Dionne Warwick and Rob Shrock playing at Blue Note 6/02/11

[gillanddon]

Do you know why?

[Rio]

Strictly speaking, I don't. But Greece is in deep financial trouble after a huge fiscal crisis. On ocasion it's even been a dangerous place on account of that. Of course, huge problems are just around the corner for many countries that believe or believed that reality was optional. Interesting times.

[alexpaige]

No singer who can sing has "no range". If you have no range, you can't sing at all. Period.

It's true to say that Dionne can't make all the high notes she used to. But this is not the same thing as having "no range". In fact she can get much LOWER now than she could in the past - and guess what, low notes still count as part of your range. (Your vocal range is from the lowest note you can sing to the highest note you can sing). So if she can make more low notes than before, that doesn't mean her range has LESSENED - it means it has SHIFTED. She may well have just as wide a range as she had in the past, but the two ends of the range (the lowest note and the highest note) are different from before. This is completely different from having "no range". Even a singer like Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan has a range (albeit limited).

Anyone who still wants to insist Dionne has no range should simply check out any of the recent Youtube clips of her in concert, wherein you can hear her singing notes as high as she's ever sung them - not with the same degree of comfort as in the past, it's true, and not always with the same tonal quality, again true. But saying someone's timbre has altered or comfort zone has decreased is completely different from saying they have no range.

Please get your facts straight folks because uninformed people come to websites like this, read comments and take them as fact, assuming that "fans" are well-informed.

[BachtoBacharach]

The fact is that Warwick's voice has aged as she has. Her voice gets tired and it shows. She has good days and bad days. Her voice is not what it was. The proof is in the hearing. Yes she has a range...only Blair said she had "no range" which is an overstatement that he has every right to make, nonetheless...the range of octives she can hit comfortably HAS diminished; her ability to soar two or three octives is gone. Dionne could hit and maintain notes comfortably in perhaps 3 to 4 (more?) octives in her heyday. Age has changed that. Every great singer diminishes and fades as time goes on. Her voice has changed and it's a matter of personal preference to like or not like her current voice. I'm afraid I am not getting your point, other than her voice shouldn't be critiqued by fans or that Blair's subjective statement shouldn't have been made because someone who is not a fan might visit this site and take his statement as a literal fact? I have seen her perform frequently recently and she isn't hitting the same notes she did 20 years ago; If she were, Promises, Promises would still be featured prominently in her repertoire; albeit in a lower key. There is no way she could soar two octives in that final ..."can lead to joy and hope and love, yessssssssssssssss love" like she used to do even in a lower key these days. Those YouTube videos, both past and present, speak for themselves as well.

[Blair N. Cummings]

Because I have a tendency to be caustic in my criticism from time to time, I`d like to clarify my "position" on Dionne Warwick.
This woman helped Burt Bacharach revolutionise popular music; no one loves her Scepter recordings more than I do. The split with Burt and Hal in `73 was a tragedy with consequences still felt today. But life loves to screw with all of us like that. The fact remains that Dionne never made a really good album after the emergency "jump-start" of Being Myself. Only a few notable songs came of the terribly bland Arista years. Her voice is now gone. Blame time, cigarettes or both. But nothing can erase what she, Burt, and Hal gave us back in the day. Thank you, Dionne. Thank you, Hal. Thank you, Burt.

[BachtoBacharach]

Well said Blair...I for one believe that if Dionne had quit singing after say 1975 and gone into teaching like she wanted to, she would be inducted into the RRHOF today...I love a few of the tunes she did for Arista but generally her Arista output was bland and far below the standard she, Burt and Hal set...the following is a blog from DITDC: A Bluffer’s Guide to Dionne Warwick and I couldn't agree more.

