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#4 Adult Contemporary , #6 Pop
When looking over my notes trying to select what soulful British singer I was going to post about, it struck me out of the blue that not only hadn’t I selected any women for this month, but I would be remiss in not mentioning the beautiful lady that was the FIRST soulful singer the Brits had to offer the pop music world– the legendary Dusty Springfield.
This song was one of the many, many Burt Bacharach and Hal David compositions that had been recorded by another great pop singer Dionne Warwick.
This catchy song has been covered my many and even recorded by Motown’s own Martha & The Vandellas, but it was Dusty’s duplicate cover of Dionne’s original that was the biggest hit.
“Wishin’ and Hopin’” appeared on Dusty’s first solo release, “Stay Awhile/ I Only Want to Be With You” on Mercury records.
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Probably one of the most under-rated pop singers of my generation is Dionne Warwick.
Brought up in the gospel world in a musical extended family, Dionne formed the “Gospelaires” singing group with her sister Dee Dee and her aunt Cissy Houston ( later the mother of Whitney Houston). Dionne and her group did vocal session work in New York on weekends while she studied music on scholarship in college during the week.
The story goes that Dionne was asked to provide vocals for some demos written by the songwriting-producing team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, while in the studio working on the backing vocal for the Drifter’s song “Mexican Divorce.”
When the composing duo pitched the demo(s) to Scepter Records, the head of the label (Florence Greenberg) liked what she heard and signed Dionne to a recording contract.
Bacharach and David wrote her first song for recording and the rest is legend!
Dionne sang her first and all subsequent Bacharach and David unusually complicated songs with ease, grace and smoothness. Her voice is just so mellow yet expressive and her singing sounds effortless. I recall playing with my Barbie doll in her black evening gown, microphone and pink scarf singing nothing but Dionne Warwick songs because even as a youngster she epitomized class to me!
Warwick charted high continuously from 1963 up until 1980 before her recording career began to slow down a bit.
This 1967 the single, “I Say A Little Prayer,” charted #8 R&B and #4 on the Billboard Top 100. The song appeared on Dionne’s LP of the same year “The Windows of the World” pictured above.
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Aretha obviously loved the song too because only a year later she put her spin on the tune and released her cover of Dionne’s hit. Naturally The Queen of Soul’s version was a hit too! Charting #3 R&B and #10 Pop in 1968. The song appeared on her 1968 certified Gold classic LP “Aretha Now” pictured above.
Over the years, Aretha’s hit cover of Marie Dionne Warwick’s original hit has become the definitive version of the song. Don’t think so? Then check this out -- my most favorite part of the movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding” is this clip: this is why I love YouTube
Of course I want to know which of these two renditions of the Bachrach/David classic YOU like best so please vote.
And here are a few more related videos to enjoy while they last on YouTube.
Dionne and Boy George “Say A Little Prayer” together live in the 80s
Aretha Says a Little Prayer live in 1970
Trivia: The Gospelaire’s are thought to have provided backing vocals for Ben E. King’s “Spanish Harlem” and “Stand By Me.”
[audio http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/1585559_wixuw/illaBlack-AnyoneWhoHadAHeart.mp3] Cilla Black – Anyone Who Had a Heart(1964)
Liverpudlian Priscilla Maria Veronica White, renamed Cilla Black by her Svengali Brian Epstein, became one of the most beloved pop-rock performers and tv personalities in England. Musically she got better with age and her first song, even though it was a Lennon-McCartney composition, did not do especially well.
“Her second single, released at the beginning of 1964, was the Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition “Anyone Who Had a Heart”. In the United States, it was a new single destined to be a hit for Dionne Warwick where it peaked at #8 while Cilla’s version shot to #1 in Britain, where it remains to this day the top selling single of all time by a British female artist. “(SOURCE)
“Even greater success was in store for Black three months later with the release of “You’re My World,” an English version of a song originally written in Italian. What “I Only Want To Be With You” is to Dusty Springfield, “Shout” is to Lulu, and “Always Something There To Remind Me” is to Sandy Shaw, “You’re My World” is to Cilla Black–a signature song that stands astride her whole career.” (SOURCE)
I love this song as representative of the female branch of the British Invasion and as a wonderful Bacharach-David tune — but my two of my four favorite female vocalists of the BI genre are coming up so enjoy Cilla’s live performance below and stay tuned.
