5. Dionne WarwickMake Way For Dionne Warwick
That whole record, every song. It took me years to realise that damn, every song on this record became a standard. But she was two blocks from me. Her father was a preacher, we knew Rev. Warwick. And then they became stars… they didn’t do that with nobody else… but they did with Dionne. The chemistry worked for that trio and it was perfect.
I worked at the barber shop in the hood, where all those records were played all day long every day, and everybody would carry that album round. Before that, if you saw albums it would probably be somebody with a jazz album. Or it would have been gospel. Rock & roll came later. But there was no Elvis albums then! You got a 45 every two weeks or three weeks, but very seldom would anyone go round with albums. And then when Dionne came out, that changed things. Then came Carole King, Johnny Mathis… those albums sat on the chart for ten years.
Again I knew her later: I worked in the Brill Building and I watched the The Shirelles, and then she came along later and did her own songs.
