What Happened to Dionne Warwick?

By CelebPaid Editorial Team · 8 min read

Dionne Warwick.Image via Wikimedia Commons

The Rise to Fame

Marie Dionne Warwick ( dee-ON WOR-wik; née Warrick; born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, and television host. Born in East Orange, New Jersey, Warwick started her career as a teenager in the vocal group the Gospelaires before starting her solo career in 1962, with composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David on a series of hit singles under the Scepter Records label, including "Don't Make Me Over", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Walk on By", "Alfie", "I Say a Little Prayer" and the Grammy-winning "Do You Know the Way to San Jose".

After a fallout with Bacharach and David and a period slump with Warner Bros Records, Warwick revived her career under the mentorship of Clive Davis at Arista Records with a series of hit singles such as "I'll Never Love This Way Again", "Heartbreaker" and "That's What Friends Are For". In the 1990s, Warwick gained notoriety for hosting the infomercial Psychic Friends Network.

Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest U.S. hit makers between 1955 and 1999, based on her chart history on Billboard's Hot 100 pop singles chart. She is the second-most charted female vocalist during the rock era (1955–1999), as well as one of the most-charted vocalists of all time, with 56 of her singles making the Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998, including 12 top ten singles and two number one singles. Warwick ranks number 74 on the Billboard Hot 100 "Greatest Artists of All Time".

During her decades-long career, Warwick has won many accolades, including six competitive Grammy Awards. Warwick has been inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame and the Apollo Theater Walk of Fame. In 2019, Warwick won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2024, Warwick was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Excellence category.

The Peak Years

Early life and career

Marie Dionne Warrick was born in East Orange, New Jersey on December 12, 1940, the eldest of three children to Arthur Lee "Nana" (née Drinkard) and Mancel Leland Warrick. Her mother was manager of the Drinkard Singers, a family gospel group. Her father was a gospel record promoter and also worked as a Pullman porter, chef, record promoter, and CPA.

Warwick was named after her maternal aunt Marie "Reebie" Drinkard Epps; Warwick preferred to be called by her middle name. Warwick had two younger siblings, sister Delia Juanita "Dee Dee" (1942-2008) and brother Mancel "Pookie" Jr. (1947-1968).

Her parents were both Foundational Black American, and Warwick also has a smaller amount of Irish and English ancestry on the maternal side of her family. Warwick began singing gospel as a child at her grandfather Rev. Elzae Warrick's AME church in Newark, New Jersey, where he was pastor where at six, she sang her first church solo, "Jesus Loves Me". As a teenager, she began singing at Newark's New Hope Baptist Church after her grandfather began pastoring there.

Raised in what was a mixed-race suburban neighborhood of East Orange, Warwick was a girl scout during her adolescent years. After attending Lincoln School, she graduated from East Orange High School in 1959 and attended Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut on a music scholarship.

What Changed

During her adolescence and teenage years, Warwick and her sister were being vocally mentored by their aunt Cissy Drinkard, who at one point lived at the Warricks' East Orange home in the early 1950s.

At fourteen, Warwick and her sister Dee Dee began singing together as part of the gospel vocal group the Gospelaires, a splinter group of the Drinkard Singers, her mother and aunt's group. The original members of the Gloryaires were the Warrick sisters and their friends Doris Troy and Sylvia Shemwell.

In 1959, Warwick's aunt Cissy's then-boyfriend John Houston offered to manage the group after Lee Warrick refused Houston's offer to manage the Drinkard Singers. While opening for the Drinkards at the Apollo Theater, a record scout for Atlantic Records came backstage asking for several female singers to back an R&B saxophonist named Sam "the Man" Taylor for a recording session.

According to Warwick, she volunteered for her group. As she could recall, "a man came running frantically backstage at the Apollo and said he needed background singers for a session for Sam 'The Man' Taylor, and old big-mouth here spoke up and said 'We'll do it!' and we left and did the session. I wish I remembered the gentleman's name because he was responsible for the beginning of my professional career." After the session, the Gloryaires soon became an in-demand vocal group singing for R&B and soul artists such as the Drifters, Dinah Washington, Solomon Burke and Chuck Jackson.

