Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health.

Having been in a partnership with Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest hit makers of the entire rock era based on the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles Charts. Warwick ranks second only to Aretha Franklin as the most-charted female vocalist with 56 singles making the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998. She is also the cousin of the popular singer Whitney Houston.

Dionne's mother, aunts and uncles were members of the Drinkard Singers, the renowned family gospel group that frequently performed throughout the New York metropolitan area. The original Drinkard Singers consisted of Cissy, Anne, Larry, and Nicky. Elvis Presley eventually expressed an interest in having them join his touring entourage.

Dionne performed her first gospel solo at the age of six and frequently joined The Drinkard Singers. She was untouched by the harsher aspects of racial intolerance and discrimination until her early professional career, when she began touring nationally. In 1958, Warwick, Myrna Utley, Carol Slade, and Warwick's sister Delia, formed their own group, which they called called "The Gospelaires." They performed on dozens and dozens of records cut in New York City for artist such as Garnet Mims, the Drifters, Jerry Butler, and later Dionne's recordings, Aretha Franklin, and Elvis Presley.

The demo version of "It's Love That Really Counts," along with her original demo of "Make It Easy on Yourself," would surface on Dionne's debut Scepter album, titled Presenting Dionne Warwick, which was released early in 1963.

Her first solo single was released in November 1962 entitled "Don't Make Me Over". Two immediate follow-ups, "This Empty Place" and "Make The Music Play" charted briefly in the top 100. Her fourth single, "Anyone Who Had a Heart," released in December 1963, was Warwick's first top 10 pop hit in the U.S. and also an international hit. This was followed by "Walk On By" in April 1964, a major international hit and million seller that solidified her career.

For the rest of the 1960s, Warwick was a fixture on the US and Canadian charts, and much of Warwick's output from 1962 to 1971 was written and produced by the Bacharach/David team. Warwick weathered the British Invasion better than most American artists. Her UK hits were most notably "Walk On By" and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?"

From the mid 1960s to early 1970s, Warwick had a string of Gold selling albums and Top 20 and Top 10 hit singles. "Message to Michael", a Bacharach-David composition that the duo was certain was a "man's song", became a top 10 hit for Warwick in May 1966. The January 1967 LP Here Where There Is Love was her first RIAA certified Gold Album and featured "Alfie", and two 1966 hits "Trains and Boats and Planes", and "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself". "Alfie" had become a radio hit when disc jockeys across the nation began to play the album cut early in 1967. "Alfie" was released as the "B" side of a Bacharach/David ballad, "The Beginning of Loneliness" in which charted in the Hot 100. Disc jockeys flipped the single and made it a double-sided hit. Today, "Alfie" is considered a signature song for Warwick. Later that same year, Warwick earned her first RIAA Gold Single for US sales of over one million units for the single "I Say a Little Prayer".

The LP Dionne Warwick in Valley of the Dolls was released in early 1968 and containing the re-recorded version of the movie theme, "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" and several new Bacharach-David compositions, hit the #6 position on the Billboard Hot 100 Album Chart and would remain on the chart for over a year. The film soundtrack LP, without Warwick vocals, failed to impress the public, while Dionne Warwick in Valley of the Dolls earned an RIAA Gold certification.

The release of her RIAA certified million seller "I'll Never Love This Way Again" in 1979, Dionne would enjoy top success on the charts after several years of disappointing sales of her songs. The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard Album Chart and made the Top 10 of the Billboard R & B Albums Chart. Dionne's next single release was "Deja Vu", which was co-written by Isaac Hayes, and hit #1 Adult Contemporary as well as #15 on Billboard's Hot 100. In 1980, Dionne was nominated for the NARAS Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for "I'll Never Love This Way Again" and Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female for "Déjà Vu". Dionne became the first female artist in the history of the awards to win in both categories the same year.

Her next album, 1980's No Night So Long sold 500,000 US copies and featured the title track which became a major success and the album peaked at #23 on the Billboard Albums Chart. After a brief appearance in the Top Forty in early 1982 with Johnny Mathis on "Friends In Love", Warwick's next hit later that same year was her full-length collaboration with Barry Gibb for the album Heartbreaker. The song "Heartbreaker" became one of Dionne's biggest international hits, returning her to the Top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100. The title track was taken from the album of the same name which sold over 3 million copies internationally and earned Dionne an RIAA USA Gold record award for the album. The album peaked at #25 on the Billboard Album Chart, #13 on the R&B Albums Chart and #3 in the UK.

In 1983, Dionne released How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye produced by Luther Vandross. The album's most successful single was the title track, "How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye", a Warwick/Vandross duet, which peaked at #27 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also became a Top 10 hit on the Adult Contemporary and R&B charts. The album peaked at #57 on the Billboard album chart. The album Finder Of Lost Loves followed in 1985 and reunited her with both Barry Manilow and Burt Bacharach.

In 1985, Warwick contributed her voice to the multi-Grammy Award winning charity song We Are the World, along with vocalists like Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Ray Charles. The song spent four consecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. It was the year's biggest hit, certified four times Platinum in the United States alone.

In 1985, Warwick recorded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) benefit single "That's What Friends Are For" alongside Gladys Knight, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder. The single, credited to "Dionne and Friends" was released in October and eventually raised over three million dollars for that cause. The tune was a #1 on the R&B, Adult Contemporary, and, four weeks, on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in early 1986 and selling close to two million 45s in the United States. The single won the performers the NARAS Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, as well as Song of the Year for its writers, Bacharach and Bayer Sager. It also was ranked by Billboard magazine as the most popular song of 1986. With this single Warwick also released her most successful album of the 1980s, titled Friends, which reached #12 on Billboard's album chart.

In 1987, Dionne scored another hit with "Love Power". Her eighth career #1 Adult Contemporary hit, it also reached #5 in R&B and #12 on Billboard's Hot 100. A duet with Jeffrey Osborne, it was also written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager, and it was featured in Warwick's album Reservations for Two. The album's title song, a duet with Kashif, was also a chart hit. Other artists featured on the album included Smokey Robinson and June Pointer.

Warwick's most publicized album during the 90s was 1993's "Friends Can Be Lovers", which was produced in part by Ian Devaney and Lisa Stansfield. Featured on the album was "Sunny Weather Lover", which was the first song that Burt Bacharach and Hal David had written together for Warwick since 1972. It was Warwick's lead single in the United States, and was heavily promoted by Arista, but failed to chart. A follow-up "Where My Lips Have Been" peaked at #95 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks.

In 2004, Dionne Warwick's first Christmas album was released. The CD, entitled "My Favorite Time of the Year" featured jazzy interpretations of many holiday classics. In 2007, Rhino Records re-released the CD with new cover art.

In 2006, Warwick released My Friends and Me, a duets album containing reworkings of her old hits. Among her singing partners were Gloria Estefan, Olivia Newton-John, Wynonna Judd and Reba McEntire. The album peaked at #66 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Her second gospel album, "Why We Sing", was released in February 2008 in the UK and in April 2008 in the USA. The album features guest spots by her sister Dee Dee Warwick and BeBe Winans.

Music Videos

 * How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye?
 * Reservations For Two (with Kashif)
 * That's What Friends Are For (with Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight)