The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Have you heard Dionne's new single Starlight? 100% Procedes go to the Starlight Foundation. Her pipes sound good too...hear that Burt and Hal? Maybe you can give Dionne just one more for the road.

Thanks! Dionne does sound great...btw most of you know she will be 69 on December 12. I hope Burt, Hal and Dionne will get together for one more album...and who better to write for Dionne's current voice than Burt and Hal...they know it better than anyone else!

I didn't know that this was in the works--I hadn't read anything about it until just a few minutes ago and the article referred the readers to Amazon.com to purchase/listen to it so I heard a small snippet of it and I must say that Dionne's voice sounds better than ever--complete with high-register notes! I have always stated in this Forum that an album of new material from BB/HD/DW would be greatly appreciated by their fans as it is long overdue! Can this be purchased as a single CD?

Was very surprised at Dionne hitting those notes in her upper register and I must say that the familiar Dionne Warwick sound is very much present in this single... much more so than the work she did on the dreadful Concord release from 2005...that duets project that was produced on the cheap and very much sounds so...on many of those tracks, it sounded as though she may have phoned in those performances via cell phone!

Would love to hear Burt and Hal write and produce one more album for Dionne with full orchestra...one tune I would love to hear Dionne sing is "This House Is Empty Now" by Burt and Elvis Costello. Even if there were only a few new tunes, I would love to hear Dionne, Burt and Hal tackle some of their really rare back catalog...tunes like Windows and Doors and other things that Dionne never recorded. Dionne has always wanted to remake Mexican Divorce and what Burt, Hal and Dionne could do with a remake of that tune that is legendary in their history we will probably never know, alas.

What a surprise!!! I'd be very intersted to learn more how this came about. It's a fairly kitsch song and the production is very average but Dionne sings with the same style and grace and magic she sang "Dream Sweet Dreamer" 40 years ago. What's going on with her that suddenly the old magic ignites again?

I don't wish to shatter any illusions but, while the release is new, the recording is not. It probably dates back about 10 years or maybe even longer. Some time ago, a Dionne fan who obviously had a private copy posted it on YouTube but I haven't checked recently to see whether it's still there.

Dustybulletin...no illusions here...there is no mention in the current press of this being an old tune but wouldn't surprise me if that is indeed the case...knowing of Dionne's long association with the Starlight Foundation. I take it you are a long time Bacharach and also Dusty fan with a name like Dustybulletin...wasn't Bacharach's work with Dionne amazing...and love Dusty's The Look of Love although I prefer her original recording of the tune with Bacharach's production rather than her own cover version which became the single...such a legendary tune deserved to have been a much bigger hit than it's number 22 peak but there is no accounting for what the public will fancy. And, stunningly it didn't become a hit in her native UK where it was relegated to a "B" side. Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 had the big top 10 hit in the US with the tune and only within the past 20 years has Dusty's original superseded their version in the mind of the public, mostly due to a resurgence of Bacharach's popularity. Until the early 90s you almost always heard Sergio's version on oldies radio. Now it has been mostly forgotten except by diehard Bacharach and or Sergio fans. The only cover version of the tune I didn't care for was Dionne's 1967 version cut for her "On Stage and In Movies LP...she did the best she could with a dreadful arrangement...one time of only a few where she didn't deliever a definitive version of a Bacharach tune.