Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

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nymusicalsguy
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Joined: Fri May 05, 2006 10:39 am

Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by nymusicalsguy »

Hi all,

Just thought many of you might be interested to know that WEA Japan is planning a very ambitious reissue campaign for Dionne's Scepter and Warner catalogues this summer, with 23 albums (3 new to CD, many in mono and stereo) arriving in remastered and expanded editions with numerous rare bonus singles - including Dionne's LOVE MACHINE tracks overseen by Burt and Hal.

We have full details on this entire campaign here at The Second Disc:

http://theseconddisc.com/2013/05/20/mak ... cd-titles/

Best,

Joe
Alistair
Posts: 67
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2004 8:58 am

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by Alistair »

Great news, but I hope that either the US or UK branches of WEA pick these up - these Japanese issues are pricey!
And there does seem to be a lot of duplication with the old Rhino series. But good to see that somebody cares about the Scepter and Warner back catalogue.
Alistair
Downtown
Posts: 46
Joined: Fri May 24, 2013 10:07 am

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by Downtown »

I think it's sensational that finally a first song “And Then You Know What He Did” from the aborted Bacharach/Warwick 1974 reunion is released.

And with the looming death of the CD it is great that WEA is doing this in a way that we have all these great albums to keep for the ages.
ron hertel
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Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2004 7:08 pm

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by ron hertel »

Seeking some guidance here from those forum participants who are technically oriented and able to evaluate the quality of "remastered recordings" ...... Except for the previously "unreleased on cd recordings" and "never released before recordings" - I have all of the remastered Dionne Scepter and Warner Brothers recordings on cd. This includes the 4 Rhino releases, the Sequel British double cd's along with the Spy (Ambassador Classics) and the Collector's Choice releases. ......... Can we reasonably expect - even more quality - from these about to be released "pricey" Japanese remasters? ......... Your input will be greatly appreciated!
Downtown
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Joined: Fri May 24, 2013 10:07 am

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by Downtown »

By-the-way: The price in Japan will be the equivalent of 25-30 USD per album and in the US it is about twice as much - Amazon lists them between 44$ and 58$ each.
Blair N. Cummings
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Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by Blair N. Cummings »

Of the three known recordings Burt did with Dionne in `74, I`m sure I`m not the only one to notice a similarity of titles to two. I wonder if And Then He Walked Out the Door and And Then You Know What He Did are different (tape box label?) titles for one song. A trivial matter, I admit; but does anyone know?
ron hertel
Posts: 481
Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2004 7:08 pm

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by ron hertel »

Blair:

Sounds like a plausible assumption to me; however, I have spoken with people confused about the following two songs and ended up humming both with people then recognizing they were in fact two different songs: #1 "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" (Bacharach & David) - and - #2 "I'll Never Love this Way Again" (Kerr & Jennings) ...... Adding to the confusion is the fact that both resulted in "Grammy Awards" for Dionne Warwick.

Ron

Note: I do not ever recall seeing an interview with Burt, Hal or Dionne where the subject of unreleased (in the vault) material was ever asked about. Obviously Burt or Dionne could answer the question raised by you, Blair!
nymusicalsguy
Posts: 275
Joined: Fri May 05, 2006 10:39 am

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by nymusicalsguy »

They are two different songs, one with a lyric by Bobby Russell and one with a lyric by Neil Simon. "And Then You Know What He Did" (with Russell lyrics) will appear on "Dionne Warwick Sings Burt Bacharach," a PBS pledge-exclusive compilation being released in conjunction with the upcoming television special. It's believed that "And Then He Walked Through the Door" was written for a possible film adaptation of PROMISES, PROMISES. (The Bacharach/Simon "Seconds" as recorded by Burt himself as well as Gladys Knight and the Pips also was salvaged from this project.)

