Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Yes, she was sometimes a little flaky (adding an “e” to her surname at the recommendation of her astrologer, infomercials on the Psychic Network) and sometimes had a troubled life (marriages, big problems with the tax department).
But at her peak in the Sixties – and in truth often enough since then for her to always be of interest – Dionne Warwick was a sophisticated singer and interpreter who was gifted great material by Hal David and Burt Bacharach.
Their songs in her hands became classics: Walk On By, Anyone Who Had a Heart, I Say A Little Prayer, Message to Michael, Trains and Boats and Planes, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, I'll Never Fall in Love Again . . .
She also had a hit with the theme from the movie The Valley of Dolls which was written by Andre and Dory Previn . . . and in the mid Seventies when she'd stopped working for/with Bacharach-David a hit with the Spinners, Then Came You.
A complete collection would include her later Latin-influenced songs and material from the Great American Songbook which were much more recent.
But this 10-song single disc bills itself honestly as just an introduction, and all of the above-mentioned songs are on it.
And what classy songs, arrangements and interpretations they are.
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As expected there are dozens of Dionne Warwick albums at Spotify -- old, new, various collections and so on -- but not this specific one. However you can begin your (re)discovery of her here.
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Albums considered in this on-going page of essays are pulled from the shelves at random, so we can get the good, the bad or the indifferent from major artists to cult acts and sometimes perverse oddities.
Usually we pull out records but given our collection is in lock-ups after the flooding we will sometimes resort to random CDs like this one.
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