Neil Simon-Burt Bacharach Songs

[BachtoBacharach]

Does anyone have any more info on the Dionne Warwick recordings Burt Bacharach wrote with Neil Simon? Gladys Knight's Seconds was released in 1974 but there were allegedly three or maybe four tunes Burt co-wrote with Neil that Dionne recorded with Burt in late 1973 or early 1974, after the Bacharach-David-Warwick split. One recording "And Then You Walked Through the Door" or similar title received a couple of press mentions at the time because the split had received a lot of press attention and folks seemed to want Burt and Dionne back together. David Nathan who compiled Dionne Warwick: Hidden Gems as well as the two-fer reissues for Rhino has mentioned the recordings as well. I was wondering if "Seconds" was recorded by Dionne during that session and later given to Gladys or are there three or more original Dionne Burt recordings from the 70s that have never seen the light of day. There were apparently other sessions scheduled for Warwick-Bacharach but those sessions or that particular project was abandoned, I am assuming by Burt. Seems I recall Burt mentioning one time that his work with Simon was interesting but he felt the spark wasn't there. I was wondering if these recording will ever surface? David Nathan has done an inventory of all the recordings in the Warner Vaults and was the person who discovered (The Very First Person I Met in) California, as well as the Dionne-BJ Thomas duets. Nathan also wrote that session notations on an empty master tape box he discovered when compiling the "Very Dionne" reissue for Rhino indicated that Dionne had originally cut "Everybody's Out of Town" in December 1969 but the tune was later given to BJ. Nathan says the tape from that session was missing. If that is the case, I wonder if BJ cut the tune using the backing track from the DIonne session.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

I have no info on that, sorry... but I do find it fascinating. Particularly where Burt said that there was no spark with Neil Simon. I'm just wondering if that meant that he and Neil didn't hit it off personally? Or did he mean that they just didn't work together well artistically? At any rate, there certainly was a spark between Burt and Hal -- and that's why, even to this very day, I'm sorry that they split up.

I never heard of "And Then You Wlked Through The Door", but I know and love "Seconds", as sung by Gladys Knight. It's a great, great song, and I just wonder why it's never heard or sung. I don't think that song was ever uploaded to youtube, either.

Can you write David Nathan and ask him your questions (I wonder)?

[pljms]

Yes, 'Seconds' is a truly great song and should be better known. I actually prefer the version on Bacharach's 'Futures' album as sung by Joshie Armstead to Gladys Knight's recording, as much for the arrangement as anything else.

[Sara D]

I prefer the 'Futures' version of 'Seconds' for Joshie Armstead's vocals as well as the arrangement. I just think she got much more out of the song than Gladys Knight. In fact, I think all four of Joshie Armstead's renditions on the 'Futures' album were stunning, especially 'Us' - has anyone sung a Bacharach song with more passion?

[BachtoBacharach]

I remember at the time that the gossip colums and Variety or maybe Billboard, were trumpeting Burt and Dionne being back in the studio together. Seems I remember thinking when Burt said something about the spark being gone, that I got the impression he was referring to himself. He was coming off the Lost Horizon panning and the split.

I also found this article from a 1975 Knight News Service:

Bacharach Tells It Like It Is
By Shirley Eder-Knight Newspapers

Dionne Warwicke, who was staying at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas while Burt Bacharach and Anthony Newley were performing there, attended one of their final shows. She was introduced thusly by Burt from the stage: "There are a couple of people in the audience I'd like to introduce. One is a very good singer, Miss Dionne Warwicke, who is suing me for for five and a half million dollars. The other lady, who lives with me and she's not suing me--Angie Dickinson, my wife."

Burt still can't figure out what Dionne is suing him for. At first he was hurt, now he's mad. So, when Dionne went back to Burt's dressing room to pay a social call, she was refused admittance.

Interesting that Burt has since acknowledged that he was responsible for the split and for the breach of Warwick's contract. Also interesting that Burt Hal and Dionne reached an out of court settlement of the Breach of Conract suit in 1979 and Warwick received 5 million including the shared rights of their recordings. The rest of the story can be found in another post in this forum, but I had never run across this news item until the other day.