Joe
Blair N. Cummings
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Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by Blair N. Cummings »

Belated thanks, Joe, for that clarification. I`ve always loved "Seconds." If any of the other songs from that era are as good, I`ll be very happy.
BachtoBacharach
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Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by BachtoBacharach »

I heard rough mixes of all three tunes in 1974 and particularly remember "And Then He Walked Through the Door" simply because it was a great tune and Dionne was superb on that recording as well as the other two. There was a lot of excitement when Dionne and Burt went back into the studio to record those tunes. The entertainment press was atwitter with this reunion. I was not at these sessions but know a handful of musicians who were and they told me at the time that the tunes were really great, that Dionne was in fine voice and that the sessions themselves seemed to go well. I do understand that Burt and Dionne were to record three more tunes together during that time at A & M in addition to those recorded during this session but my sources tell me that Burt abruptly cancelled the remaining session and the reason he gave was that the spark he felt with Dionne was gone. I don't know the timing on this either but I think Seconds was one of the tunes that she was to record allegedly from the aborted Promises, Promises follow-up musical but I think Burt subsequently recorded this one himself as did Gladys Knight. Dionne was also in the studio around that time with Thom Bell to record Then Came You and a couple of other tunes with the Spinners. A note of trivia here was that Then Came You flopped initially upon release in June 1974 but was subsequently re-released in August and hit number one in October. Burt seemed none too pleased when Dionne had her first number one hit with Then Came You. I have speculated before that that was the motivation to take Stephanie Mills into the studio to record her 1975 album. Many of the original tunes in that album were to be recorded by Dionne as the follow-up to her 1972 Dionne album but Lost Horizon happened and that blew the trio up. In Burt's book, he stated that he remembered trying to get together with Dionne to record her after she filed her breach of contract suit against him in 1976 but I can tell you that is disputed by Dionne...I think Burt is confused on that one as I believe he might be remembering this aborted reunion. I also understand that in addition to California, that tune David Nathan unearthed for the Very Dionne reissue, that there are a couple of other Bacharach/David tunes which haven't seen the light of day since then, including one, I understand intended for the 1972 Dionne album, that was recorded but culled from the project. And there may be more since the masters were sold by Florence Greenberg to Springboard and then another firm out of Nashville before they were returned to Bacharach in 1975 after his successful lawsuit against Scepter for the payment of royalties due for Dionne Warwick and BJ Thomas recordings. Part of the court order was to return the masters to Bacharach but Scepter was known for shoddy handling of its' masters especially for Dionne and many are missing. Part of the original agreement with Blue-Jac was that Florence retained the master tapes of the recordings and early on, many Scepter artists recorded versions using the same masters. Many of the Dionne Warwick masters are in poor shape and shockingly, many of her early recordings were recorded over to reuse the tape and the only existing copies of the tape are from second and third generation album masters. Even some of the original album masters are missing and it's not unusual that even third generation masters are the best available. Such is the case with If I Ever Make You Cry. David Nathan, when compiling the Very Dionne reissue, found the tape box for Dionne's original recording of Everybody's Out of Town recorded on December 3, 1969, prior to the BJ Thomas version cut a few months later but the tape was missing from the box. It is likely that instead of Burt taking BJ into the studio to record the tune and reassembling the musicians etc, that to save money, Florence took Dionne's master tapes and BJ recorded his vocals over the instrumental tracks since a Bacharach/David follow-up was needed for Raindrops. If that is the case, and I believe it to be plausible knowing how Scepter handled its' masters, that Dionne's original recording never made it back to the original box. Florence did this as well with BJ's version of This Guys in Love With You which reuses Dionne's master of the tune, speeded up to change the pitch for BJ's recording. This was also done with Tommy Hunt's version of Any Day Now called Lover which Bob Hillard re-wrote the lyrics to and Chuck Jackson cut his version using the master from Hunt's recording. This was also done with the Shirelle's version of It's Love That Really Counts which uses Dionne's original demo track. Florence Greenberg had to bastardize a lot of this early material because she operated Scepter on a shoestring budget; that is until Dionne Warwick became her cash cow.

