Dionne Warwick

• 1. Introduction

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  Dionne Warwick, born on the 12th of December 1940, placed 56 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998. Twelve of them reached the Top Ten. Counting her solo and shared releases across the Hot 100, R&B and adult contemporary charts, the total climbs to 80 singles. Those numbers place her among the most-charted vocalists of all time. They say little about how she got there. Her path ran from a church pulpit to crowded recording studios, then to a songwriting partnership that made her famous and later pulled her into a courtroom. It also passed through a television infomercial she came to resent, and a bankruptcy filing. Who was she before the hits arrived? What did two songwriters see in a young backing singer? And how does a voice that critics struggle to categorize end up defining an era of pop sophistication?

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• 2. Church Pews and Subway Cars

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  Arthur Lee Drinkard and Mancel Warrick welcomed a daughter named Marie Dionne Warrick. Her mother managed the Drinkard Singers, a family gospel group. Her father worked as a Pullman porter, a chef, a record promoter and a CPA. Dionne grew up in East Orange, New Jersey. She first sang gospel as a child at her grandfather's AME church in Newark, where he served as pastor, and later at the New Hope Baptist Church.

  The Drinkard Singers were RCA recording artists who performed often around the New York area. The group began as the Drinkard Jubilairs and grew to include her grandparents, Nicholas and Delia Drinkard, and their children. When the family appeared on TV Gospel Time, Dionne made her television debut. Elvis Presley eventually expressed interest in having the group join his touring entourage.

  A second family group, the Gospelaires, shaped her professional life more directly. Singers who passed through included Judy Clay, Doris Troy and Cissy Houston, who was the mother of Whitney Houston. Warwick later told the television program Biography about the moment it began. A man ran backstage at the Apollo asking for background singers for a session with Sam "the Man" Taylor, and she spoke up for the group. She never learned his name, though she credited him with launching her career.

  After that session, New York producers kept calling. The Gospelaires backed the Drifters, Ben E. King, Chuck Jackson, Dinah Washington and Solomon Burke. Warwick described a schoolgirl routine. On weekdays the girls took a bus from East Orange to the Port Authority Terminal, rode the subway to a Manhattan studio, sang their parts and still reached home in time for homework. She finished East Orange High School in 1959 and went on to study at the Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut, while the session work continued.

  Family ties ran deep. Her sister Delia, called Dee Dee, built her own singing career and died in 2008. Her brother Mancel Jr. was killed in an accident in 1968 at the age of 21. Her cousin was Whitney Houston, and her mother's cousin connection extended to the opera singer Leontyne Price. When Dionne and Doris Troy left to pursue solo careers, the Gospelaires became the Sweet Inspirations, who went on to back Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley.

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• 3. The Demo Singer

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  In 1962, Warwick stood at a microphone behind the Drifters as they recorded "Mexican Divorce." The song's composer, Burt Bacharach, was listening. He was a Brill Building songwriter who worked with lyricist Hal David, and he noticed her voice and her presence. In a 1967 Time article, Bacharach described her sound as a strong side combined with a delicacy in soft passages, "like miniature ships in bottles." He recalled that with her he could attempt emotion he would not risk with other singers.

  He asked whether she would record demonstration tapes of his songs so he could pitch them to record labels. The pay was $12.50 per demo session. One of those demos, "It's Love That Really Counts," was meant for the Shirelles, a group on Scepter Records. It reached the label's president, Florence Greenberg. According to Current Biography, she told Bacharach, "Forget the song, get the girl!"

  Warwick said she was signed to a production company run by Bacharach and David, which in turn signed with Scepter in 1962. The arrangement gave Bacharach room to produce her without interference from label executives and A&R staff. It also let him write harder songs, since her musical training could handle them. Her original demo of "Make It Easy on Yourself" survived and appeared on her debut album, Presenting Dionne Warwick, released in early 1963.

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• 4. From Anger to Million Sellers

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  In November 1962, Scepter released her first solo single, "Don't Make Me Over." The title came from Warwick herself. She had wanted "Make It Easy on Yourself" as her first release, then learned it had been given to Jerry Butler. She snapped the phrase at Bacharach and David in anger, and the pair built a song from it. It reached No. 21 on the pop chart and the top five of the R&B chart. The label misspelled her name as Warwick instead of Warrick, and she kept the new spelling.

  Paris came next. She left school for a tour of France, where Marlene Dietrich introduced her on stage at the Paris Olympia. Critics there crowned her "Paris' Black Pearl." Back home, her fourth single, "Anyone Who Had a Heart," appeared in November 1963. It became her first U.S. Top Ten pop hit at No. 8 and an international million seller. "Walk On By" followed in April 1964 and secured her place. From 1962 to 1971, most of her output came from the Bacharach and David team.

  The British Invasion barely dented her. Her biggest UK hits were "Walk On By" and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" Still, British singers Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw and Dusty Springfield recorded songs from the Bacharach and David catalogue. Black's version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" went to No. 1 in the UK. Warwick felt insulted that record executives there preferred someone else to sing her songs. She told Black in person that "You're My World" would be her next U.S. single, and later said Black copied her so closely that a sneeze on her record would have appeared on Black's too.

