Streisand & "Be Aware"

[grooverider]

Was reading on a blog that Barbra Streisand has an aborted album entitled, "Belle of 14th Street" which had Bacharach/David's, "Be Aware" on it. Does anyone have any info. on this? Why was that album shelved and does it indeed have a studio version of "Be Aware"? Did Burt Bacharach participate at all in that recording as he did her live rendition?
It's one of my favorite Hal David lyrics!
Ms. Streisand just released a cd of previously unissued tracks ("Release Me") and there is talk that she plans to issue a second volume in the near future. Makes me wonder, just maybe, if it would include this song.

[Blair N. Cummings]

I don`t know anything about a Belle of 14th St album, but a studio recording of "Be Aware" was made (without Burt) and shelved. Allegedly, he got her to sing it by telling her that it was composed for her but no-one (except maybe Streisand) believed that. The song (as virtually all at the time still were) was written for Dionne.

[GehVorbei]

I have a fairly pedestrian attitude towards Streisand. I buy and mostly like her stuff but I would not consider myself a fan that is interested in every little bit of information on the star. So my knowledge on Streisand is limited.

But I know that her 1967 TV special was called "The Belle of 14th Street" and I actually own it on DVD. And I seriously doubt that she would recycle that title for an album a couple of years later. Because "Be Aware" was not part of the 1967 special and it couldn't have been since it had not been written yet.

[BachtoBacharach]

Blair, it is my understanding that Be Aware was written for Dionne Warwick as you stated. The tune was introduced by Barbra Streisand and Burt on his March 1971 television special. The tune was composed around the time that Warwick’s “Very Dionne” album was released in December 1970. I am not surprised with the growing tension between Bacharach and Warwick that Bacharach would basically inform Streisand on national television that he had written the tune just for her when both he and Warwick knew differently. It was a way, it seems to me for Bacharach to “put Warwick in her place” and of reminding her that there were other female singers out there for him to work with...and this is pure conjecture on my part but has some basis for being possible. I’ll offer this for context of the previous statement. Warwick, at the time, was growing very unhappy at Scepter and was feeling confined and constrained. Warwick was in the studio with Bacharach in June and July of 1970 recording the tunes for “Very Dionne” and several witnessed some tense moments between Warwick and Bacharach. Bacharach was becoming increasingly distracted by his own celebrity and Warwick was unhappy that the album Very Dionne was so skimpy on new material. She felt Bacharach’s lack of involvement or commitment to the project and to her was obvious. The only original tunes on the album were “Check Out Time”, “The Green Grass Starts to Grow”, and “Walk the Way You Talk” with recycled versions of “Make It Easy On Yourself” (which had been released as a single two months previously)and “They Don’t Give Medals to Yesterday’s Heroes”. There were three other tunes recorded during the Very Dionne sessions: “California”, a remake of “Only Love Can Break a Heart, and “Who Gets the Guy”. Warwick hated California and the remake of Only Love and nixed them for inclusion in the album but loved Who Get’s the Guy and wanted it in the album. Bacharach felt Who Gets the Guy was too similar in feel to Green Grass and wasn’t right for the album as well. Bacharach had personally selected Green Grass to be the lead single off the album. Bacharach had even turned over some of the arranging and conducting duties to others. Warwick basically was left to flesh out the album with