I’ve just eaten a stupendous lunch of crawfish étoufée, crawfish pie, and rice, and so I’m full as a tick and mellow as hell. Is there music that will help me digest? I think I’ve found two songs, and they’re a good way to start the weekend.
In December of this year Dionne Warwick will turn 75, but she’s already been largely forgotten, displaced by other black female singers like Whitney Houston, Donna Summer, and others. But Warwick was the model for them all, the original belter of ballads. And just think of some of her great songs, many written by the duo of Hal David and Burt Bacharach: “Alfie,” “Do you know the way to San Jose,” “Walk on By,” “Don’t Make Me Over,” “I Say a Little Prayer”, “That’s What Friends Are For,” and so on.
Of all of her songs, however, this is my favorite, and I heard it on the radio today on my way between Austin and Lafayette, Louisiana, the locus classicus of étoufée.
“I’ll Never Love this Way Again” won Warwick a Grammy in 1979 for best female pop vocal performance. Written by Richard Kerr and Will Jennings, it was produced for Arista Records by Barry Manilow. And the production is all Manilow, with modulation and dramatic changes in volume. It’s a lovely song, and I’m sure you haven’t heard it in ages.
Here’s a live version; you can hear the original recording, with all the Manilow flourishes, here.
And while you’re at it, have a listen again to Warwick’s version of “Alfie,” often dismissed as a kitschy song—but it’s not that at all. It’s a Bacharach/David composition, and was cited by Bacharach as his favorite song. It’s unspeakably lovely. Warwick recorded it in 1967, and performs it here a decade later on German television:
I’ve always liked Alfieeee;-)
though her Do You Know the Way to San Jose was treated as a bit of joke by those of us who lived in the Bay Area in the 60s and 70s. San Jose is much less of a joke now.
Now the question is, do you know a way through San Jose at rush hour?
I’m sure:-(
Hearing Alfie again brought tears to my eyes. Of course it brings back memories. And… Warwick at her best.
A terrific singer, though I don’t think she qualifies as a “belter.” Belting is usually unsubtle, overly loud, and often old-fashioned singing. A classic example would be Al Jolson.
In contrast, Dionne Warwick’s voice was often soft and silky and understated, which made her well-suited for Burt Bacharach’s ballads. My favorite performance of hers is “Message to Michael,” whose melancholy inspired the Temptations’ “I Wish it Would Rain.”
I agree with revelator60: Dionne is not a belter,unlike Whitney Houston, who often was. It is difficult to think of her as almost 75 years old. A great talent…
Thanks for this correction. It was on my mind too. I don’t find the more recent batch of female vocalists (belters) as subtle and appealing as this.
Totally agree about Dionne’s sense of grace and class, not being a “beltor.” (And it’s always somewhat more thrilling when you actually do hear someone like Warwick occasionally go for it vocally, vs a Maria Carey or…*shudder*….Christina Aguilera
who have to let you know at some point in every song just how strong their pipes are).
One of the things I love about Warwick is her style of singing has so much taste and reserve. She lands on a note, sits on it, gives it emotion without having to embellish
with trills or sliding up and down the scale in order to show off or keep your attention.
I found that “oversinging” – which includes a pathological inability to hold any note longer than 1/10th of a second without warbling ‘soulfully’ all around – reached it’s apocalyptic Zenith in the 90’s. I could barely listen to an R&B singer in that era.
You’re correct about the early 90s being the “apocalyptic Zenith” of oversinging, which is distinguished by the overuse of melisma (the “pathological inability to hold any note longer than 1/10th of a second without warbling ‘soulfully’ all around”). Greil Marcus blamed Mariah Carey for popularizing this blight upon music, and she was indeed overdoing melisma during that era.
Yes I certainly remember thinking Mariah Carey was an instigator. However as to where
the impulse came from, I always had the impression many were getting their cue from Stevie Wonder….except that Wonder’s dexterity was actually an expression of his monumental talent as both a singer, musician and songwriter. His singing was dextrous, but in service of a strong composer’ ear and hence it added, and even Wonder did it with much more reserve and taste than the horror-show hacks of the 90’s.
I was going to add: the whole melisma thing
has gotten much better and I think *some* of that might actually be due to American Idol.
Not a few people have accused American Idol of promoting the new wave of over-singing, but that pertains more to “belting it out,” as it seemed this was always rewarded with
enthusiasm by the audience so it seemed expected to produce any impact.
