Streisand at the Oscars

[blueonblue]

Quite simply a force of nature !


"blue"

[GehVorbei]

Dionne is such a disciplined and hard-working woman and such a survivor with so many of her friends and peers already gone. So for heaven's sake let her heave that one vice she likes to have...

I never bought into the argument that her vocal changes were all or primarily self-inflicted by smoking. But if I believe it for a second I wouldn't want to miss her early 80s voice with the high notes AND the dark tones and the enormous strength. And by the way outside of the US she had all her biggest chart- hits in the 80s and she's most associated with songs like Heartbreaker, All The Love In The World and TWFAF. People love that husky voice.

[grooverider]

Dame Shirley, with Gary Barlow(formerly of Take That) on piano, singing his composition in a benefit concert, the audience in her hand! The song, "This Time" is from her great 2009 cd, "The Performance", a cd of all orginal songs, most written expressly for Dame Shirley:

[BachtoBacharach]

GeiVorbei, you must be a child of the 1980s. Dionne had huge international hits in Walk On By, Do You Know the Way to San Jose and others in the 1960s. Her biggest international hit was Do You Know the Way to San Jose which Heartbreaker runs a close second to. San Jose literally hit all over the world and is popular on every continent. German record buyers have always had such varied tastes and it was hard for many Americian artists in the 1960s to penetrate the German market. Scepter's own records, poor as they may be, indicate that San Jose sold well over 4,000,000 units internationally. Walk On By, Alfie, and Anyone Who Had a Heart were also international million sellers. In addition, Dionne was an international album seller as well. She was an international superstar by the late 1960s...and her fame continued anew in the 1980s. I am just not getting the point of making an argument that Dionne wasn't a big star in Europe until the 1980s...and that her "smoky" voice was a factor...this argument just has no validity. And, Dionne is a professional in many ways, that's for sure, but she's not as disciplined as one might think regarding taking care of her voice...she's said for years that she does nothing special to take care of her instrument but she's also said the opposite. It's obvious that you and GillandDon and others don't believe that she has done any damage to her voice by smoking etc. Something even her family doesn't agree with...Her son David has particularly been very vocal with her about her very heavy smoking habit and does not allow her to light up around him or his children any longer. But then again, no one has EVER told Dionne Warwick what to do and when they do, she is so stubborn she will eventually have the last word. And she has...she continues to destroy what little voice she has left by smoking and gross overuse.

[GehVorbei]

You don't have to lecture me on Dionne's career. The point is that her 80s career in many parts of the world was as big or bigger and that generations of listeners totally fell in love with that dark timbre.

You can go to any concert in Europe or Asia and the biggest singalong will be on Heartbreaker. People love and know her 60s stuff but they also love her 80s stuff and her 80s voice.

I personally totally like what happened with DWs voice between 1962 and ca.1985, I like all the different nuances of that incredible instrument. And I am still saddened by the changes that happened in the late 80s and early 90s.

I just find - as always - the "she smoked her voice away" thing overly simplistic. Oh yeah, for over almost 25 years her voice got stronger through smoking and than suddenly within 5 years the same smoking-habit killed it...Oh, please...

[BachtoBacharach]

Smoking changed her voice and the effects of smoking are cumulative...up to a tipping point, she still had the range and the lung power to compensate for the effects of smoking. Once she hit that tipping point, it was all downhill from there...do you SERIOUSLY believe that smoking has not had a detrimental effect upon her voice? If so, you are in a small minority but I am tired of this debate...I was a smoker for many years and gave it up in the 1970s...and I know what it did to me. Have you ever smoked or do you smoke presently? I was in denial about the effects of smoking when I smoked; it's the nature of a smoker to deny. Dionne is truly a narcissist and she doesn't care what smoking does to those around her and she's immune to effects apparently or so she believes but she can smoke her last bit of voice away and be happy doing it as far as I am concerned; she's a free woman. As far as this stupid argument about her "smoky" voice, it's a false one. Her family cares about her not about whether some Dionne fans love, love, love her smoky voice and argue in support of her past or present smoking habits. Ridiculous!!!