covers. One tense moment allegedly occurred when Bacharach was engrossed in conversation with the musicians and staff about the Carpenters version of “Close to You” which was riding high on the charts at the time. Bacharach was particularly struck with Karen Carpenter and her voice and allegedly hinted that she might be the new voice for Bacharach and David. In the same discussion, Bacharach was lamenting the fact that Warwick was unable to get Paper Mache (released at around the same time as Close to You) much higher on the charts than #43 or so and he felt the tune, which he loved, should have been a sure-fire hit. This was coming after Dionne's mega hit I'll Never Fall In Love Again hit the top 10 in January. Methinks Burt may have been losing interest in Dionne even then. I take that to mean that the perception was that Bacharach was expressing some frustration with Warwick in a veiled way. Witnesses say Warwick was upset when she heard of the conversation and pointedly told Bacharach that if wanted to work with Karen Carpenter he was free to do so and turned on her heel and left the control booth. Apparently they were able to patch things up enough to get the album in the can. At the same time, Warwick was also frustrated with Florence Greenberg of Scepter and Florence knew it. Florence knew of Warwick’s interest in the production end of the recording business and fronted the money for Dionne to found Sonday Records in an effort to keep other offers at bay. Bell and Columbia had already allegedly offered Warwick multi-million dollar recording deals. As it is, Very Dionne was Warwick’s last studio album for Scepter (aside from the soundtrack for the movie “The Love Machine”). She moved on to Warner Brothers for a $5 million deal, at the time the most lucrative contract ever given a female vocalist. Be Aware was included in that album and was recorded by Warwick in September 1971 with Bacharach arranging and producing. Interestingly, I have heard that Streisand was also in the studio during that same period recording Be Aware without Bacharach; other sources tell me that Streisand never recorded a studio version of Be Aware so until a studio version surfaces, we may never know. After the Dionne album for Warners was released in January 1972, Bacharach’s relationship with Warwick and David disintegrated. The Lost Horizon debacle was the straw that broke the camel’s back but the seeds for the split first began to surface in 1970 after Bacharach’s Oscar wins for Raindrops and the score for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the rapid ascension of his own celebrity. He seemed to become more interested in being a super-star himself and Warwick’s status as a super-star was less important than his own and she felt slighted. She was happy for Burt but not happy that he seemed to be placing her on the back burner. Hal was also sensing this and becoming frustrated that Burt was so consumed by his own celebrity that he often neglected to even credit Hal for being instrumental in his success. That’s another story I’ll write about later.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Some questions: Going back to those days: When did Dionne get to hear the songs that Burt wanted for Dionne's next album? Did Dionne have to sing any song that she didn't like? Who had the last say? Would the recording session for any particular album be set only after Dionne had agreed to sing all the songs that Burt wanted on the album? Would Dionne simply HAVE TO sing whatever songs Burt wanted? I do remember hearing Dionne say that she hated "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" Then why did she sing it? Could she have said, "Burt, I'm not singing that song and that's all there is to it!" ? Didn't Dionne actually turn down "What The World Needs Now?"

