LINER
NOTES FOR
DIONNE WARWICK'S THE SENSITIVE SOUND
OF DIONNE WARWICK
By
Richie Unterberger
More
than any other singer
of the 1960s, Dionne Warwick bridged the audiences between pop, soul,
and what might be called the "adult" listening market. Her 1964 Top Ten
pop hits "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "Walk On By" had done as well in
the adult pop listening charts as in the other categories. Whether as a
conscious nod in the direction of this growing listenership, or simply
as a natural consequence of the way her music was evolving, her fourth
album boasted a more adult-oriented sound than her previous work. The
material did not prove as popular as much of that previous work,
however, containing no high-charting singles. Still, it did afford both
Warwick and her producers (and frequent songwriters), Burt Bacharach
and Hal David, the opportunity to continue to solidify their
partnership in the studio.
In a
business
where it's almost routine for producers to squeeze artists for all
their worth in a short period of time before finding another horse to
ride, the association between Warwick and Bacharach-David was
remarkably lengthy and close. Over the years, all parties have been
fervent in their high praise for each other's abilities, even though
their business partnerships would be troubled by some rocky rifts.
"There was nothing that Burt could write musically, or I could write
lyrically, that she couldn't do," exclaimed David in Performing Arts. Elaborated
Bacharach to Morgan Neville in A&E's Biography, "The more that Hal and I
wrote with Dionne, the more we could see what she could do. She can go
that high, and she can sing that low. She is that flexible. She can
sing that strong and that loud, and be so delicate and soft, too...The
more that I was exposed to that musically, the more risks, the more
chances, I could take."
It might be a measure of Bacharach-David's
commitment to the singer that they stuck with Dionne through a somewhat
tough year for her saleswise. Though she'd landed two Top Ten hits and
a few smaller ones in 1964, Warwick wouldn't so much dent the Top Forty
in 1965. Nor was The Sensitive Sound
of Dionne Warwick as stuffed with relatively buried treasure, in
the form of LP-only tracks or flop singles, as her previous albums had
been. At least Bacharach and David continued to play a heavy hand in
the material, penning seven of the eleven tracks. The album did chart,
too, though its modest #107 placing was not as impressive as the #68
peak of its predecessor, Make Way
for Dionne Warwick.
The Sensitive
Sound of Dionne Warwick did
have a couple charting singles, though they were such small hits that
they don't even show up on typical Warwick greatest hits collections.
Unusually, neither of these were Bacharach-David compositions—a most
odd development, considering that not a single one of her pre-1965
singles to make the Billboard
charts had come from the pens of other writers. The slightly more
successful of these, the melodramatic "Who Can I Turn To," had been
part of Anthony Newley's Broadway show The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of
the Crowd. Co-written by Newley and Leslie Bricusse, it had
recently been a Top Forty hit for Tony Bennett—the second-to-last Top
Forty hit, in fact, that Bennett would land in his lengthy career.
While it's tempting to view it as a concession to
the adult pop crowd,
in fact Warwick's version did better in the R&B charts (where it
made #36) than it did in the pop listings (where it reached #62). Nor
was Dionne the only pop-rock star to record the tune in the 1960s, with
Dusty Springfield—who, of course, had covered some Bacharach-David
tunes first released by Warwick, including "Wishin' & Hopin'" and
"Anyone Who Had a Heart"—putting it on a 1966 album. It should also be
emphasized that this sort of material was not an aberration for Dionne,
as she'd covered Barbra Streisand's "People" on her previous LP, and
would include another Newley-Bricusse number, "Once in a Lifetime," on
her next long-player.
Those who dug the gospel-soul roots of Warwick's
sound were no doubt far more pleased with the other charting single
from The Sensitive Sound of Dionne
Warwick, "You Can Have Him." A #12 hit in 1961 for Roy Hamilton
as "You Can Have Her," Warwick made the appropriate gender adjustment
and took the helm for an admirably uptempo, fiery rendition that rocked
harder not just than anything else on the album, but than just about
anything else she was recording in the mid-1960s. That didn't help it
get higher than #75 in the charts, however. Cut in London, the song,
oddly, is one of Warwick's least favorite of her own recordings, to the
point where she refused to perform it in concert.
The two other covers on The Sensitive Sound of Dionne Warwick
were, unlike "You Can Have Him" (and like "Who Can I Turn To"),
indicative of an attempt to expand into all-around adult appeal.
"Unchained Melody" (with its odd loud percussive clanks) had, of
course, been around as a pop standard for a good decade since Les
Baxter, Al Hibbler, and the aforementioned Roy Hamilton all scored Top
Ten hits with the song in 1955. Warwick wasn't the only mid-'60s soul
star to take a crack at it, the Righteous Brothers pushing it to #4 in
the hit parade just a few months later. The other non-Bacharach-David
song, "Where Can I Go Without You," had been recorded by its co-author,
Peggy Lee, in the 1950s.
That did leave seven Bacharach-David compositions
that, while not well known to anyone but serious fans of Warwick and/or
the songwriting team, do yield their share of listening pleasure. The
arching "How Many Days of Sadness" has some of Warwick's highest
winding vocals. "Is There Another Way to Love You," issued as the
B-side of "You Can Have Him," is a yet more dramatic example of the
vocal gymnastics needed to execute Bacharach-David's increasingly
complicated, corkscrewing melodies. "What occurred during that time was
that our relationship was growing," Warwick told David Nathan for the
liner notes of the 1995 compilation From
the Vaults, "and we took more and more chances as we grew
musically. Believe me, the songs were hard to sing and you almost had
to be music major to sing 'em!"
Also used on a B-side (for "Who Can I Turn To") was
"Don't Say I Didn't You Tell So," with a rhythm highly reminiscent of
the one heard on her earlier smash "Walk On By," and muted-trumpet
sounds produced by Dionne herself. In fact, some radio stations gave
this side more airplay than "Who Can I Turn To," and perhaps it would
have been a wiser decision to plug it as the A-side, given it was more
consistent with the sound Warwick had popularized on her previous
singles. "Only the Strong, Only the Brave" punctuated the sort of
gentle verses Warwick fans expected with sudden explosions into
stirring, almost stormy declarations. "Forever My Love," one of the
lushest arrangements on an album that generally saw Bacharach-David's
settings for Dionne's ballads getting slicker, was originally recorded
by Jane Morgan. "Wives & Lovers" had aleady been a hit for Jack
Jones back in late 1963, though its sly lounge-lizard lyrics seem
awkward as sung by a woman rather than a man. Closing the record was
"That's Not the Answer," whose twangy guitar and girl-groupish backup
vocals were slight throwbacks to the kind of tunes Warwick often cut at
the outset of her career, but was now starting to outgrow.
Warwick would not have her next big smash until
1966's "Message to Michael," though she did return to the Top Forty
earlier that year with "Are You There (With Another Girl)?" That song
is included on her fifth album (also reissued by Collectors' Choice
Music), Here I Am, full of
numerous other comparatively neglected Bacharach-David songs the
composers continued to churn out for Dionne. -- Richie Unterberger
unless otherwise specified.
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