[nymusicalsguy]

I have long been hoping for the release of these three Bacharach/Simon-penned songs recorded by Dionne in that "lost weekend" of 1974 at A&M Studios, produced by Burt with Phil Ramone engineering, as in the "old days". But thanks to Rhino Handmade's cancellation of David Nathan's tremendous Dionne reissue program -- not to mention Dionne's own admitted indifference to the reissue of her early triumphs -- a release seems unlikely. Let's hope wiser heads prevail and these important missing links in the Bacharach/Warwick story eventually see the light of day.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Dionne is indifferent to the release of her earlier triumphs??? How strange! I would think the opposite. I wonder why she feels that way? I feel sad that she does. Greatness like that shouldn't be locked away in time.

[BachtoBacharach]

Wasn't Dionne promoting her "Dionne Sings Dionne" when she said this? I recall she was naturally excited about this "new" project of hers much as Burt was excited by "At This Time." I guess any artist will always compete against their back catalog and I believe Dionne's affection for all her old Bacharach/David catalog is evident when she sings in concert. But, unlike Burt, that back catalog of recordings doesn't generate any royalties for her any longer (she sold those rights in 1992 to the Warner Group and isn't that ironic with the current situation on YouTube where all her recordings she sold the rights to are being systematically removed) so I guess she would be much more interested in making whatever her current project is as commercially viable as possible.

[nymusicalsguy]

Yes, I believe Dionne's comments were related to her promotion of a current release. And while I appreciate Dionne's desire to look forward, not backwards, her recordings truly are national treasures. I've long believed a box set (a la Rhino's THE LOOK OF LOVE set for Burt) would cause a critical re-evaluation of this woman's deep talent and extraordinary accomplishments, much as THE LOOK OF LOVE did for Burt, restarting a kind of renaissance that hasn't let up to this day. Thankfully, there's still time, and with the volatile nature of the music business, anything can happen...

[BachtoBacharach]

I totally agree. David Nathan has hinted that there are still a couple of unknown Warwick/Bacharach/David tunes in the Warner Vaults and I may be wrong but I believe I heard somewhere a couple of tunes they recorded for the Warner Brothers album "Dionne" were culled. But again, Dionne has stated that she recorded "One Less Bell to Answer" as more or less filler for that album so I wonder if that is the case. But, what wonderful filler it is! I would also be interested to hear alternate takes of the tunes we are so familiar with. Who Is Gonna Love Me, A House Is Not A Home and Here Where There Is Love are tunes that alternate takes appear in various compilations. I also wonder if any unreleased/unknown Dionne demos exist, as those done before Dionne was signed by Scepter would not have been in their vaults. Wouldn't it be great if the alleged original recording of "Everybody's Out of Town" by Dionne would surface? It is so similar to some of the tunes Burt was writing for her during that time. Odds and Ends, Who Gets the Guy, Walk the Way You Talk, are a few that come to mind. It is high time someone put a box set out but with over potentially 100 recordings to select from for a Dionne Burt box set, it would be difficult to select what is selected. A suggestion-anything they recorded from 1962 to 1975 together along with alternate takes, demos and any unknown recordings. But, as Scepter was known for such disrespect for their master recording, who knows other than Nathan what survives in the Warner Vaults. Wonder if Burt has any masters or copies of sessions in his possession? Her post 1975 work is well documented and although what she did with Arista was good, it doesn't match the greatness of what Bacharach/David/Warwick did in the 60s and early 70s. I remember reading somewhere that if Dionne has disappeared after about 1977, she would already be in the RRHOF since her Arista works were decidedly less complex, more MOR and in my opinion less interesting, even her work with Bacharach during the Arista years, although extremely popular and lovely, somewhat generic.

