By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
NEW YORK � It has been nearly 50 years since Dionne Warwick began recording the songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. But she remains their most famous interpreter, as she is regularly reminded.
By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
Deep musical roots: Dionne Warwick's Only Trust Your Heart is a salute to songwriter Sammy Cahn.
By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
Deep musical roots: Dionne Warwick's Only Trust Your Heart is a salute to songwriter Sammy Cahn.
"What I'll usually get is someone asking me, 'Do you know the way to San Jose?' " Warwick, 70, says with a chuckle. "And I'll say, 'Yeah, I finally found it.' "
On her new album, Only Trust Your Heart, the singer salutes an iconic songwriter of an earlier era: lyricist Sammy Cahn. The collection includes such standards as I Fall in Love Too Easily, The Second Time Around and I'll Never Stop Loving You.
Warwick's label, MPCA Records, was "looking for a voice" for a Cahn tribute, Warwick explains. "They sent me his entire catalog, and I'll admit I didn't know half the songs."
She did, however, know the performer associated with many of them: Frank Sinatra? or "Poppy," as Warwick affectionately remembers him.
"He was like a surrogate dad," she says. "We share the same birthday, you know (Dec. 12). There was never a time that I called him for something I really needed where his answer wasn't, 'Where and when?' "
Listening to recordings of Cahn's material, Warwick heard another singer that she had known well. "There was Sarah Vaughan's version of Wonder Why? which was just spectacular, of course. She went to school with my mother, so I grew up with her around. Aunt Sass, I called her."
Pop and jazz critic J.D. Considine, a contributor to Canada's The Globe and Mail, considers Warwick a worthy inheritor to such giants. She is "the Meryl Streep of singing ? she has tremendous technique and the ability to convey a character through a song, but never lets you see her doing that. She's not given to histrionics."
Not in life either, apparently. Warwick admits that between her activism on behalf of AIDS research and her performing schedule, which still includes about 200 shows per year, "I pull myself in about 97 different directions. But I just don't stress about things."
Her home life in New Jersey is "very quiet, very relaxed," centered on her favorite TV shows ? among them Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, CSI and Bones? and old buddies. "I still have some very dear friends from school, and we get together whenever possible."
She stays in touch with family as well, including cousin Whitney Houston, with whom she performed at Clive Davis' pre-Grammy Awards gala in February. "She's doing exceptionally well," Warwick says of Houston's health, adding, "A lot of prayers went up for her."
Warwick also continues to promote her memoir, My Life, As I See It, published in November. "I had said before that I'd never write an autobiography because I've been around, and there's a lot that I've seen and heard that stays with me. That's just mine. I didn't want to do a kiss-and-tell, as some of my peers have. But I got to do the book I wanted to do. I wrote it on the road, and had the best time."
A country album may be next, a suggestion of Warwick's son, producer/songwriter Damon Elliott. "Country music is so related to gospel," she says. "It seems I could go down that road pretty easily." Clearly, the singer has no plans to cut back on her travel anytime soon.
"I've had some incredible moments in my life ? thus far," Warwick says pointedly. "I hope a lot more are coming."
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