At age 84 and after more than 60 years in the music business, the legend Dionne Warwick will retire after one last world tour. Last night, she farewelled Melbourne Australia as part of her ‘One Last Time’ tour.
When you experience the Dionne Warwick hits back-to-back it is overwhelming hearing one after the next after the next after the next. They are all classics coming at you rapid fire.
There were no tricks at this show, no slight of hand effect to distract the audience. This was Dionne Warwick without an auto-cue, just four musicians on stage playing every note, no backing tapes and no backing singers. That is remarkable for someone of this calibre. What we were hearing was pure talent with no dilution.
The songs of Dionne Warwick, mostly written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, are as important to her as they are to them. It’s a toss-up if Burt and Hal made Dionne a star or Dionne made them songwriting legends. As with that rule of physics, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’.
Bacharach and David were the predecessors of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Like Elton, Burt wrote the music. Like Bernie, Hal wrote the words and its Hal’s words Dionne sings. Something simple like rhyming ‘Pneumonia’ with ‘Phone ya’ may have started out as a David joke when Bacharach had the flu but it became essential words for Dionne to sing at every one of her concerts for the past 50 years.
What do you get when you kiss a guy?
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, he’ll never phone ya
I’ll never fall in love again
Don’t you know that I’ll never fall in love again
It was a pleasure being in the same room as such a legend. Dionne was very chatty with the audience telling anecdotes and stories like the shock and horror of discovering Bacharach and David gave Johnny Mathis ‘If I Want To’ before her. Mathis is one of her closest friends, she said, but they were to give her first choice of every song. She famously knocked ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love’. Bacharach and David offered the song first to Dionne who turned it down because at the time she felt it was too preachy. Jackie DeShannon recorded it instead and it was a Top 10 hit in the USA in 1965. That made Dionne reconsider her decision. She recorded it the following year for her ‘Here Where There Is Love’ album. It’s now a song she has to sing and she did.
The only obvious omission was ‘Heartbreaker’, one of her biggest hits in Australia (no. 2, 1982) and it was written by Aussies, the Gibb brothers.
‘That’s What Friends Are Four’, Dionne’s 1985 hit with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight, ended the rather short one hour 12-minute show. However that one hour and bit of watching this legend for the last time was worth every minute.
Dionne Warwick setlist, Hamer Hall, Melbourne, 18 January 2025
Walk On By (no 6 US, no 28 Au, 1964)
Anyone Who Had a Heart (no 8 US, no 11 Au, 1963)
You’ll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart) (no 34 US, no 32 Au, 1964)
I’ll Never Fall in Love Again (no 6 US, 1969)
Message to Michael (no 8 US, no 44 Au, 1966)
This Girl’s in Love With You (no 7 US, no 17 Au, 1968)
I Say a Little Prayer (no 4 US, no 77 Au, 1967)
Alfie (no 15 US, 1967)
Do You Know the Way to San Jose? (no 10 US, no 15 Au, 1968)
If I Want To (Burt Bacharach song) (from Dionne Sings Dionne, 1998)
I’ll Never Love This Way Again (no 5 US, no 36 Au, 1979)
99 Miles From L.A. (Albert Hammond cover, Hammond/David writers)
What the World Needs Now Is Love (from her Here Where There Is Love album, 1966)
That’s What Friends Are For (no 1 US, no 1 Au, 1985)
Dionne Warwick remaining shows:
Australia
18 January, Sydney, The Star Event Centre
19 January, Canberra, Canberra Theatre
New Zealand
21 January, Auckland, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre
22 January, Christchurch, James Hay Theatre
https://www.frontiertouring.com/dionnewarwick
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