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                                                      Featured Member of the Month           

                                                                            May                                         

                                                                                                                            

                                                   Lifetime Achievement Award                      

                                                                Dionne Warwick                          

                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                   

 Dionne Warwick (born December 12, 1940, in East Orange, New Jersey, U.S.) is an American pop and rhythm and blues (R&B) singer whose soulful sound earned her widespread appeal. She is perhaps best known for her collaborations with such high-profile artists as Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston.  Ms. Warwick attended the Hartt School of     the University of Hartford, Connecticut. She would make trips to NYC as much as she could to record, and during one of these sessions, she met composer and producer Burt Bacharach, who invited her to sing on some demos he was recording with lyricist Hal David. Her singing caught the attention of an executive at Scepter Records, and Warrick was soon signed to the label. In 1962, she released her first single, “I Smiled Yesterday,” with the more popular B side, “Don’t Make Me Over,” which was written and produced by Bacharach and David.  Warrick’s surname was misspelled as   “Warwick” on the record, and she adopted the mistake as her name thereafter. Warrick was raised in a middle-class community in East Orange, New Jersey. Her family was spiritually and musically inclined—her mother managed a renowned gospel choir, the Drinkard Singers, and her father was a gospel record promoter—and Dionne, as everyone called her, began singing in church as a young girl. She often played piano or organ for the Drinkard Singers and sometimes sang in place of absent adult members. As a teen, she formed a group called the Gospelizes with her sister, Dee Dee. The group enjoyed relative success, singing backup for several musicians in local venues and on recordings. Warrick continued to perform with the Gospelizes. By the 1960s, Warwick had begun touring worldwide.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         In the mid-1960s she began appearing in popular nightclubs and theatres and on television, including appearances on  Hullabaloo and The Red Skelton Hour. Warwick continued to release hit singles and albums throughout the 1960s, largely collaborations with Bacharach and David. Top 10 singles from this period included “Walk On By” (1964), “I Say a Little    Prayer” (1967), and “(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls” (1968), the latter of which, by reaching number two on the Billboard pop chart, pushed Warwick further into the spotlight. In 1969, she earned her first Grammy  Award for Best Female  Contemporary Pop Vocal Performance for “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” (1968).  A Grammy, for best Female contemporary vocal performance, followed two years later for “I’ll Never Fall in    Love Again.” After a decade of successful collaborations, Bacharach, David, and Warwick quarreled and parted ways. From 1971 Warwick rendered her surname “Warwick” on the advice of astrologer friend Linda Goodman but reverted the spelling to “Warwick” some five years later.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

 She had few hits for the majority of the 1970s, with the notable exception of “Then Came You” (1974), a collaboration with the Spinners that topped the charts. Her popularity increased once more in 1979 with the songs “Deja Vu” and     “I’ll Never Love This Way Again,” which garnered her Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and      Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, respectively. She maintained this popularity through the 1980s and, during that time, eventually reconciled with Bacharach, performing on his “That’s What Friends Are For” (1985), featuring Gladys Knight, Elton John, and Stevie         Wonder. The song, the proceeds of which went to funding AIDS research, earned Warwick her fifth Grammy. Warwick’s commercial success continued into the nineties. In addition to her music,           Warwick devoted much of her time to entrepreneurial endeavors—including a skincare and fragrance line, an interior design group, and charity projects. Warwick continued to record into the 21st century. Her releases included the gospel album Why We Sing (2008) and two collections of duets, My Friends & Me (2006), on which she sang her old hits with such artists as Cyndi Lauper and Reba McEntire, and Feels So Good (2014), on which her partners included Jamie        Foxx and Cee Lo Green.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

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