Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick

Born 12 December 1940, she was actually named Marie Dionne Warrick. Due to a printing error of her last name on her first music album (spelling WARRICK as WARWICK, which angered her greatly), her grandfather encouraged her to embrace and use the new spelling as her stage name, which she reluctantly did, and Marie Dionne Warrick then became "Dionne Warwick" to the world.

Dionne 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 songwriters 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. She is second only to Aretha Franklin as the most-charted female vocalist of all time, with 69 of Warwick's singles making the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998.

• Wikipedia: Dionne Warwick

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Popular and soul singer, Dionne Warwick sang in a gospel trio before recording her first hit songs on Scepter, including "Walk On By" (1964) and "I Say a Little Prayer" (1967). After a lull in her career in the 1970s, her album Dionne (1979) sold a million copies. She went on to release the albums Heartbreaker (1982) and How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye? (1983). Over the last 40 years, Warwick is an international music legend.

She was born Marie Dionne Warrick on December 12, 1940 into a gospel-music family in New Jersey. Her father, Mancel Warrick, began his career as a porter, chef, a gospel record promoter and later a Certified Public Accountant and mother, Lee Drinkard Warrick, managed a renowned family gospel group and RCA recording artists The Drinkard Singers.

The Drinkard family originated in Blakley, Georgia and migrated to Newark, New Jersey in the late 20's. The family was composed of Nitcholas and Delia Drinkard, Warwick's grandparents, and their children: William, Lee (Warwick's mother), Marie "Rebbie" (Warwick's namesake), Hansom, Anne, Larry, Nicky, and Emily "Cissy" (who is the mother of Warwick's cousin, Whitney Houston).

Dionne's career started when she sang in the all-girl group, The Gospelaires, with her sister Dee Dee and her Aunt Cissy. The Gospelaires enjoyed some success and recorded some material.

Her big break came, however, when her sweet, rich vocals came to be heard by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who recognised in her the perfect performer for their beautifully crafted pop music.

The song-writing duo placed her as a solo artist with the Sceptre record label, and her performances of Bacharach and David songs proved to be the most memorable performances of her career. The delicacy of her vocal on 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose?' and the emotion conveyed in her rendering of 'Anyone Who Had a Heart', beautifully demonstrate her versatility as a singer.

Thirty-three of her hit records were Bacharach and David Songs. When their song writing partnership began to fall apart in the early seventies Dionne's career had to find a new direction.

She achieved her first number 1 record without Bacharach and David, singing with The Spinners in 1974 on the record, 'There Came You'.

Other collaborations followed; Dionne released an album in 1977 entitled 'A Man and A Woman', coupling her voice with that of Isaac Hayes.

She continued to release albums and singles when she signed with Arista records in the late seventies.

The following decade she found success on television as a co-host on the programme, 'Solid Gold'. She also released a single to raise money for AIDS charities. Entitled 'That’s What Friends Are For', she recorded it with her friends, including Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight.

In the nineties she was reunited in the recording studio with her old friend Burt Bacharach. Friends Can Be Lovers (1993), produced in part by Ian Devaney and Lisa Stansfield, featured a tune called "Sunny Weather Lover", which was the first song that Bacharach and Hal David had written together in exactly twenty years from the song's release.

In 2006, Warwick signed with Concord Records after a 15-year tenure at Arista and released My Friends and Me, a duets album on which she sang with various female singing stars including Gloria Estefan and Olivia Newton-John, on thirteen of her old hits. The album was produced by her son, Damon Elliott.

In March 2011, Dionne was part of the NBC show The Celebrity Apprentice. Dionne's charity was The Hunger Project.

Source: Biography, The Biography Channel, Starpulse, Wikipedia, YouTube Search results for Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick (/ˈdiːɒn ˈwɔːrwɪk/; born Marie Dionne Warrick on December 12, 1940) 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 songwriters 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. Dionne Warwick is second only to Aretha Franklin as the most-charted female vocalist of all time with 69 of Dionne's singles making the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998.

Discography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionne_Warwick_discography

Awards and honors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionne_Warwick#Awards_and_honors

Filmography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionne_Warwick#Filmography