  In 1964, a Cash Box poll named Warwick the Bestselling Female Vocalist, with six chart hits that year. A year later, Eon Productions planned to use her song "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" as the theme for the James Bond film Thunderball. Producer Albert R. Broccoli insisted the theme carry the film's title. A new song, "Thunderball," was written and recorded at the last minute by Tom Jones, though the melody of her song stayed in the film score.

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• 5. Flip Sides

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  Disc jockeys in the late 1960s kept doing something record labels never planned. They flipped her singles over and played the B sides. "Alfie" became a radio hit this way in early 1967. It was an album track on Here Where There Is Love, her first RIAA certified Gold album. Stations then flipped the single "The Beginning of Loneliness" and made both sides hits. Bacharach had been contracted to produce "Alfie" for the Michael Caine film of the same name and wanted Warwick to sing it. The British producers wanted a British subject. They chose Cilla Black, whose version peaked at No. 95 in the U.S., while a Cher cover in American prints of the film reached No. 33.

  Later in 1967, "I Say a Little Prayer" followed the same pattern. Disc jockeys played it from the album and demanded a single release. Scepter complied. The song reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became her first RIAA certified Gold single. It was also the first RIAA certified million seller for Bacharach and David.

  The B side of that single was stranger. "(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls" was written by André and Dory Previn, not by Bacharach and David. Actress Barbara Parkins had suggested that Warwick sing it for the film. The song had been meant for Judy Garland, who was fired from the production. When the film succeeded in early 1968, disc jockeys flipped the single, and it became one of the biggest double-sided hits of the rock era.

  A contract problem created a second version. Her label's restrictions barred the film recording from the 20th Century Fox soundtrack album, and the reverse restriction kept the film version off any other commercial LP. So she re-recorded the theme at A&R Studios in New York with an arrangement by Pat Williams. That version appeared on Dionne Warwick in Valley of the Dolls, which reached No. 6 on the Billboard album chart. The soundtrack album without her vocals failed to impress the public.

  Other hits piled up. "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" sold a million copies internationally and reached the Top Ten in several countries. "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" hit No. 6 on the pop chart and No. 1 on adult contemporary in 1969. By the end of 1971, she had sold an estimated 35 million singles and albums internationally. Exact totals are unknown, because Scepter kept loose books and generally did not submit recordings for RIAA audit. Warwick had become the first Scepter artist to ask for such an audit, in 1967.

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• 6. Lawsuits and a Torn Dollar

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  On the 17th of September 1969, CBS aired The Dionne Warwick Chevy Special, her first television special. Her guests were Burt Bacharach, George Kirby, Glen Campbell and Creedence Clearwater Revival. In 1970 she started her own label, Sonday Records, and served as its president. That same year she performed at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium. Yet the end of an era was close.

  In 1971, Warwick left Scepter for Warner Bros. Records on a $5 million contract. Variety reported it as the most lucrative recording deal given to a female vocalist up to that time. Without her, Scepter filed for bankruptcy in 1975. It was sold to Springboard International Records in 1976. That same year, Bacharach and David sued Scepter over royalties from their recordings with Warwick and B.J. Thomas. They were awarded almost $600,000 and the rights to all their Scepter recordings.

  The partnership itself ended over a film. In 1972 Bacharach and David wrote the score for the motion picture Lost Horizon. Critics panned it, and the duo decided to end their working relationship. That left Warwick bound to Warner Bros. without her producers and songwriters. Facing the prospect of being sued by her label, she filed a $5.5 million breach of contract suit against her former partners. It was settled out of court in 1979 for $5 million, including the rights to all of her recordings that Bacharach and David had produced.

  One smaller change came in 1971. An astrologer friend, Linda Goodman, advised Warwick to add an e to her surname, believing it would bring greater success. A string of disappointments followed, and she later went back to the old spelling.

  The Warner years produced one major hit. In 1974 she recorded "Then Came You" as a duet with the Spinners, produced by Thom Bell. Bell recalled that Warwick made a face when they finished and did not much like it. He tore a dollar bill in half, and each signed a piece. He told her he would send his half if the song missed No. 1. It reached No. 1 and she mailed hers back with an apology. It was her first U.S. No. 1 on the Hot 100. Her five-year Warner contract expired in 1977, and a drought on the American charts lasted until she signed with Arista Records in 1979.

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• 7. The Second Act

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  Clive Davis, the founder of Arista Records, signed Warwick personally in 1979. He told her, "You may be ready to give the business up, but the business is not ready to give you up." She proved him right with "I'll Never Love This Way Again," produced by Barry Manilow. It sold a million copies, and the album Dionne went platinum. At the 1980 Grammy Awards she won Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for that song. She also won Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female for "Déjà Vu." No woman had won both categories in the same year before.

