Dionne Warwick

Don't Make Me Over
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMpG_cn-DRI

Anyone Who Had A Heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkyBMRulHK4&feature=related

Reach Out for Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rctr1cNw_fY

Alfie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ybi8zUkAQo

(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ySssbggm20

Promises,Promises
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf9x71lDsXY&feature=related

This Girl's in Love With You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYA0fdNSOOw&feature=related

I'l Never Fall in Love Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTV6QnPMMp8

Make It Easy On Yourself
(live)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BecM1OtxVLI

Then Came You
w/The Spinners
http://youtube.com/watch?v=eXjRYlZvOlQ&feature=PlayList&p=59A2079B63475269&index=7

I Just Wanna Be Your Everything
(live)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoGmNQ95lOw&feature=related

Love Power
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UYOEt3i67c

Dionne Warwick (born Marie Dionne Warrick on December 12, 1940), is an acclaimed five-time Grammy Award-winning singer, actress, activist, United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, former United States Ambassador of Health, and humanitarian. She is best known for her partnership with songwriters and producers Burt Bacharach and Hal David. According to Billboard magazine, Dionne Warwick is second only to Aretha Franklin as the female vocalist with the most Billboard Hot 100 chart hits during the rock era (1955-1999). Warwick charted a total of 56 hits in the Billboard Hot 100.

While performing background on The Drifters' recording of "Mexican Divorce", Warwick's voice and star presence were noticed by the song's composer Burt Bacharach, a Brill Building songwriter who was writing songs with many other songwriters including Hal David. According to a July 14, 1967, article on Warwick from Time magazine, Bacharach stated, "She has a tremendous strong side and a delicacy when singing softly—like miniature ships in bottles." Musically, she was "no play-safe girl. What emotion I could get away with!" And what complexity, compared with the usual run of pop songs. During the session, Bacharach asked Warwick if she would be interested in recording demonstration recordings of his compositions to be used to pitch the tunes to record labels. One such demo, "It's Love That Really Counts"—destined to be recorded by fellow Scepter act The Shirelles—caught the attention of Scepter Records President Florence Greenberg. Greenberg, according to "Current Biography" 1969 Yearbook, told Bacharach "forget the song, get the girl!" Warwick was signed to Bacharach and David's production company, according to Warwick, which in turn was signed to Scepter Records in 1962 by Greenberg. The partnership would provide Bacharach with the freedom to produce Warwick without the control of recording company executives and company A&R men.

Warwick was named the Bestselling Female Vocalist in the Cash Box Magazine Poll in 1964, with six chart hits in that year.[citation needed] Cash Box also named her the Top Female Vocalist in 1969, 1970 and 1971. In the 1967 Cash Box Poll, she was second only to Petula Clark, and in 1968's poll second only to Aretha Franklin. Playboy Magazine's influential Music Poll of 1970 named her the Top Female Vocalist[citation needed]. In 1969, Harvard's Hasty Pudding Society named her Woman of the Year.

The mid 1960s to early 1970s became an even more successful time period for Warwick, who saw a string of Gold selling albums and Top 20 and Top 10 hit singles.

In a 1983 concert appearance televised on PBS, Warwick states she was the 43rd person to record "Alfie", at Bacharach's insistence, who felt Dionne could make it a big hit. Warwick, at first, balked at recording the tune and asked Bacharach "How many more versions of Alfie do you need?" to which Bacharach replied "Just one more, yours." Bacharach took Warwick into the studio with his new arrangement and cut the tune the way he wanted it to be, which she nailed in one take. Warwick's version peaked at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on both the R&B Chart and the AC Charts.[citation needed] Warwick performed the song at the Academy Awards in 1967. Today, "Alfie" is considered a signature song for Warwick.

Later that same year, Warwick earned her first RIAA Gold Single for US sales of over one million units for the single "I Say a Little Prayer" (from her album The Windows of the World). When disc jockeys across the nation began to play the track from the album in the fall of 1967 and demanded its release as a single, Florence Greenberg, President of Scepter Records, complied and "I Say a Little Prayer" became Warwick's biggest US hit to that point, reaching #4 on the US and Canadian Charts and # 8 on the R & B Charts. Aretha Franklin would cover the tune a year later and hit US #10. The tune was also the first RIAA certified USA million seller for Bacharach-David.