But on the other hand, some of the judges, like Randy Jackson, made it a point to criticize over use of melisma in particular, and I wonder if this criticism took hold somewhat in terms of reducing the popular appeal and style of melisma.
Had to look up melisma…and I think that’s the warbling.
Well, she might reasonably point a finger at Stevie Wonder as an instigator of this minor musical conceit.
I’m reminded of the maxim/aphorism, “Less is more,” which IIRC originated with an architect.
I hate that warbling, too. Good name for it. So many pop type singers do it, too, when they sing both the Canadian and American nat’l anthems. And then there’s Celine Dion 😖
I’d like to double up on that if I may.
Please do, Rick. The warbling is kind of like singing nya nya nyaaaaaa.
Worse…much, much worse.
Right, the Melismatic Megalomaniac.
I love Dionne Waewick. As well as ‘I’ll never love this way again’ I’m also a big fan of ‘Walk on By’ and ‘Do you know the way to San Jose’.
And while you’re at it, have a listen again to Warwick’s version of “Alfie,” often dismissed as a kitschy song—but it’s not that at all.”
Who are these cynical human primate critics to presume to label “Alfie” as”kitschy”?
As Mel Brooks so aptly said, “Critics can’t even make music rubbing their legs together.”
IICR:
“And if life is only just for the strong Alfie,
What will you give for an old Golden Rule?”
Which is to say, a test for any one of us is how we treat others. Today, I am not going to mistreat another. I am going to give her/him more, not less, respect and consideration.
I’ll say a little prayer for you…
Pray don’t…
I run for the bus, dear
While riding I think of us, dear…
ENUFF!!
Bacharach is IMO a song writer that a bad performer can often !*make*! kitschy but when he’s done right, he’s magic.
I especially liked “The Look of Love” (written for that dreadful Bond parody “Casino Royale”).
“Alfie” the song (originally sung by Cher) eventually eclipsed the movie “Alfie” for which it was written. The film is really very good.
My mistake. Cilla Black sang “Alfie” first in promotional previews for the film, but she was replaced in the film itself by Cher. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)
Dionne Warwick’s version was evidently one of the most successful. I like hers the best myself among the many dozen who have covered it.
I liked Cilla Black, too.
Andy Williams has a respectable version of “Alfie.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztV56s7AunU
agreed about Andy Williams;-)
I love the Look of Love – many versions thereof, including Brazil 66’s.
An out-of-left-field example of Bacharach done right–Elvis Presley’s version of “Any Day Now”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFyh9bpzlPY
It seems you need a little time and distance to fully appreciate the value of some of these efforts. Kitschy can become magic.
Or are we just becoming old and sentimental?😁
That’s a respectable hypothesis as well.
Is nostalgia still supposedly a minor psychological disorder?
Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be!!
Not to mess up your music time but you happened to be going to a place in the news — a shooting there yesterday at a public theater.
I’m a fan of the Bacharach/Warwick collaborations.
My goodness what a gorgeous performance she gives of Alfie in that video!
It is a well-known fact that you cannot properly digest Louisiana cuisine unless you listen to real Cajun music! I have empirically proved this in my own experience.
About 1973 or 1974 my mother took me to a Dionne Warwick concert. I am not sure why she did as I was not really interested in that kind of music at the time. But, it turned out to be one of my fondest memories. It was a night time concert at the Starlight Theatre in Missouri. An amphitheater in the middle of a forest on a beautiful starry night. And Dionne was amazing. It was a wonderfully magical night. Thinking of it still brings a tear to my eye.
A TV show with Lionel Richie and Dionne Warwick as his guest in the mid eighties comes to mind. As they were trading lines towards the end of a duet I cannot recall the song but it was a ballad. Dionne Warwick started to fly. Richie had this look of astonishment and slightly bemused as he’s no slouch with the vocals. If I remember right, without stopping himself, he kind of left her to it, it was an extraordinary thing to watch.
I saw her here in Auckland, NZ some years later with a hot latin band, she now lives in Brazil. So we got some of those sixties hits and some latin stuff (which I happen to like) as well but I think her Hal David, Burt Bacharach collaborations were her best work.
They all fell out way back when, but are making up for it now, which is good. How could you make tunes like that and not?
Now there is an image.
That is Barry Manilow in the first video is it not?
Unfortunately.
“Unfortunately.”
Perhaps it should rather have been (among a multitude of similar artistically talented and most worthy artists)that self-decribed “artistic genius,” Kanye West, eh? 😉
A slightly different Alfie by Lilly Allen, perhaps NSFW.
Alfie
Her borther’s name is Alfie.