|
|
|
26
January 2004, The Straits Times Dionne Warwick talks about a 40-year career that still glitters, thanks to hits like I Say A Little Prayer, and explains why so little great music is made today By Paul Zach WHEN people pay hundreds of dollars to go to a concert, they expect to get their money's worth. And when Dionne Warwick performs, everyone goes home happy. After all, almost everything she ever sang became a hit. 'They're elated, absolutely elated,' says the five-time Grammy winner in a phone interview last week. I Say A Little Prayer, You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart), Walk On By, and Anyone Who Had A Heart are only a few of the songs she made famous. Do You Know The Way To San Jose, Promises Promises, I'll Never Fall In Love Again, and Message To Michael are a few more. 'These are songs, I've been told on several occasions by people, that are the soundtracks of their lives,' says Warwick, in the distinctive voice that also made hits of Alfie, Trains And Boats And Planes and Reach Out For Me. Indeed, anyone who turned on their transistor radio most anywhere in the world at any time from 1962 to 1970 was as likely to hear Warwick as the Beatles. She assures her fans she will be singing her hits at Suntec City on Thursday night. 'That's the reason I'm here,' she says. She arrives in Singapore today after a series of critically-acclaimed shows in Australia and is staying at the Hotel Intercontinental. The concerts are part of a world tour she's doing to celebrate the 40 years that have passed since Don't Make Me Over made her a star in 1963. That song also helped make household names of two men, Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Warwick was working as a member of the back-up group for The Drifters heard on Stand By Me and Spanish Harlem when her voice caught the ear of the two songwriters. The pair had by then written a few hits, most notably Perry Como's Magic Moments. But it wasn't until they teamed up with Warwick that they found themselves producing a body of work almost on a par with George Gershwin or Irving Berlin. No other artist has handled Bacharach's elaborate song structures and David's rich, complex lyrics the way Warwick did. Rolling Stone magazine writer Paul Evans once wrote: 'Not only was Warwick's range astonishing, but her delivery - cool, swinging and unerring - was one of effortless grace. Particularly fetching in rendering David's busy, staccato lyrics, her voice projected a sassy elegance.' Respected music critic Dave Marsh also gives Warwick a lot of the credit, when he named three of the songs the trio produced - Walk On By, Don't Make Me Over and Anyone Who Had A Heart - on his list of The 1001 Greatest Singles. 'Although she has never gotten much critical respect, Dionne Warwick was perhaps the finest female pop-R&B singer before Aretha Franklin,' he wrote. Her collaboration with Bacharach was also as close as that of any classic composer-and-artist team in history. 'We all understood we were each bringing something valuable to the table, and depended on each other to do exactly that,' she says. 'We all grew up together. That was the beauty of the relationship. We were known in the industry as 'the triangle marriage that worked'.' Even more telling of their importance to one another was the trio's acrimonious 'divorce' in 1972. Bacharach and David split over differences on the disastrous musical movie version of Lost Horizon, and Warwick was forced to sue them for not continuing to fulfil their contract to write music for her. Neither Bacharach nor David has had much success since then, although the pair did patch up five years ago. Warwick, who toured with Bacharach recently, had 20 Top 40 hits with the songwriting duo in seven years and only 11 in the 33 years since. That included the 1985 Aids benefit smash, That's What Friends Are For, a collaboration she led with Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder. It is that song and stints as the host of the TV show Solid Gold in the 1980s that Singapore's 30-something crowd may remember her for most. But that doesn't faze her. 'No. That's all a part of my career,' she says. 'That's fine.' In fact, she remembers her Solid Gold days as 'absolutely fun'. 'I think that's probably a part of TV that needs to be resurrected, good wholesome family kind of stuff,' she says, stopping short of blaming MTV for the demise of such fare. 'I don't know what direction our kids are going in right now. I really don't. It doesn't seem like they are looking for nor have any role models,' she says, laughing off the mention of foul-mouthed reality TV rocker Ozzy Osbourne. But she adds that she senses a return to the kind of wholesome entertainment once made by Disney. 'I think we have finally put our foot down, saying that we need to let our babies see some of these things and be children for a change.' Now 63 - 'I don't see anything wrong with saying what my age is. Age doesn't bother me at all' - she also laughs when asked what she thinks of the music being made by black artists today. 'I'm kind of perplexed, first of all, as to how some of the music is allowed to even be played on radio when there were such strict and stringent rules when I was coming along,' she says. 'There were certain kinds of songs that you just did not hear.' She does not take issue with a suggestion that enduring classics by the likes of Franklin, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations and many others' including herself, have given way to boring, repetitious sounds - and worse. She blames it all on the music business. 'Today it's really who the marketing tool happens to be focused on, and how much money they're ready to throw at whatever artist they're promoting,' she says. 'It's more of a marketing industry today as opposed to that bona fide tried-and-proven talent.' Warwick, born in 1940 in New Jersey, was herself always exposed to music. Her father worked as a gospel music promoter for Chess Records and her mother managed a gospel group composed of her relatives. Cissy Houston, Whitney's mother, is her aunt. She went on to study at the Hartt College of Music in Connecticut. From there, she commuted to New York regularly to sing back-up for Dinah Washington, Brook Benton, Chuck Jackson and Solomon Burke. She loved what she did. 'And that's why I'm still in it,' she says. 'Because I do love what I do.' 'That's why you find people like Gladys Knight, who has put in more than 50 years and Patti LaBelle, who is in the 40-year range realm as well, are still in the industry. It's because we're true to what we do.' Warwick names Sammy Davis Jr, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Lena Horne as inspirations. 'You couldn't pay for that,' she says. 'There's no way you can manufacture that. So we were exceptionally fortunate to have them as role models.' 'We're really willing to share that with the artists of today. But with the kind of money and everything else that's being thrown at them, I don't think that's a primary thought of theirs at this time.' · Enjoy An Evening With Dionne Warwick at Suntec City on Thursday at 8pm. Tickets at $79, $100, $120, $151 and $200 are available from Sistic on 6348-5555 or www.sistic.com.sg . 'JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC' DIONNE WARWICK says the music business has only itself to blame for its current creative and artistic doldrums. 'I'm not saying kids today don't have talent,' she tells Life!. 'It's just that the parameters are no longer the same. I think the feeling is that if Britney Spears can show her belly button, so can I. That seems to be the criteria.' Still, Warwick feels such problems are just a sign of the times. 'It's a different era,' she says. 'When I was coming up as a teenager, my Mum was putting her hands over her ears as well. 'We've gone through the rap for a long, long period of time, and it's found its niche. It's a primary source for our youngsters as Elvis was for me.' She also says she senses a change in the wind: 'Music has an incredible ability to find its own roots and grow. The kids who now have a realisation of wanting to be in the industry longer than five minutes are the ones who are changing it.' But only one of today's artists immediately comes to her mind. 'You have people like this kid Justin Timberlake who is absolutely fantastic. He also has a voice, and he uses it,' she says. 'He's got a huge following which means that he has also the innate ability to make the changes that we're heading towards.' Copyright @ 2003 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. |
|
Presenting Dionne Warwick:
Copyright © 2003 - 2005 arnrod inc. All Rights Reserved. |