concerts in Europe and at New York's prestigious Philharmonic Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. "Show business," Warwick told People, "became my life."
Revived Her Career at Arista
Warwick was at her commercial peak when she recorded the multi-genre smash "Then Came You" with the red hot funk and soul group the Spinners in 1974. However, pop careers are notoriously fragile, as Warwick discovered in 1975. First Bacharach and David dissolved their partnership, leaving Warwick with a five-record contract with Warner Brothers to fulfill. Then her marriage fell apart, and her husband sued for alimony. Warwick found herself immersed in legal battles with her former spouse and with Bacharach and David, whom she sued for breach of contract. She managed to release the contracted albums as planned, but as Wiseman noted, the efforts "bombed her into obscurity."
She was rescued from the slump by pop star/songwriter Barry Manilow, who produced her 1979 gold album Dionne for Clive Davis's Arista Records. The album contained two hit singles, the heartbreakingly wistful "I'll Never Love This Way Again" and the mysterious "Deja Vu."
For the Record …
Born Marie Dionne Warrick on December 12, 1941, in East Orange, NJ; daughter of Mancel (a butcher) and Lee (manager of a gospel group) Warrick; married William Elliott, 1967 (divorced, 1975); children: David, Damion. Education: Attended Hartt College of Music, Hartford, CT.
Gospel singer and organist with the Gospelaires and the Drinkard Singers, 1955–60; solo performer, 1960–; signed with Scepter Records, 1961; released first hit single, "Don't Make Me Over," 1962; had string of hit singles written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, including "Walk On By," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" "What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love)"; signed with Arista Records, 1979, produced hits "I'll Never Love This Way Again," "Deja Vu," and "Heartbreaker"; with Stevie Wonder, recorded "That's What Friends Are For," 1986, to benefit AIDS research; had songs included in the soundtracks of such films as The Love Machine, The First Wives Club, and Isn't She Great, 1965–2000; made numerous television appearances, including The Ed Sullivan Show, The Red Skelton Show, Solid Gold, American Idol, and her own syndicated show Dionne and Friends (1990); hosted TV infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network, early 1990s; recorded for River North Records, 1998; co-founded Dionne Warwick Design Group Inc., 2002; wrote book My Point of View, 2003.
Awards: Grammy Awards for Best Female Vocal Performance, 1969, 1970, and 1980; Image Award, Entertainer of the Year, 1988; American Society of Young Musicians, Luminary Award, 1997; National Association of Record Merchandisers, Chairman's Award for Sustained Creative Achievement, 1998; Grammy Hall of Fame Award for "Walk On By," 1964; National History Makers of Chicago, named a History Maker, 2001; R&B Foundation, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2003.
Addresses: Booking—Red Entertainment Group, Attn. Carlos Keyes, 16 Penn Plaza, Ste. 824, New York, NY 10001; phone: (212) 563-7575, fax: (212) 563-9393. Website—Dionne Warwick Official Website: http://www.dionnewarwick.info.
On the strength of that comeback, Warwick was invited to host a weekly syndicated television music show, "Solid Gold." She worked on the show for a year in 1980–81, eventually parting on bad terms with its producers. Answering charges that she had been "temperamental" during filming, Warwick told Ebony, "I'm a perfectionist. I won't stand for less than the best…. What's wrong with that?" She eventually returned during the show's 1985–86 season.
Warwick returned to recording, this time working with ex-Bee Gee Barry Gibb. Her 1983 release, Heartbreaker, was yet another million seller. In 1986 Warwick lent her voice to a project to benefit AIDS research, producing the hit single "That's What Friends Are For," which raised millions of dollars for the cause. She claimed that her career was salvaged by a 1979 move to Arista Records. "Now, once again, everything is being done absolutely for me," she told Rolling Stone. "There's no overshadowing. I'm sitting on top of everything, which is the way it should be." The mother of two sons, Warwick lived in Beverly Hills. She rarely socialized with the Hollywood "party crowd," preferring a degree of discretion in her personal life.