[GehVorbei]

I'm just saying that she had her biggest international hit at a point in her career when she had been smoking for 20 years and her voice had darkened considerably and that a lot of fans like and liked that dark tone. And in most European markets outside of the UK she had bigger single hits in the 80s than in the 60s. So if those vocal changes are all linked to smoking it worked both ways.

Would it have been better for her health not to smoke? Oh absolutely! But that's her decision, not ours. Now she 72 and at this point giving up smoking would not make a big difference anymore anyway. And she made it very clear she doesn't care to...Why are you still trying to patronize her. I don't get it.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Very well said, B2B, and so true!

3 things:

1. "Do You Know The Way To San Jose" may be my favorite DW song. The song, Hal's great lyric, Dionne's stunning and pure voice, Burt's phenomenal orchestration, etc. has always been a song that I never get tired of listening to. It has such a special place in my heart. And it always bothered me that Dionne would always publicly disparage the song, time after time. It totally makes sense to me that the entire world loved that song.

2. A "smokey tone" to one person is just a voice that's hoarse to another. I'll take Dionne's most beautiful, pure, supple and luscious voice any day.

3. Even if there were a slim chance that smoking could hurt your voice, why would you take that chance? Why would you go there? I doubt very much if a concert pianist (such as, say, Vladimir Horowitz) played with knives.

[GehVorbei]

This is a Burt Bacharach forum and I assume that everybody here sees the combined BB/HD/DW output from the 60s and early 70s as superior to almost anything in popular music. That's just a given, we don't have to argue about that.

When it comes to Warwick though she had basically two careers as an international superstar. One in the 60s+ and one in 80s. With two very different and distinctive timbres. And people really must have liked that 80s voice, too. Because she scored some big hits with that voice surpassing her single-chart successes of the 60s here.

"Heartbreaker" (single): Sweden No 1 - Oct 1982 (21 weeks), Poland 1 - Nov 1982 (10 weeks), UK 2 - Oct 1982 (14 weeks), Norway 2 - Nov 1982 (12 weeks), Belgium 3 - Nov 1982 (9 weeks), Switzerland 4 - Nov 1982 (11 weeks), Springbok 4 - Dec 1982 (17 weeks), Holland 5 - Oct 1982 (8 weeks), France 5 - Oct 1982 (1 week)......

The combined global chart figures for DW say: 1. Heartbreaker, 2. Walk On By, 3. I know I'll Never Love That Way Again...8. Do You Know The Way to San Jose...

And as that Horowitz analogy is concerned it's pretty lame:

"The possessors of the two most famous voices in operatic history were both smokers. Maria Callas made no secret of it: she didn’t mind being photographed with a fag in her hand. And Enrico Caruso chugged his way through two packets of Egyptian cigarettes a day. No wonder his recording of Celeste Aida has such an authentic ring to it." (From The Daily Telegraph, Summer of 2012)

[BachtoBacharach]

Here is an article about Whitney Houston's vocal decline. It may offer some interesting insight into this discussion:

http://aapproach.com/what-happened-to-w ... -analysis/

[nikray77]

What I find odd among a few posters is that they love taking shots at Dionne regarding any issue. Thus if Dionne sang the exact same way she did at 22 there will be some who would take a shot at her regarding that fact. Look we all know Dionne should stop smoking, Dionne herself has even gone public with her sons issues with her smoking. More over she admits she is glad her sons never started smoking. Dionne is still creating her own magic and still performing in front of thousands of fans all over the world. Why does that bother some of you so much? I mean really it gotten way out of hand in my opinion.

I admit I love Dionne's music and her singing and yes there are times when it's difficult to listen too her these day, but guess what I simply don't listen to her at those times. She is hit or miss. And too the wonderful poster who clipped/linked an article about Whitney Houston, please is there no level of tacky you will not reach. I dare say it's just done in very poor taste. Tacky, just tacky!!