Dionne Warwick

Marie Dionne Warrick (East Orange, New Jersey, December 12, 1940), stage name Dionne Warwick, is an American singer, philanthropist and television presenter..

Warwick is among the most recognized and successful singers in the world. She is the second female vocalist (behind Aretha Franklin) with the most singles on Billboard's Hot 100 chart during the second half of the XX century . She is also one of the most number one vocalists of all time, with 80 total songs, either solo or in collaboration (12 of them in the Top Ten). Billboard magazine ranked her among the "Best artists of all time".

In his more than sixty-year career, he has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, has released 32 studio albums, 5 live albums, 24 compilation albums and countless singles. He has also won many awards, including six Grammy Awards, one of them obtained in 2019 in recognition of his entire career. She has been inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the R&B Music Hall of Fame, and the Apollo Theater Walk of Fame. In addition, three of his songs ("Walk on By", "Alfie" and "Don't Make Me Over") have been included in the Hall of Grammy Fame. Along with Aretha Franklin, Warwick led the reign of soul and pop music for decades, and her influence on American music has been enormous.

Trajectory

Marie Dionne Warrick, later Warwick, was born in Orange, New Jersey, the daughter of Lee Drinkard and Mancel Warrick. She grew up in East Orange and was a Girl Scout for a while. After graduating from East Orange High School in 1959, Warwick pursued her passion at Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut.

She got her start in music as a gospel singer with her family. The sister of Dee Dee Warwick, also a singer, niece of Cissy Houston and cousin of Whitney Houston, she belonged to a very musical family environment from a very young age. Many of Warwick's family were members of The Drinkard Singers, a family gospel group and frequent RCA recording artists who frequently performed in the New York metropolitan area. The original group, known as the Drinkard Jubilairs, consisted of Cissy Houston, Dionne Warwick, Dee Dee Warwick, and Judy Clay, and later included Warwick's grandparents, Nicholas and Delia Drinkard, and their children: William, Lee (the mother of Warwick) and Hansom.

She got a few jobs singing backing vocals for recording sessions in New York City. During a session, Warwick met producer Burt Bacharach, who hired her to record demos featuring songs written by him and lyricist Hal David. She later got her own record deal. His solo debut was with Bacharach in 1962 ('Don't Make Me Over'), whose album appeared by a misprint under the surname Warwick, not Warrick, the mistake that led to Dionne's stage name for her entire career. This single was somewhat successful, a situation that would be repeated in 1964 with "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "Walk on By", the latter a UK hit. The demo of 'It's Love That Really Counts', along with the original version of 'Make It Easy on Yourself', would appear on Warwick's debut album with Scepter, Presenting Dionne Warwick, which was released in early 1963.

On September 17, 1969, CBS Television aired Warwick's first television special, titled The Dionne Warwick Chevy Special. Warwick's guests included Burt Bacharach, George Kirby, Glen Campbell and Creedence Clearwater Revival. In 1970, Warwick formed her own label, Sonday Records, of which she was president. Other successes would follow until 1971, when she left the Scepter label due to a strong dispute with Bacharach.

Later at Warners, he achieved success with the 1974 song "Then Came You", written by Thom Bell and Linda Creed and performed as a duet with The Spinners. Warwick recorded five albums with Warner: Dionne (1972), produced by Bacharach and David and a modest success on the pop charts; Just Being Myself (1973), produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland; Then Came You (1975), produced by Jerry Ragovoy; Track of the Cat (1975), produced by Thom Bell; and Love at First Sight (1977), produced by Steve Barri and Michael Omartian. His five-year contract with Warner expired in 1977, and with that, he ended his tenure with the record label. The period of lesser popularity on the US charts ended with his signing to Arista Records in 1979, where he began a second run of hits and chart-topping albums through the late 1980s.

That year he recorded "I'll never love this way again" an English-language pop ballad written by Richard Kerr and Will Jennings, produced by Barry Manilow, which earned him a Grammy Award in 1980, and reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song and the album it featured on were both rated Gold. for selling over a million copies in the United States and Canada.

In the '80s, he scored another hit with "Heartbreaker" in 1982, song composed by The Bee Gees with the voice of Barry Gibb in the chorus. In 1983, Warwick released How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye, an album produced by Luther Vandross. The most successful single from the album 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 hit single from the album. Top 10 hit on Adult Contemporary and R&B Charts. It was followed by the album Finder of Lost Loves, a new collaboration with Barry Manilow and Burt Bacharach. In 1985, Warwick contributed his vocals to the multi-Grammy Award-winning charity song "We Are the World," along with vocalists including Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and Ray Charles. The song spent four consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was the biggest hit of the year: certified four times Platinum in the United States alone.