Also an Entrepreneur
Warwick's days as a hitmaker came to an end during the late 1980s, although she continued to record popular albums for Arista into the 1990s. Her personal favorite was the 1995 release Aquarela Do Brazil, which precipitated her move to Brazil, where she now spends much of her leisure time. The artist's last chart single was a remake of Jackie DeShannon's 1965 hit "What the World Needs Now is Love," recorded with Hip-Hop Nation in 1998.
Still a popular entertainer, Warwick also hosted television infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network, and although she had always been sincere about her interest in psychic phenomenon, her association with the commercials made her somewhat of a laughing stock among non-believers.
When not performing at high profile charity events or with symphony orchestras worldwide, Warwick has proven to be a successful entrepreneur. She helped create Carr/Todd/Warwick Production Inc, a television and film company. The singer has also teamed with partner Bruce Garrick to form the Dionne Warwick Design Group Inc., a company that re-designs private estates and world class hotels. If that weren't enough, she markets her own skin care regimen and personal fragrance.
Yet there is no question that Warwick is still best known as a one-of-a-kind vocalist, something she prophetically acknowledged to People in 1979. "Talent will prevail," she remarked. "Nobody, bar none, can do what Dionne Warwick does."
Selected discography
Singles
"Don't Make Me Over," Scepter, 1963.
"This Empty Place," Scepter, 1963.
"Anyone Who Had a Heart," Scepter, 1963.
"Make the Music Play," Scepter, 1963.
"Walk On By," Scepter, 1964.
"A House is Not a Home," Scepter, 1964.
"You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)," Scepter, 1964.
"Reach Out For Me," Scepter, 1964.
"Who Can I Turn To," Scepter, 1965.
"You Can Have Him," Scepter, 1965.
"Here I Am," Scepter, 1965.
"Looking With My Eyes," Scepter 1965.
"Are You There (with Another Girl)," Scepter, 1966.
"Message to Michael," Scepter, 1966.
"Trains Boats and Planes," Scepter, 1966.
"Another Night," Scepter, 1966.
"I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself," Scepter, 1966.
"Alfie," Scepter, 1967.
"The Windows of the World," Scepter, 1967.
"I Say a Little Prayer," Scepter, 1967.
"(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls," Scepter, 1967.
"The April Fools," Scepter, 1968.
"Do You Know the Way to San Jose," Scepter, 1968.
"Always Something There to Remind Me," Scepter, 1968.
"Promises, Promises," Scepter, 1968.
"This Girl's in Love with You," Scepter, 1969.
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," Scepter, 1969.
"I'll Never Fall in Love Again," Scepter, 1970.
"Make it Easy on Yourself," Scepter, 1970.
"Paper Mache," Scepter, 1970.
"Let Me Go to Him," Scepter, 1970.
"Who Gets the Guy," Scepter, 1971.
(With the Spinners) "Then Came You," Atlantic, 1974.
"Take it From Me," Warner Bros, 1975.
"Once You Hit the Road," Warner Bros., 1975.
"I'll Never Love This Way Again," Arista, 1978.
"Deja Vu," Arista, 1979.
"After You," Arista, 1980.
"No Night So Long,"Arista, 1980.
"Some Changes Are For Good," Arista, 1981.
(With Johnny Mathis) "Friends in Love," Arisat, 1982.
"Heartbreaker," Arista, 1982.
"All the Love in the World," Arista, 1983.
(With Luther Vandross) "How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye," Arista, 1983.
"Take the Short Way Home," Arista, 1984.
"Finder of Lost Loves," Arista, 1985.
"Run to Me," Arista, 1985.
(With Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder) "That's What Friends Are For," Arista, 1985.
(With Jeffrey Osborne) "Love Power," Arista, 1987.
(With Kashif) "Reservations for Two," Arista, 1987.
"Another Chance to Love," Arista, 1988.
Albums
Presenting Dionne Warwick, Scepter, 1964.
Anyone Who Had a Heart, Scepter, 1964.
Make Way for Dionne Warwick, Scepter, 1964.
The Sensitive Sound of Dionne Warwick, Scepter, 1965.
