Dionne Warwick I Say A Little Prayer 1967 Million Seller

Vintage (1962-1971) photo and ad montage covering Dionne Warwick's tenure at Scepter Records and featuring her international smash I Say A Little Prayer. Burt Bacharach arranged, conducts and is on piano. The tune was released as single in Oct. 1967 after DJs all over the country started playing the album cut of I Say A Little Prayer from the Windows of the World album. I Say A Little Prayer was certified RIAA Gold selling over 1 million in the USA alone and peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in December 1967, and also # 4 on both the CashBox Top 100 Chart and the Record World Top 40 Chart. The flip or B side of the single, (Theme from) Valley of the Dolls became a hit when disc jockeys flipped the recording in February 1968. (Theme From) Valley of the Dolls was also a million seller and rode the #2 position for 4 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and the Cash Box Top 100 Chart in February 1968 and the # 1 position on the Record World Top 40 Chart. I Say A Little Prayer/(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls is among the most successful double sided hits of the Rock era. The cut heard here is a rare unedited version in which Burt Bacharach can be heard on countoff, on piano and conducting the orchestra. Although Warwick/Bacharach/David had previous million sellers, I Say A Little Prayer was their first RIAA certified USA million seller and also the first Bacharach/David penned tune to be a certified million seller. Warwick introduced the tune to USA television audiences on the November 17, 1967 episode of the Red Skelton Show. Warwick also sang the tune on the Ed Sullivan Show and The Carol Burnett Show in January 1968. Less than one year later, Aretha Franklin would take her cover of "I Say A Little Prayer" to the #10 spot on Billboards Hot 100 singles chart. Writes Nick Tosches, the renowned writer, music journalist, novelist, biographer and poet in the January 7, 1972 issue of the rock magazine FUSION; "...getting into Dionne Warwick is like finding buried treasure. The Bacharach/David repertoire which milady chooses to sing is so fascinatingly cynical / fatalistic / stoical / emotional / happy, simultaneously! It's pure emotion. There is a whole lot more to emotion than some rock punk bursting his dexedrine-staved blood vessels by screaming "Baby I need you baby" into a microphone. Dionne Warwick is not a rock and roll singer. She's not a jazz singer either. Rhythm and blues? Nope. A pop singer? No way. Did you ever tongue-kiss with someone who barfed a Singapore Sling bolus into your mouth, and then four years later you're with someone else and you feel good and you realize how beautiful it all was and then it's all melancholy/happiness, sort of? That's the kind of singer Dionne Warwick is. She's beautiful. Dionne, paired with Bacharach's string/horn/reed arrangements, comes up as a lyric mezzo-sopranoid par-excellence, melodious/expressiveness-wise. If you've never gotten into her, you ought to. Get hep to Dionne Warwick. For your own sake."

Channel: Music
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: dibotis

Length: 03:19
Rating: 4.85
Views: 574097

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