http://passionweiss.com/2009/10/12/ditd ... wick-pt-1/

When it comes to pop music idolatry and indie cred name-dropping, composer Burt Bacharach, lyricist Hal David and singer Dionne Warwick are simultaneously too conservative and too radical to get theirs. They didn’t rock the pop world like The Beatles, waste-away in an acid fueled nightmare like Brian Wilson or produce the Ramones at gunpoint like Phil Spector; so for second-generation flower children and fist-shaking punks, the trio weren’t the first choice in the stylistic-revival lottery. Taken on their own terms however, the Bacharach/David/Warwick alliance was remarkably prescient: their producer-singer format would go on to become the de-facto standard in black pop and their chamber music orchestration would find a home with everyone from twee kids to psychedelic soul artists. Or put another way: how many groups do YOU know that can claim influence on Timbaland and Aaliyah, Belle & Sebastian, Isaac Hayes AND Stevie Wonder in equal measure? These days, Bacharach and David get occasional props, be it Austin Powers shout-outs or band nerds conspiring to bring back string sections but truthfully, they would just be a forgotten (if remarkably talented) 60’s songwriting team if it weren’t for their secret weapon: Dionne Warwick.

Paving the way for every black vocalist who’s tried her hand at the pop charts, a quick look at Warwick’s career reads like a how-to guide to contemporary success. She couldn’t belt them out like Aretha or play teenager like Dianna but Dionne’s take on swinging-sixties pop was equal parts seduction and heartbreak. Combined with her image as a sophisticated black woman, that seduction was something that couldn’t be discounted in an era where inter-racial relationships were still verboten. Before James Brown came out and said that he was black and proud, Warwick was making strides for racial equality by being the sultriest singer on the pop charts, race be damned. Whitney, Mariah and Beyonce all owe their stardom to the post Brill-building pop that Warwick recorded with her producers.


But enough about influence and image, the music speaks for itself. For the following Bluffer’s Guide, I’ll be skipping Warwick’s biggest hits (“Do You know the Way to San Jose,” “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head”) and most of Bacharach and David’s most iconic material in favor of personal favorites and songs featuring slightly edgier lyrics and more adventurous arrangements. Warwick cut over a dozen albums while under Bacharach’s musical wing so this is a rather limited sampler but I hope it’ll give people the chance to rediscover one of the underrated links between early orchestral pop and rhythm and blues.

Are you there with Another Girl?
A thematic blueprint for contemporary R&B, Dionne’s ode to betrayal wasn’t the first nor the last song chastising unfaithful lovers but her restraint and melodic range make it ear-pleasing. Alternating between twinkling piano keys, light rhythm-and-blues and sweeping orchestral drama, the song winds itself up like its confused protagonist before finally exploding in the final crescendo: Love requires faith, I got a lot of faith BUT…

I say Little Prayer for you
Romantic fluff? Not quite. A subtle anti-war song released as the U.S. presence in Vietnam escalated during the mid-60’s, this is sung from the perspective of a soldier’s girl waiting on news of her man from the front. Aretha’s version packs gospel-powered punch and a better chorus, but Dionne brings subtlety and sweetness to hers and wins the verses.

I Smiled Yesterday
French horn! Background vocals! String sections! Warwick could handle Spector-meets-Motown girl group material just as easily as Broadway numbers, film music, chamber pop or deep soul. The repetition on the break down (I want you…want you…want you…) hits you like a broken record and stands as a neat little production trick.

Hasbrook Heights
I don’t care for gender wars and the pointless debates that surround them. Sure, Hasbrook Heights is pure male fantasy and I should know better, bla-bla-bla… but frankly, I’ll take this over Peaches rapping about her snatch any day of the week. Opening with an understated acoustic guitar riff that interlocks with a swinging piano part, Dionne promises the listener a good view, a relaxing evening and the promise of much more. Maybe I’m getting old, but that actually sounds a lot cooler than Lil Kim stuffing a sprite can down her throat.

Paper Mache
Dionne Warwick built her career by flipping the conventions of easy listening and infusing them with soul and passion but it’s still shocking to hear her weary, resigned kiss-off to the 60’s consumer culture she was supposed to embody. While the hippies were raging from the outside, Dionne takes an insider’s look at modern culture’s failure to offer anything of substance to the people whose lives it was supposed to enrich. Years after punk dulled our ears to the electric guitar, it’s still shocking to hear this kind of stuff over xylophones and accordions.

