★★★★★
Elegance and variety have always been essential ingredients in Dionne Warwick's one-of-a-kind vocal delivery. Regardless of the genre in which she sings, there's a clear sophistication in her phrasing and a seemingly boundless scale of notes and dynamics in the interpretation of each melody she envelops...
- www.soultracks.com
2013-10-11
★★★★★
By 1967, "Alfie" and the like had Warwick on the road to divahood, but that didn't mean this best-of, marked "Circa 1962-1964" in gold on the cover, was perceived as an oldies record. Girl groups weren't considered quaint yet, and Warwick has never been more tuneful or charming than when she and Bacharach-David had them to contend with. The selling points here are Warwick standards like "Walk On By" and "Don't Make Me Over...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2011-03-14
★★★★★
Through a singing career that has spanned more than 40 years, Dionne Warwick has become a near seminal figure in the amalgamation of pop and soul music. So it would be a shame if her recording career ends on a sour note such as My Friends and Me, the new duets album that has been released on Concord Records...
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
Digging back through the dusty vinyl on a Drifters Disc Of The Day excavation in praise of their unsung lead voice Rudy Lewis brought a reminder about another exceptional voice heard on their hits. Dionne Warwick, her sister Dee Dee and aunt Cissy Houston sang background vocals on several of them, starting with Mexican Divorce in July 1961...
- www.mojo4music.com
2009-07-21
★★★★★
Sometimes it's easy to forget that the Bacharach/David/Warwick triad was '60s pop royalty. Virtually ignored by most oldies radio stations in lieu of The Beach Boys' entire surf-centric oeuvre and Motown's most commerically played-out numbers, Dionne Warwick is as equally associated with questionable endorsement of The Psychic Network in the '80s as she is with her gorgeous, unique singing voice...
- www.ink19.com
2009-07-20
★★★★★
Everything has a beginning, even the career of Dionne Warwick. I personally find this hard to fathom, feeling as if her buttery alto -- especially when it is wrapping itself around the hushed melodies and lovelorn lyrics of her frequent collaborators Hal David and Burt Bacharach -- is part of the collective unconscious of popular culture. Her renditions of such now-classics as "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "I Say A Little Prayer" might have burst into existence during the Big Bang...
- www.ink19.com
2009-07-20
★★★★★
Even in the heyday of Bacharach-David Dionne didn't make such terrific albums--the best-ofs were the prizes. So Holland-Dozier-Holland are doing all right: solid pop, with the rhythm up front and the strings often used percussively--though they do wash out on "I Always Get Caught in the Rain" (inclement weather is as bad for arrangers as it is for lyricists). H ook-of-the-month: the guitar riff on "You're Gonna Need Me."
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
Warwick aged terribly--rid of Burt Bacharach, she immediately immersed in the ritual emotion of divahood. But as his ingenue she was a model of self-possessed vulnerability. Though this chart-determined 16-song budget CD skips such lovely moments as "You'll Never Get to Heaven" and "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself," it still leaves her on the right side of 30, which for the purposes of this argument means 29...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
The voice is still magic--I even get off on her overdubbed backups--but who wants to listen to it through all this mush? Wait till the collaboration with Barry Manilow dries up, after two or three albums. Betcha Clive tries reuniting her with Bacharach-David around then. And around then they just might be in the mood to do it right. Maybe.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10