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.