Wives and Lovers
Opening with off-kilter ¾ jazz drumming, “Wives and Lovers” is Dionne getting to play bad girl, threatening a housewife that she’ll steal her man right from under her. On one hand, the whole thing feels like a period piece to modern ears but on the other, just how many R&B singers are singing about the exact same thing with a few extra slang words in 2009?


Check Out Time
A close cousin of Jimmy Webb’s “By the time I get to Phoenix”, “Check out Time” flips the script by having a female protagonist leave her fiancé and the comfortable-yet-suffocating life surrounding him for freedom and the unknown. The opening lines are a fantastic exercise in contrast: she’s stretched out in bed miles from home…but it’s in some old motel without a plan on where to go from there. By the song’s end, she’s gathered her resolve, checked out and is off on her way via extended piano outro. Stunning.

Walk on By
OK, NOTHING will surpass Isaac Hayes’ 12-minute psychedelic reconstruction, period. BUT, Warwick’s breezy original provides Hayes with a great foundation to work with. For hip-nop and soul fans accustomed to hearing the song slow-and-low with a bluesy baritone, Dionne’s high notes and the track’s relatively brisk tempo make for the perfect flip. And that dramatic string breakdown in the middle? Yeah, it might have given Mr. Hot Buttered Soul an idea or two as well.

I’ll Never Fall in Love Again
This is sort of like writing about Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday” or Michael Jackson’s “Beat it”. “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” is a standard so overplayed that it should have lost its power years before Elvis Costello brought it back for Austin Powers II. That it still retains its power is a tribute to the universality of its message: love sucks, but hey…

Walking Backwards down the Road
This isn’t Warwick’s best song, her most epic or her most famous, but it may well be her quirkiest. An understated, shuffling pop number that combines exotica, strings, horns and a banjo, Dionne sings the song’s titular chorus in a half-hearted tone, nonchalantly abandoning her lover to his new girl. The instrumentation, the reserve and the slightly surreal quality would directly or indirectly inspire thousands of pop kids to make weird, pretty music expressing complicated human qualities.

[gillanddon]

Many thanks Blair and B2B for such stimulating stuff!! Do you have any idea why Dionne isn't inducted into the RRHOF? Seems odd when there others in it with only half of her credentials. I like the blog from the Bluffer's Guide and love those edgy songs too. It's a pity about the Arista years although I must admit they kept me going and I would rather have that voice, in all it's forms, than loose it to teaching.

[alexpaige]

>>The fact remains that Dionne never made a really good album after the emergency "jump-start" of Being Myself.>>

That is not a fact, it's an opinion.

>>Only a few notable songs came of the terribly bland Arista years. Her voice is now gone.>>

Her voice is NOT gone. Her voice has CHANGED.

[Blair N. Cummings]

Okay, as a matter of opinion, which would you rather listen to again - Just Being Myself or that god-awful duets embarrassment of a few years back?
And, yes, Dionne`s voice HAS changed - from one that was among the most distinctive and flexible instruments in the world to one that can now barely carry a tune.
I thought I had made it clear that, far from disliking her, I think she was an irreplaceable vehicle for some of the most amazing pop music ever written. The time has simply come, as it does to us all, for her to gracefully retire.

[BachtoBacharach]

Alex, can you explain to me what the point is to keep debating what opinion is versus what is a fact? Yes, Dionne has a voice, just as Julie Andrews does. Is the voice the same as it was even 15 years ago? No, it's not. Is it a pleasing voice? That's a matter of personal opinion. To me, it's not often pleasing these days and sometimes cringe-worthy. That's my opinion and I have every right to express that opinion as does Blair. You, obviously, love her current voice and that's your perogative and you express your opinion about it...no problem there, either. As far as Dionne making a good album after say 1977, she had a couple of pretty good one, a couple of good ones, and then some that sold well but weren't up to the standard she, Burt and Hal set. Reservations for Two and Finder of Lost Loves (aside from the title tune and a couple of other standout cuts) could have been phoned in. Friends had a couple of great tunes and a lot of filler. Heartbreaker had a couple of awesome tunes and a lot of pretty mediocre stuff. The Dionne sings Dionne stuff and the duets album were pathetic. Those productions sound as though they were made to cash in on the resurgence in Burt's popularity...most particurarily the duets album...tinny and thin. Dionne has coasted, in my opinion, for many years and it shows. Again. my opinion. The Sammy Cahn album shows that with careful production, she can sound pleasing but her voice is not what is was and has changed, you are right about that. You stated that Dionne had the same range now that she did in her heyday. Not a fact!

[gillanddon]

Did Dionne do one or two duets albums? One with the ladies and one with the gents? I've heard the one with the ladies but not the gents .. didn't she record with George Benson and others on it? Many thanks.

[Blair N. Cummings]

As I understand, there was to be a follow-up to the all-female duets album to be made with male vocalists. In light of the, uh, aesthetic results of the first album the plans for a sequel were dropped.
IN MY OPINION, we didn`t miss a damn thing.

[BachtoBacharach]

It's my understanding that several of the male duets were already in the can when Concord Records failed to pick up the second duets album due to lack of sales and poor critical reception of the first. Damon Elliott was responsible for the arrangements and production and it was done on a shoe string and it shows. Dionne and her son financed the projeect without a record company and then pitched the project to Concord. None of the duet participants were paid and sang as a favor to Dionne. The arrangements on the female duets album were so skimpy and Warwick's voice was often buried in the mix or in with background singers. Warwick did not shine on this album and one of the tunes (San Jose) was a holdover from her Dionne Sings Dionne album of almost a decade before. All in all, it was a wasted effotrt...or should I say that the lack of effort shows? I heard that there were duets with Benson, Elton John, Coolio and others already in the can. Dionne's performances in these recordings are shockingly insubstantive and some sound as though they were recorded via cell phone. With some pretty stellar female duet partners, the album garnered scant attention which speaks volumes.

[gillanddon]

Yes I agree. It's a shame really. I'm not a fan of the duets either and much prefer Dionne's solo recordings. Some of the songs, post Bacharach and during the Arista years, are really good and hopefully will survive the test of time. Some of them will like Heartbreaker, That's What Friends Are For (Burt), I'll Never Love This Way Again, Deja Vu and All The Love In The World. Dionne sang quite a few Bacharach songs during the Arista years too but somehow I don't think they reach the mark. I think Burt's style changed too according to the times and many of his songs with Carol Bayer Sager, Elvis Costello etc were more romantically inclined and lost that 'edge' you referred to earlier. The 80's launched everyone into a different sound. I heard Luther Vandross singing 'So Amazing' this morning on BBC Radio 2 Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs and remember Dionne's original version (which you never hear) on the album he produced for her 'How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye'. I think her interpretation of the song is far superior altho' I'm a great fan of Luther. Much like in her earlier career, many artists would just copy her interpretations (Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield etc). I think Luther did the same .. even though he wrote it. I don't think it is a bad thing .. it must be difficult to not to follow Dionne's intuitive style and easy flow with the lyrics when interpreting the song. On an interview recently, on British TV, the person who was interviewing Dionne unwittingly said, ' my Dad said you were the person who originally sang the songs which everyone else copied' to which she graciously replied, 'yes I was'. There are many songs during Dionne's Arista years that need more attention as I think she was in her prime vocally and had 'arrived' in confidence, musically etc and especially in performing which is often gone unnoticed. The beauty of the years with Burt and Hal were God given years of creativity rarely seen but I feel Burt and Dionne's subsequent work requires closer examination. Recordings apart they have had 50 years of extraordinary input in terms of international concert work and charitable work and working with the finest artists around.

[Blair N. Cummings]

The only major disagreement I have with the above remarks has to do with the Elvis Costello songs which I believe saw a brilliant return to form on Burt`s part. The Bayer-Sager collaborations (with the exception of those on "Sometimes Late at Night") were an attempt to conform to an era less commercially open to melodic invention. There were, alas, too many forgettable compositions from that era.
(Do I really need, again, to point out that this is my subjective opinion?)