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Has any solo act ever been so closely associated with a songwriting team as Dionne Warwick's collaboration with Burt Bacharach and Hal David? The only combination that comes close is Frank Sinatra and Sammy Cahn/James Van Heusen from the 1950s and early 1960s. But Cahn/Van Heusen were one of the sources for Frankie's hit songs; almost all of Dionne Warwick's hits from the 1960s and early 1970s were penned by Bacharach/David. An exception in this excellent collection is the theme from The Valley of the Dolls, by André and Dory Previn, but they pretty much mimic Bacharach/David. Also included here is the obligatory Broadway tune, Who Can I Turn To?, but that was probably dropped in to show Dionne's range, and it wasn't a hit.
Burt Bacharach's noticing Dionne Warwick was one of the most fortuitous meetings of talent in the history of pop music. Warwick was singing background vocals for recordings in New York City as the standout member of a group called the Gospelaires when her versatile vocal talent pricked up Bacharach's ears and he asked her to record demonstration recordings for Bacharach/David songs. One demo so impressed the head of Scepter records that she encouraged Bacharach and David to write songs for Warwick, which Scepter would release. The first single, Don't Make Me Over, was a hit and the winning team was off and running. Warwick was, however, unintentionally made over. Born Marie Dionne Warrick, a misspelling on the cover art for her first single made her Dionne Warwick for her career.
Bacharach/David found in Warwick the perfect interpreter for the musical direction that they wished to take in the 1960s. Warwick's strong, supple voice could handle the interval leaps and tricky rhythms that Bacharach increasingly employed, and her emotional sensitivity perfectly conveyed the shadings of David's lyrics. Warwick/Bacharach/David became the outstanding American presence on the record charts, along with The Beach Boys and especially The Supremes, during the British Invasion of the 1960s, racking up twenty-two Top Forty singles in six years, eight of those making the Top Ten.
This sterling compilation includes just about all of the notable Warwick/Bacharach/David songs, except for the last single to chart, Make It Easy on Yourself, and, mercifully, Warwick's cover of This Guy's in Love With You, the insipid Herb Alpert hit (with appropriate changes in the lyrics).
After four decades of popular music that has become ever more densely multitracked, aurally assaultive, and often nasty in its point of view, the Bacharach/David songs come as something of a revelation. The arrangements are mostly relatively spare, providing just enough background to establish a beat, and just enough solo instrumental work to complement the singer. The music became increasingly sophisticated in the middle period of the Warwick/Bacharach/David collaboration, to the point where pop song met art song. Listen to the sinuous opening of Message to Michael (how many notes does Bacharach use in the words Kentucky Bluebird fly?), or the unexpected directions the music takes in (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me as the song builds aria-like to its hook refrain. Most of Bacharach's music sounds fresh after all these years. David staked out his lyric territory in Wistful Land, Missing You state, Lost Loves county. That is, after all, what the charts told them the public wanted from Dionne. David wrung as much variation on this mood as is humanly possible, and managed, at his best, not to lay it on too thick. The poignance of the simple phrase Walk on By, the light sweetness of I Say a Little Prayer, the inescapable yearning of (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me, the jaunty jadedness of Do You Know the Way to San Jose? are all high points of pop music lyric writing. David could get sticky at times, as if he had drunk some dessert wine that day instead of Chardonnay, but we forgive him.
This compilation has been superbly produced. The sound is almost startlingly clear, the balances carefully realized. Buy it and listen to some of the most finely done popular music ever recorded.
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Øystein Kvamme Skjæveland
The Dionne Warwick Collection - Her All-Time Greatest Hits
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 16, 2011