Blue Seas/Jac Music -- Hidden Valley Music

[BachtoBacharach]

Ron, I believe you are right about her attitude...she was riding high in the mid and late 60s and early 70s. She was the top female singer in polls like Cash Box, Record World, Playboy Music Poll during that time and was even outselling Aretha at times. Interesting that she and Aretha both had career downturns at about the same time and during the 70s, they both got knocked off their pedestals. Aretha was known to be very volatile during this time as well. Neither could get a tune as high on the charts as they had through the 60s and Dionne had only one huge hit during 72-78 and it was a biggie and her first number one...1974's Then Came You. Aretha didn't fare as well and didn't "come back" until "The Blues Brothers" put her back in the limelight. Dionne struggled mightily with the loss of the family atmosphere at Scepter where she was the golden child and the mainstay of the label and the breakup with Bacharach/David in 1972 and has stated in interviews after her dad died in 1977 that she didn't like herself at all during those years. Although Dionne has been very private about her marriage to Bill Elliott, which ended in 1975, it is pretty well known that it was a very volatile union. There were allegations of physicial abuse and Dionne answered those in a 1979 interview in Spin Magazine that there was never physical abuse in her marriage but she intimated that there was emotional abuse. DeeDee Warwick spoke to Darlene Love, who wrote about the conversation in her book, about the Warwick/Elliott union. DeeDee stated that she, Dionne and Bill Elliott were visiting their parents in NJ and DeeDee was promoting a new recording around 1972 or 1973. She stated that while the reporter was interviewing her in the living room, Bill and Dionne were upstairs and began having a verbal argument that got more and more heated. DeeDee said doors were slamming, etc. DD said she finally stopped the interview for a moment, went to the stair case and yelled at her sister and brother in law to shut up. She was upset that at a time when she was getting a little positive press and career momentum that her superstar sister and her spouse were acting like asses upstairs. During that time can you imagine how deflated Dionne must have been to have a career in high gear as one of the top female singers in the world suddenly in the period of about a year or two go down into low gear? It happens to everyone who attains such a level of fame. Dionne was quite humbled by 1979 when she had that dramatic comeback. She even took a contingent contract with Arista, was fronted the money to record the acclaimed album "Dionne" and was compensated only after her comeback album became profitable. Quite a change from getting a contract from Warner-Brothers in 1971 for many millions (around $ 6 million or so), the most ever given, at that time, a female singer. That's almost $30 million in 2009 dollars. Even most top male singers weren't getting contracts worth that. Warner's, an album oriented label, basically squandered Dionne's ability to make hits. Only one tune was released from her first WB album as a single and it wasn't even one of the great Bacharach/David tunes from the album; it was Jaques Brel's "If We Only Have Love." Go figure. But, the label was so large that 6 million was a drop in the bucket and Dionne got lost in the shuffle.

[steveo_1965]

Bach,
Thanks for the info on Dionne's career...very intersting to read.
Steveo