In 1985, Warwick recorded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) charity single "That's what Friends are for" (That's what friends are for, in Spanish) with Gladys Knight, Elton John and Stevie Wonder. The single, credited to "Dionne and Friends", was released in October and ultimately raised over $3 million for that cause. The tune was a triple No. 1 and stayed at the top for four weeks. on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1986, selling close to two million in the United States alone. In 1987, Warwick scored another hit with "Love Power." The eighth career No. 1 Adult Contemporary hit, it also reached No. 5 R&B and No. 12 on Billboard's Hot 100. A duet with Jeffrey Osborne, also written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager, featured on Warwick's album Reservations for Two. The album's title track, a duet with Kashif, was also a chart hit. Other artists featured on the album are Smokey Robinson and June Pointer.

Warwick's most hyped album of the 1990s was 1993's Friends Can Be Lovers, produced in part by Ian Devaney and Lisa Stansfield. Included on the album was 'Sunny Weather Lover', which was the first song Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote together for Warwick in 1972. It was Warwick's lead single in the US and was heavily promoted by Arista, but he didn't make it. graphic. The 1994 album Aquarela Do Brasil marked the end of Warwick's contract with Arista Records. In 1990, Warwick recorded the song "It's All Over" with former Modern Talking member Dieter Bohlen (Blue System). The single reached number 60 (airplay number 33) on the German pop charts and was included on Blue System's album Déjà Vu.

In 2002 she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In 2004, Warwick's first Christmas album was released. The CD, titled My Favorite Time of the Year, featured jazzy renditions of many Christmas classics. In 2007, Rhino Records re-released the CD with new cover art. In 2006, Warwick signed with Concord Records after fifteen years with Arista. Her first and only release for her label was My Friends and Me, an album of duets containing reworkings of her old hits, very similar to her 1998 CD Dionne Sings Dionne. 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. The album was produced by her son, Damon Elliott. A follow-up album featuring Warwick's old hits as a duet with male vocalists was planned, but the project was cancelled. Her relationship with Concord concluded with the release of My Friends and Me. A compilation CD of her greatest hits and love songs, The Love Collection, entered the UK Albums Chart at number #27 in February 2008.

Warwick's second gospel album, Why We Sing was released on February 26, 2008 in the UK and on April 1, 2008 in the US. The album features guest appearances by her sister Dee Dee Warwick and BeBe Winans. On October 18, 2008, Dee Dee died at a nursing home in Essex County, New Jersey. She had been having health problems for several months. On November 24, 2008, Warwick was the star of 'Divas II', a UK ITV1 special. The show also featured Rihanna, Leona Lewis, the Sugababes, Pink, Gabriella Climi and Anastacia. That same year, Warwick began recording an album of songs from the Sammy Cahn and Jack Wolf songbooks. The finished recording, titled Only Trust Your Heart, was released in 2011.

In February 2012, her cousin Whitney Houston was found dead in a hotel room. Warwick officiated at her funeral, broadcast live around the world. In 2014, the duet album Feels So Good was released. That same year, Funkytowngrooves reissued Arista's remastered albums No Night So Long, How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye ("So Amazing") and Finder of Lost Loves ("Without Your Love"), all expanded with additional material. In December 2015, Warwick's website released the EP Tropical Love featuring five previously unreleased tracks from the 1994 Aquarela Do Brasil sessions.

In March 2013, the singer filed for bankruptcy, with accumulated debts of about $10 million. In 2016, she was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues. In 2019, she won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, in recognition of her legendary career.

In 2021, the documentary Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she was honored as a music icon. In November 2021, Warwick released the single 'Nothing's Impossible', a duet with Chance the Rapper and was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That same year, she began her last world tour, the "She's Back: One Last Time" Tour, with presentations in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Among his most memorable performances, we can mention others such as "Alfie", the famous "I Say a Little Prayer", "Do You Know the Way to San Jose& #34;, "Promises, Promises", "This Girl's In Love With You", "Endless Love" (song he recorded with Barry White and has also performed with Tom Jones), "I Always Get Caught in The Rain", "Who Can I Turn To", "I& #39;ll Never Fall in Love Again"...

Discography