In 2002, Warwick recalled that, on weekdays after school, the girls would catch a bus from East Orange to the Port Authority Terminal, then take the subway to the recording studios in Manhattan, perform their background vocal work, and still be back at home in East Orange with time to do their school homework. Warwick's music work would continue while she pursued her studies at Hartt.

Where Dionne Warwick Is Now

During a recording session with the Drifters for the song "Mexican Divorce", Warwick met Burt Bacharach, who hired her to record demos featuring songs written by him and lyricist Hal David. When Warwick was unable to make another session in September 1961 for Canadian rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, Warwick's aunt Cissy took her place.

It would be while recording background for the Drifters' "Mexican Divorce" that Warwick's voice and star presence were noticed by the song's composer, Burt Bacharach, a Brill Building songwriter who was writing songs with many other songwriters, including lyricist Hal David.

According to a July 14, 1967, article on Warwick in Time, Bacharach stated, "She has a tremendous strong side and a delicacy when singing softly – like miniature ships in bottles." Musically, she was no "play-safe girl. What emotion I could get away with!" During the session, Bacharach asked Warwick if she would be interested in recording demonstration recordings of his compositions to pitch the tunes to record labels, paying her $12.50 per demo recording session (equivalent to $130 in 2025).

One such demo, "It's Love That Really Counts" – destined to be recorded by Scepter-signed act the Shirelles – caught the attention of the president of Scepter Records, Florence Greenberg, who, according to Current Biography (1969 Yearbook), told Bacharach, "Forget the song, get the girl!"

Warwick was signed to Bacharach's and David's production company, according to Warwick, which in turn was signed to Scepter Records in 1962 by Greenberg. The partnership would provide Bacharach with the freedom to produce Warwick without the control of recording company executives and company A&R men. Warwick's musical ability and education would also allow Bacharach to compose more challenging tunes. The demo version of "It's Love That Really Counts", along with her original demo of "Make It Easy on Yourself", would surface on Warwick's debut Scepter album, Presenting Dionne Warwick, which was released in early 1963.

Legacy

Her albums in 1971-74 spelled her named "Warwicke" but she dropped the trailing "e" in 1975.

Early stardom (1962–1965)

In November 1962, Scepter Records released Warwick's first solo single, "Don't Make Me Over", the title of which Warwick supplied herself when she snapped the phrase at producers Burt Bacharach and Hal David in anger. Warwick had found out that "Make It Easy on Yourself" – a song on which she had recorded the original demo and had wanted to be her first single release – had been given to another artist, Jerry Butler. From the phrase "don't make me over", Bacharach and David created the song, to which Warwick recorded the following day. The song became Warwick's first top 40 pop and R&B hit, peaking at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 5 on the Hot R&B Singles chart. Warrick's name was misspelled on the single's label, and she began using the new spelling, "Warwick", both professionally and personally. After "Don't Make Me Over" hit in 1962, the 22-year-old singer answered the call of her manager, left school and went on a tour of France, where critics crowned her "Paris' Black Pearl", having been introduced on stage at Paris Olympia that year by Marlene Dietrich.

After her two immediate follow-ups, "This Empty Place" and "Make The Music Play", barely cracked the Hot 100, her fourth release, "Anyone Who Had a Heart", released in November 1963, was Warwick's first top 10 pop hit, peaking at number eight on the Hot 100 and was her first international million-seller. In April 1964, Warwick released "Walk On By", which peaked at number six on the Hot 100 and also hit the top ten in the UK and other countries. During this period, Warwick found herself competing with many acts from the British Invasion and managed to hold her own better than most American artists.

Warwick's success in the United Kingdom was modest as most of her songs were covered by British singers Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw and Dusty Springfield. The most notable cover of Warwick's that became a hit cover was Black's "Anyone Who Had a Heart", which went to No. 1 in the UK. This upset Warwick, who described feeling insulted when told that in the UK, record company executives wanted her songs recorded by someone else. Warwick met Cilla Black while on tour in Britain. She recalled what she said to Black: "I told her that 'You're My World' would be my next single in the States. I honestly believe that if I'd sneezed on my next record, then Cilla would have sneezed on...

Frequently asked questions