[nymusicalsguy]

The estimable Mr. Nathan also unearthed a complete concert by Dionne performed at NJ's Garden State (now PNC Bank...sigh) Arts Center, half of which appeared on one of his Rhino Handmade releases, the other half scheduled to appear on Rhino Handmade's expanded edition of ON STAGE AND IN THE MOVIES. Of course, Rhino pulled the plug on David's reissue series, and half of this terrific concert therefore remains unissued. SIGH, what might have been...

I'd love for David to one day reveal what the contents would have been of his proposed reissues for the rest of Dionne's albums. Till then, we have to be grateful to him merely for getting bare-bones reissues produced of DIONNE and JUST BEING MYSELF, not to mention TRACK OF THE CAT.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

"Wonder if Burt has any masters or copies of sessions in his possession? "

Would Burt have actually been give masters or copies in his Scepter/Florence Greenberg days?

I loved what you guys wrote above regarding Rhino or someone putting out a boxed set of Dionne's Bacharach/David songs. I never knew that Dionne recorded "Everybody's Out of Town". I would love to hear her sing that one. And you're right about the songs that Burt/Hal were writing around that time. Such interesting and wonderful songs. Burt/Hal/Dionne had their own particular niche in all of music history. I really would hate to see those songs be lost to future generations.

Regarding Dionne's performance at the New Jersey Garden Arts Center. A portion of that concert (audio only) was uploaded onto youtube. It is now gone! Dionne was in fantastic voice. 3 songs from the concert were uploaded. One was "Walk on By", another was "Do You Know The Way To San José?" and Dionne introduced the third song by saying, "And now I'd like to sing my latest hit, now out on Scepter Records, called "Paper Maché". So this had to put the concert around 1970 or 1971. I believe that's when "Paper Maché" was released. The orchestra was fantastic and they backed up Dionne to perfection. I saw Dionne around that same time, but in a different venue -- in Hartford, CT. Nothing like it! Anyhow, a boxed set of those songs sung by Dionne is long overdue.

[BachtoBacharach]

During the early days of Burt/Hal/Dionne, Burt would actually take acetate copies of the demos around to various record companies. Such a demo was allegedly what Connie Frances lifted the needle off of when she made her now infamous remarks to Mr. Bacharach, or that is the story Burt tells at times in his concerts. Florence would not have owned the demos of the tunes as Bacharach was not contracted to her at the time and he pitched them to other companies before he was contracted to Scepter. And Burt did retain the ownership of his masters with Dionne and others-Florence never owned them and only asked that Burt give Scepter a copy of the backing track once a project was finished so that Scepter could reuse the backing track for other artists. One such backing track was I Cry Alone by Dionne. Big Maybelle and other Scepter artists used the same backing track to cut covers. There were others, including Dionne's This Girls In Love With You which Scepter used at a different speed to record BJ Thomas's later recording of the tune. Florence saved a lot of money by reusing backing tracks and was known to reuse master tapes of takes not selected for release. Such a shame as so much history was erased. In one of the recordings Dionne made in the mid-sixties with Burt, bleed from the previously recorded and erased tune can be heard; can't remember the tune but David Nathan noted this in his liner notes for Dionne's HIDDEN GEMS compilation.

[nymusicalsguy]

For the record, the three Burt/Dionne songs recorded in 1974 & still unreleased (referred to a few posts above) are "Plastic City" (no relation to Stephanie Mills' "Living On Plastic"!), "And Then You Know What He Did", and "And Then He Walked Through The Door". The last two titles certainly sound as if they could have been penned by Bacharach & Simon for the proposed PROMISES, PROMISES movie that never happened -- much like "Seconds" was.

[BachtoBacharach]

Thanks for that info. Maybe one day those will be released or made available. The three tunes would certainly be among those I would choose for a Burt/Dionne box set. Maybe Rhino will someday make these available at least as MP3s. Such a shame Rhino put a hold on any further Dionne compilations. According to Nathan, THE DIONNE WARWICK COLLECTION: HER ALL TIME GREATEST HITS has been one of Rhino's best and most consistent sellers since its release in 1989 and the CD is still in print and selling well twenty years later! That should tell them something, one has to hope. I think a Rhino Box Set is long overdue for Dionne.