  Television gave her a second platform. In January 1980 she hosted a two-hour special called Solid Gold '79, which became the weekly show Solid Gold. She hosted it in 1980 and 1981, and again in 1985-86. Duets with her co-hosts, blending their hits with hers, were its highlight.

  In 1982 came Heartbreaker. Davis was at his aunt's wedding in Orlando, Florida, when he talked with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. Gibb said he had long admired Warwick. He had just written and co-produced the hit album Guilty for Barbra Streisand, so Davis suggested a similar project. Warwick said she did not initially love the title song, but she trusted Gibb's judgment. It reached No. 2 in both the UK and Australia and returned her to the U.S. Top Ten. The album sold 3 million copies internationally.

  In 1985 she sang on the charity single "We Are the World," which spent four weeks at No. 1. That same year she reunited with Bacharach on "That's What Friends Are For." She had felt abandoned when he and David dissolved their partnership in the 1970s. Of the reunion she said, "We realized we were more than just friends. We were family." The single, credited to "Dionne and Friends," featured Gladys Knight, Elton John and Stevie Wonder. It raised more than three million dollars for the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

  The song won a Grammy and was ranked by Billboard as the most popular song of 1986. She told The Washington Post in 1988 that you have to be granite not to want to help people with AIDS. In 1987 she added another adult contemporary No. 1 with "Love Power," a duet with Jeffrey Osborne.

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• 8. Public Troubles

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  In 1991, Warwick began hosting infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network, a 900-number service fronted by self-described psychic Linda Georgian. Press statements called it the most successful infomercial for several years, and she reportedly earned more than three million dollars a year from it. Her friend and tour manager Henry Carr said she was crushed when a child once recognized her as the psychic lady on television. The service ran until 1998, when its parent company, Inphomation, filed for bankruptcy and she ended the association.

  Her music of the period met a cooler reception. "Sunny Weather Lover," on the 1993 album Friends Can Be Lovers, was the first song Bacharach and David had written together for her since 1972. Arista promoted it heavily, and it failed to chart. Her 1994 album Aquarela do Brasil ended her time at Arista.

  In 1993 the ABC program Day One, hosted by Forrest Sawyer, aired a story on the Warwick Foundation, founded in 1989 to benefit AIDS patients. ABC reported that more than 90 percent of its money went to administrative costs and only about 3 percent reached AIDS groups. An AIDS group in the Virgin Islands said extravagant expenses had nearly bankrupted it. The report also described first-class travel for charity events, with the foundation managed by Guy Draper. Warwick called the report racially motivated and threatened to sue ABC for defamation, but never filed. The Internal Revenue Service opened an investigation, and the foundation was dissolved. The story won an Investigative Reporters and Editors award in 1993.

  Other problems followed. In 2002 she was arrested at Miami International Airport after 11 suspected marijuana cigarettes were found in a lipstick container in her carry-on bag. In 2009 a $2.2 million federal tax lien was filed against her. The IRS later found an accounting error and revoked $1.2 million of it in 2012.

  On the 21st of March 2013, Warwick filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in New Jersey. She listed nearly $7 million owed to the IRS for the years 1991 to 1999. She also owed more than $3 million in business taxes to California. The filing blamed mismanagement of her business affairs, and she could not reach an agreement with the tax officials. She was still recording. The year before, she had made a 50th anniversary CD called NOW, with twelve Bacharach and David tracks produced by Phil Ramone.

  Critics keep trying to place Warwick's voice. She is a contralto with a husky tone. Theatre critic Hilton Als wrote that her range early on allowed her "both to sing contralto low notes and to soar as a soprano." Stephen Holden of The New York Times heard her voice deepen into a near-baritone at the bottom by 1983. Sarah Dempster of The Guardian wrote in 2006 that age had given everything she sang a full-bodied finish.

  Genre proved harder. AllMusic biographer William Ruhlmann argued she is not a gospel singer despite her church roots, nor a jazz singer despite the influence of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. She is not quite a soul singer either. His colleague Steve Leggett called her a pure pop singer who blends jazz, soul, R&B and gospel.

  Bacharach called her the group's main artist, and she had first priority on new songs. MTV contributor Carol Cooper credited Warwick with making the songs "even more unique and compelling." Michael Musto of The Village Voice said her voice was a perfect venue for those hits. Warwick herself said the songs were not hard to sing because they were written for her voice.

  Her family kept making music. In 1966 she married actor and drummer William Elliott. Their son David, born in 1969, became a singer-songwriter and her drummer. Their son Damon, born in 1973, became a producer and made her 2006 album My Friends and Me. Her sister Dee Dee recorded the original version of "You're No Good," later a No. 1 pop hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1975.

  Recognition kept coming. She won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. In 2020 she competed as the Mouse on The Masked Singer and in 2023 as Weather on the UK edition. The documentary Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021. In 2024 she was selected for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On Friday, the 11th of October 2024, East Orange renamed North Arlington Avenue at City Hall Plaza as Dionne Warwick Way. Hundreds of children performed a tribute concert, and Clive Davis stood among the guests.

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