Burt doesn't come off too well in your above post, BTB. I mean, why on earth would he blame Dionne for any particular song not becoming a hit? It sort of doesn't make sense for a few reasons: 1) Dionne had many hits, so it's not as if the public simply wouldn't buy her records. As we know from another post, Dionne was about as successful at selling records as anyone. So it would be irrational to blame Dionne for not getting a hit with any particular song. And 2) Even though Burt thought "Paper Mache" should have been a hit, he also knew that it's basically impossible to know what song will become a hit. He put "What The World Needs Now" in his drawer for 8 months thinking that it wasn't too good.

Could Burt's exasperation have been due to the fact that Dionne was getting very tough to work with? If so, maybe he got fed up with it.

I don't know... just speculating. One thing is true: It would be great if Burt writes in detail about all of this in his upcoming book. I don't believe he will, though.

[BachtoBacharach]

Good questions! Burt, Hal and Dionne had no "formula" for working together. Many times especially when Dionne caught fire and Burt's star began to ascend, especially in the UK around 1965 and 1966, he would work long distance with Hal. They worked together over the phone, by mail etc. They rarely sat down together after their early success with Dionne and wrote. With Alfie for example, Hal wrote the lyric first and mailed to Burt and then they worked over the telephone while fleshing our the final product. They often worked together with Dionne during rehearsals which usually occurred only a couple of days before a session and in the late 60s, they sometimes only rehearsed about an hour of two before a session. Dionne sang many songs she didn't like...she sang San Jose and Check Out Time even though she didn't really care initially for either and she rarely put her foot down when recording with Burt. She was presented What the World Needs Now in an unfinished arrangement for Gene Pitney and the tune definitely was not what was presented to Jackie DeShannon...Dionne in that case was presented an unfinished tune with a recording date a few days hence and simply didn't have time to record it. As for album sessions, there were literally none except for the concept sessions for On Stage and In the Movies. Dionne and Burt would record when he had enough tunes written for Dionne or when Scepter was demanding an album. Very Dionne was planned but most of the tunes, as with other albums were already recorded. For Very Dionne most of the tunes were written and recorded in mid 1970. Dionne was not an "album" artist as such but a singles artist and they would usually put out an album when they had accumulated enough recent singles and b sides along with other B/D recordings. When an album was due, they simply went in and recorded some filler to round out the album.

Burt does not come off well probably because he walked away from both Dionne and Hal in 1972. Burt became a star in his own right and naturally focused on his own career but it's his behaviour which brought about the split, not Dionne's or Hal's. It's telling that Hal spoke publicly after the split about Burt's apparent arrogance and his refusal to work with both he and Dionne. Burt even initially refused to allow Dionne to record with other producers and Mo Osten threatened to sue Dionne. Only after Dionne pleaded with Burt, did he relent. During this time, Dionne was not known to be particularly difficult to work with in the studio at all, but she was not a pushover at all. She and Burt had a collaborative relationship. However, Burt had high hopes for Paper Mache and has stated publicly on numerous occasions that the tune should have been a hit. Burt was a taskmaster in the studio as although always a gentleman, it was his way or the highway and everyone knew it. I firmly believe that Burt was so enthralled by his own success at this time that he was uncharacteristically cocky and arrogant, which I can understand the difficulty in adjusting to fame in his own right. He had been so tied to Dionne in the US until Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and I can't even begin to explain how large his star grew after that. I believe that's when he craved the adulation he was receiving as a star more than he craved the adulation he, Hal and Dionne received. The truth of the matter is that Burt blew up their relationship. He basically retreated when Lost Horizon failed and think of how big a blow to his ego that was...he ended a lucrative and rewarding relationship with two longtime friends and retreated from the public for over a year. For any man to do that, he had to have had a fragile psyche at the time. Burt was rather petulant when Dionne regained her stature and her super-stardom in 1979 and told the Miami Herald that he was glad he and Dionne "are over" and "I will never work with her again". Sour grapes it seems to me. But also he ate his words, and I must say enjoyed doing so in 1984! In saying all this, I have praised Dionne and Burt to the heavens and also been critical since the very the early days but still love them dearly...they are human and their travails make the magic they produced together despite their egos so much more special. No one would ever accuse either of being easy...geniuses usually aren't.

[grooverider]

Gentlemen, thank you all for your insightful comments and information! Very fascinating and informative,
I appreciate your filling in between the "grooves".

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Thanks, B2B, for your wonderful and lengthy reply.

I know it's a fact that Burt and Hal worked on songs long distance. I heard Hal say this in an interview. Interestingly, Burt and Elvis Costello wrote "God Give Me Strength" in the same fashion -- by phone and fax. So it wasn't an odd way to collaborate for Burt. He was used to it. I found it also interesting that, in that same interview, Hal said that he and Burt didn't socialize. They wrote songs together (and not even physically together, as it were) and that was the extent of it. Oddly, Burt really didn't seem to care what words Hal put to his music. I heard his say this in an interview. Burt said that as long as the words fit and made sense then he didn't care.

Getting back to Dionne: I suppose the truth of the matter is that, since most of the songs given to her by Burt were so wonderful, there wouldn't be many that she wouldn't want to record anyhow. So it probably wasn't all that big of an issue.

[nudrat]

I don't know the name of a single one of those Taylor Swift songs. Dionne and Madonna achieved these feats over a 30 and 50 year career. How in the world has Swift done this in 5 or 6 years? They must be releasing a lot more singles than they used to!