Her follow-up to "I Say a Little Prayer" was unusual in several respects. It was not written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, it was the "B" side of her "I Say a Little Prayer" single, and it was a song that she almost didn't record. While the film version of Valley of the Dolls was being made, actress Barbara Parkins suggested that Warwick be considered to sing the film's theme song, written by songwriting team Andre and Dory Previn. The song was to be recorded by Judy Garland, who was fired from the film. Warwick performed the song, and when the film became a success in the early weeks of 1968, disc jockeys flipped the single and made the single one of the biggest double-sided hits of the rock era and another million seller. At the time, RIAA rules allowed only one side of a double-sided hit single to be certified as Gold, but Scepter awarded Warwick an "in-house award" to recognize "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls" as a million selling tune.

By the end of 1971, Dionne Warwick had sold an estimated thirty-five million singles and albums internationally in less than nine years and more than 16 million singles in the USA alone. Exact figures of Warwick's sales are unknown, and probably underestimated, due to Scepter Records lax accounting policies and the company policy of not submitting recordings for RIAA audit. Dionne Warwick became the first Scepter artist to request RIAA audits of her recordings in 1967 with the release of "I Say A Little Prayer".

In 1971, Dionne Warwick left the family atmosphere of Scepter Records for Warner Bros. Records for what was at the time the most lucrative recording contract ever given a female vocalist according to Variety.

In 1975, Bacharach/David sued Scepter Records for an accurate accounting of royalties due the team from Warwick and labelmate B. J. Thomas recordings and was awarded almost $600,000 and the rights to all Bacharach/David recordings on the Scepter label. The label, with the defection of Warwick to Warner Bros. Records, filed bankruptcy in 1975 and was sold to Springboard International Records in 1976.

In 1972, Burt Bacharach and Hal David scored and wrote the tunes for the motion picture Lost Horizon. The film was panned by the critics, and in the fallout from the film, the songwriting duo decided to terminate their working relationship. The breakup left Dionne devoid of their services as her producers and songwriters. Dionne was contractually obligated to fulfill her contract with Warners without Bacharach and David and she would team with a variety of producers during her tenure with the label.

Faced with the prospect of being sued by Warner Bros. Records due to the breakup of Bacharach/David and their failure to honor their contract with Dionne, she filed a $5.5 million lawsuit against her former partners for breach of contract. The suit was settled out of court in 1979 for $5 million including the rights to all Warwick recordings produced by Bacharach and David.

Without the guidance and songwriting that Bacharach/David had provided, Warwick's career slowed in the 1970s. There were no big hits until 1974's "Then Came You", recorded as a duet with the Spinners and produced by Thom Bell. Bell later noted, "Dionne made a face when we finished [the song]. She didn't like it much, but I knew we had something. So we ripped a dollar in two, signed each half and exchanged them. I told her, 'If it doesn't go number one, I'll send you my half.' When it took off, Dionne sent hers back. There was an apology on it." It was her first US #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. (Wikipedia)


As legend has it, Warwick originally thought "Make It Easy On Yourself" would be her debut as a solo artist and was angry when she learned Bacharach and David were giving the song to Jerry Butler. An upset Warwick balked, "don't make me over, man", which is street slang for "don't lie to me". The duo decided to make Warwick's epithet into a song for Warwick which she recorded at Bell Sound in Manhattan in August 1962.
Released in November 1962, the recording of "Don't Make Me Over" was issued with a misspelling of the artist's name: Warwick, rather than Warrick. The singer decided to keep the misspelling and would be forever after known as Dionne Warwick. (YouTube)

Dionne's Promises Promises was a big international hit released in October 1968 prior to the December opening of the Neil Simon/Burt Bacharach/Hal David Broadway smash Promises, Promises in December 1968.
It turned out to be the show's most difficult number to sing as its rapid fire melody left many singers short of breath. To Dionne, the tune was a piece of cake. It was her recording of the tune that proved the ideal vocal guide for the show's male lead, the late, great Jerry Orbach (a heck of a Broadway singer, he also portrayed Det. Lennie Briscoe on TV's Law and Order). Orbach attended Dionne's recording session at A&R Studios in Manhattan in September 1968 and reportedly asked Dionne, "How the hell do you sing this?" He took an acetate of Dionne's session to help him navigate the tune. (YouTube)