Here's Tommy's Lover : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmFozQR5lvk

And here's Tommy's version of Don't Make Me Over using Dionne's original master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhqMAZBVM1k

BJ Thomas TGILWY using Dionne's original master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MalDPg3trqc

Oh Lord What Are You Doing to Me which was recorded by Dionne in 1963 and re-recorded by Scepter artists Big Maybelle, and the great Maxine Brown!

Maxine Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km8r7liiX6o

Big Maybelle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOWlaICB910

Dionne: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS-q7KkklSY

And here is a version by Leslie Uggams arranged and produced by Dionne Warwick in 1971!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT-Mp-nTKsg

And one of my least favorite Bacharach recordings in ANY version (although I choose Dionne's version if pressed):

Shirelle's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoNIF8AmPMQ

Dionne: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPMx95ijmzs

Long Day Short Night (I couldn't find Dionne's recording on You-Tube but the track is identical to the Shirelles version below:

Shirelles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1FqpqOVAE
David Young
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Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2006 4:16 pm

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by David Young »

BachtoBacharach,

Thanks , as always for your insightful information.

On the subject of the Burt /Dionne reunion , according to Robin Platts in his 2003 publication BURT BACHARACH and HAL DAVID- What the World Needs Now, (page 91)., Burt and Dionne recorded three songs at a session following the 1972 DIONNE LP. It appears that one of the songs was `` a new Bacharach and David composition entitled I Took My Strength from You``.

It appears that this song `` was consigned to the vaults.``.

I`m sure Dionne would stamp her own inimitable vocal imprint on this marvellous song.

David
BachtoBacharach
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Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by BachtoBacharach »

I had always heard that Burt, Hal and Dionne had gone into the studio after the release of the Dionne album in January 1972 to start recording for the follow-up album and this would coincide with Burt and Hal beginning work on Lost Horizon. If it is indeed true that Dionne went back into the studio prior to the Lost Horizon work beginning and it may be borne out by David Nathan, the songs recorded in that session must have included I Took My Strength From You as well as two others which probably were re-recorded by Stephanie Mills in 1975. It also follows that perhaps many of the tunes on the Mills album were intended for the Dionne follow-up as well and I have always heard that is the case. It follows that there are those three tunes in the vaults, along with perhaps one intended for the Dionne album and perhaps two more from the period when Dionne recorded the remake of Only Love Can Break a Heart which was apparently culled from the Very Dionne album. This means there are perhaps nine tunes in the vaults written by Bacharach/David or Bacharach/Various and 10 if you include the never located (to date) Dionne recording of Everybody's Out of Town. That tune was much in the vein of Who Gets the Guy and Odds and Ends and would have been typical of Dionne in that period. I am betting that if there is a tape box for the recording that the recording is somewhere. There are some early recordings on non-Bacharach material as well as some demos which, I've heard are in the vaults as well.
An Enormous BB Fan
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Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by An Enormous BB Fan »

B2B: Great posts and links.

I could swear that Tommy Hunt's version of "Don't Make Me Over" is not using the exact arrangement that Dionne had. A caught a few things missing in the background. Also, AFAIC, he doesn't even come close to Dionne's unbelievable rendition.

Did Burt & Hal write Oh Lord What Are You Doing To Me? I don't remember that song at all. For me, it has a touch of the flavor of "Unlucky" in it. I like it very much.
grooverider
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Joined: Sun Sep 10, 2006 8:13 pm

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by grooverider »

Ebay is now is listing for pre-release, the 12 cd box set, so far, three are for pre-sale, two for approximately $400.00 and one for $300.00, all from Japan.
I'm looking under my sofa (and everywhere else) for any and all stray pennies!
nymusicalsguy
Posts: 275
Joined: Fri May 05, 2006 10:39 am

Re: Dionne's Catalogue Expanded and Remastered...

Post by nymusicalsguy »

Just wanted to share more details on Real Gone Music's upcoming COMPLETE WARNER BROS. SINGLES and UNISSUED MASTERS of Dionne Warwick:

http://theseconddisc.com/2013/06/07/don ... les-on-cd/

Best,

Joe
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