Here I Am, Scepter, 1965.
Dionne Warwick in Paris, Scepter, 1966.
Here Where There Is Love, Scepter, 1967.
On Stage and in the Movies, Scepter, 1967.
Windows of the World, Scepter, 1967.
The Magic of Believing, Scepter, 1967.
Valley of the Dolls and Others, Scepter, 1968.
Soulful, Scepter, 1969.
Greatest Motion Picture Hits, Scepter, 1969.
Dionne Warwick's Golden Hits, Volume 1, Scepter, 1969.
Dionne Warwick's Golden Hits, Volume 2, Scepter, 1970.
I'll Never Fall in Love Again, Scepter, 1970.
Very Dionne, Scepter, 1971.
Promises, Promises, Scepter, 1971.
From Within, Volume 1, Scepter, 1972.
Dionne, Warner Brothers, 1973.
Just Being Myself, Warner Brothers, 1973.
Then Came You, Warner Brothers, 1975.
Track of the Cat, Warner Brothers, 1975.
Love at First Sight, Warner Brothers, 1977.
Dionne, Arista, 1979.
No Night So Long, Arista, 1980.
Hot! Live and Otherwise, Arista, 1981.
Heartbreaker, Arista, 1983.
Finder of Lost Loves, Arista, 1985.
Dionne and Friends, Arista, 1986.
Anthology, 1962–1971, Rhino, 1986.
Then Came You, Arista, 1986.
Masterpieces, Arista, 1986.
Reservations for Two, Arista, 1987.
Sings Cole Porter, Arista, 1990.
Friends Can Be Lovers, Arista, 1993.
Celebration in Vienna [Live], Arista/Sony, 1994.
Aquarela Do Brazil, Arista, 1995.
Dionne Sings Dionne, River North, 1998.
The Definitive Collection, Arista, 1999.
Soulful Plus, Rhino Handmade, 2004.
Love Songs, Arista/Legacy, 2005.
My Favorite Time of the Year, DMI, 2004.
Say a Little Prayer, DCC, 2004.
Me & My Friends, Concord, 2006.
Sources
Books
Rees, Dafydd, and Luke Crampton, VH1 Music First: Rock Stars Encyclopedia, DK, 1999; new rev. edition, 1995.
Nathan, David, The Soulful Divas, Billboard Books, 1998.
Whitburn, Joel, The Billboard Book of Top 40 R&B and Hip-Hop Hits, Billboard, 2006.
Periodicals
Ebony, May 1968; May 1983.
Newsday, May 12, 1969.
Newsweek, October 10, 1966.
New York Times, May 12, 1968.
People, October 15, 1979.
Rolling Stone, November 15, 1979.
Washington Post, December 22, 1967.
Online
"Dionne Warwick," All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (June 28, 2006).
"Dionne Warwick," Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com (June 28, 2006).
Warwick, Dionne
WARWICK, Dionne
(b. 12 December 1940 in East Orange, New Jersey), singer who served as the mouthpiece for the sophisticated pop songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, resulting in a string of hits in the 1960s.
Born Marie Dionne Warrick, Warwick acquired her stage name when her name was misspelled on an early record release. She is the daughter of Mancel Warrick, a gospel record promoter for Chess Records, and Lee Drinkard, who managed the gospel group the Drinkard Singers, consisting of Warwick's aunts and uncles. Steeped in gospel music, Warwick got her first singing experience in church. She studied the piano as a child, and, with her sister Dee Dee, Warwick formed a vocal group, the Gospelaires. The group began to get work singing background vocals on records in New York.
Warwick began attending the Hartt College of Music in Connecticut on a music scholarship in 1959, but she continued to work in New York recording studios. There, at a Drifters session in 1961, she met songwriter Burt Bacharach, who was impressed with her unusual alto voice and extensive range, and hired her to sing on demonstration records he was making with his songwriting partner Hal David. They played one of these demos for Florence Greenberg, head of the small independent Scepter Records, and Greenberg signed Warwick as an artist to the label. Scepter released her debut single, "Don't Make Me Over"—written and produced by Bacharach and David, and inspired by a comment the singer herself had made to them—in the fall of 1962. It became a top-twenty pop and a top-five rhythm and blues (R&B) hit. Despite her success, Warwick managed to continue her schooling, completing her bachelor's degree and in 1976 earning a master's degree in music from Hartt.
