Music Monday: Happy Birthday, Dionne Warwick!

Keith Chaffee, Librarian, Collection Development,
A photograph of Dionne Warwick

On December 12, 1940, Dionne Warwick was born. Warwick has been one of the most popular singers of the last fifty years, with 69 singles making the pop charts. Aretha Franklin is the only woman with more hits.

Warwick's biggest success came in the 1960s, when she teamed with songwriter/producers Burt Bacharach and Hal David for a string of classic songs – "Don't Make Me Over," "Anyone Who Had a Heart," "I Say a Little Prayer," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose," "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." Those songs, and Warwick's other major 60s hits, can be heard on the streaming album Dionne Warwick.

The songs that Bacharach and David wrote for her were challenging. The melodies and harmonies were more complex than those in most pop songs, and the emotions were more sophisticated. But Warwick had the technical skill to make them sound easy, and the emotional skill to convey every nuance of joy and heartbreak. Bacharach praised her, saying that her voice had "a strong side and a delicacy when singing softly – like miniature ships in bottles."

The Bacharach/David partnership ended in 1972, after the flop of their film musical version of Lost Horizon. Without them, Warwick's career floundered for most of the 1970s. Her 1974 duet with The Spinners, "Then Came You," was a rare bright spot during this period.

In 1979, "I'll Never Love This Way Again" began a Warwick comeback that would last well into the 1980s. In 1985, she was among the performers on the African famine relief charity record "We Are the World." Later that year, she organized her own charity record for AIDS research, recording "That's What Friends Are For" with Gladys Knight, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder. The best of Warwick's 80s recordings are available for streaming on The Essential Dionne Warwick.

Warwick continues to record and perform occasionally. In addition to the hits collections linked above, several of her albums are available for streaming or download at Freegal and Hoopla.


 

 

 

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