During this period, Warwick married musician/actor Bill Elliot. They divorced after less than a year of marriage, but reconciled and remarried. They had two sons, but divorced again in the 1970s.
Warwick's follow-up singles to "Don't Make Me Over" were not as successful, but in early 1964 "Anyone Who Had a Heart" peaked in the top ten of the pop, R&B, and easy-listening charts, as did its follow-up, "Walk On By." The British invasion led by the Beatles temporarily sidelined the work of songwriters such as Bacharach and David, but some of Warwick's less-popular recordings of the mid-1960s have weathered well, particularly her summer 1964 single pairing "You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)" and "A House Is Not a Home." Although American artists often were robbed of hits in Britain by covers of their records that were quickly released by native singers, Warwick was able to mount her own invasion of Europe, taking "Walk On By" into the top ten of the U.K. charts. She followed this with numerous other chart entries, and performed successfully on the Continent. Her concert at the Olympia Theater in Paris on 18 January 1966, at which she was introduced by Marlene Dietrich (for whom Bacharach had served as musical director), was captured on the album Dionne Warwick in Paris.
Warwick finally returned to the U.S. Top Ten in 1966 with "Message to Michael." Follow-ups "Trains and Boats and Planes" and "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" were less successful, but have since joined the list of Bacharach and David standards. In the spring of 1967, Warwick finally launched a sustained period of success with her top-twenty recording of the philosophical "Alfie." The theme song from a motion picture of the same name released the previous year, it had already been recorded without notable success by others. There followed a string of top-ten hits: "I Say a Little Prayer" later in 1967; the million-selling "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls" (written by André and Dory Previn but produced by Bacharach and David); and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" (which won her a Grammy Award for best female contemporary pop vocal performance, the first of her five Grammys) in 1968; and "This Girl's in Love with You" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" in 1969. The last of these won her a second Grammy Award for best female contemporary vocal performance. She also earned gold-record certifications for her albums Here Where There Is Love (1966), Valley of the Dolls (1968), and Dionne Warwick's Greatest Motion Picture Hits (1969). In 1968 she launched a film career, acting in the movie Slaves, but it was not a success, and she took on only occasional acting assignments thereafter.
In 1971 Warwick temporarily changed her name to Warwicke on the advice of a numerologist, and moved from Scepter to Warner Bros. Records in a deal that included Bacharach and David. Dionne, their first album together under the new deal, was only a moderate seller in 1972. Unfortunately, the songwriting team then broke up in the wake of their work on the disastrous film remake of The Lost Horizon in 1973, and Warwick was forced to sue them for failing to write and produce for her. The parties eventually reached a legal settlement. Warwick topped the charts in 1974, singing with the Spinners on the million-selling "Then Came You" and had another gold record in 1979 with "I'll Never Love This Way Again," which brought her another Grammy Award for best female pop vocal performance. The latter song came from her million-selling Arista Records debut (also called Dionne) produced by Barry Manilow, which also featured "Deja Vu," a Grammy winner for best rhythm and blues vocal performance, female. In 1983 she returned to the top ten with "Heartbreaker," written for her by the Bee Gees and coproduced by Barry Gibb. A reconciliation with Bacharach led in 1986 to the number-one single "That's What Friends Are For," which she recorded as "Dionne & Friends" with Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder. Together, they won the Grammy Award for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals. During the 1980s she served as a host on the Solid Gold television series. In 1994 she hosted television infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network, later quitting the network after it tarnished her image. She continued to record and perform into the early twenty-first century.
No biography of Warwick has yet been written. A good biographical article is Clarence A. Moore, "Dionne Warwick: Forever Gold," Goldmine (26 Jan. 1990). Also useful are David Nathan's liner notes to the album From the Vaults (1995).
William Ruhlmann