Dionne Warwick: ‘I start my day with a cup of coffee and a cigarette’

Six time Grammy Award-winning Dionne Warwick is bringing her Don’t Make Me Over tour to the UK this month.

Based on the documentary of the same name about the 83-year-old star, the show is a mixture of chat and music with Dionne answering questions from the audience, and singing hits including Walk On By and Say A Little Prayer.

For this weekend’s 60 Seconds, Metro caught up with her in her New Jersey home, sitting in her office bedecked with gold discs and photographs from her six-decade long career.

Lets just say, she’s not slowing down any time soon.

What’s the award you’re most proud of on that wall, Dionne?

There’s a few. That photo is of Grammy Award winners.

You were the first African-American woman to win a Grammy…

In the pop arena, yes. I hadn’t realised I was the first to do that until someone told me. That particular category was basically designated for those who were white, blue-eyed blondes.

But your music has always appealed to all kinds of audiences hasn’t it?

Yeah! I don’t categorise music. Music is music. They try to put you into a box all the time. But you can’t put me into a box.

Wasn’t your last world tour called One Last Time? What brings you back?

[Laughing] Yes, it was. But that just meant I’m going to be riding around the whole word like a crazy woman one last time.

But the schedule is still tight, with just one day between dates.

Plenty of time to get to where I gotta go and rest up, or go shopping. I love shopping. Or I spend the entire day in my PJs.

What keeps you going?

Supply and demand. You guys won’t leave me alone!

But the demand is never going to stop. Will you?

It’s amazing. I say maybe this year I’ll take the whole year off and do nothing. People will think I’ve lost my mind.

You could always do what Abba did and have a live show with an avatar of Dionne Warwick…

That would be fine with me.

Would you go?

Oh, yeah. I’d love to see me. But I don’t listen to my music.

I listen to it one time when I recorded it. I am so critical I will say things to myself like, ‘Why didn’t you sing this other note?’ or ‘Why didn’t you do it this way?’ So I refrain from listening to me. I listen to my peers.

Which peers?

I was listening to Johnny Mathis last night. Sometimes it’s Tina Turner. And I listen to 
a lot of Brazilian music. I love it.

Isn’t Brazil where you want to retire to, if you ever do?

Yes, it is. That’s my paradise. I discovered Brazil in the mid-60s during my first tour there. I fell completely in love with it, not only with the country and the people, but the music.

This is where I belong. They embrace me. There’s a mutual love affair going on.

Brazilian music has a very different feel from your music.

I describe it is as happy music. Music that makes you smile, makes you move.

A lot of your music is about feeling unhappy, though?

I think the songs are basically songs of reality. Hal David wrote lyrics [to Burt Bacharach’s music] that he felt were needed to be heard.

Walk On By is a song specifically about the way most people don’t want things to turn out. But if things don’t work out the way you want then, ‘Bye bye!’ So there are different phases of life that I sing about.

Your latest show is based on your documentary Don’t Make Me Over and you do a Q&A sessions with the audience.

It really amuses me how much people want to know about me. Sometimes there are questions that I feel are really none of anybody’s business but mine. I mean, what is so interesting about Dionne Warwick?

Everything. Tell me, what did you have for breakfast?

Cup of coffee and a cigarette.

Ah, the classic!

I’m a doctor’s nightmare. I hate medications. I mean, I’ll take what they tell me to because they know what they are doing. But I still eat every single thing my mother put in my mouth from the beginning. And people say, ‘You still eat sugar? You still eat bread?’ And I say, ‘I certainly do!’

Does one of your songs mean more to you than the others?

No. They are my children, my babies. The songs were written specifically for me and you can’t choose one over the other. They are all very special.

Dionne Warwick Don’t Make Me Over Tour arrives in the UK on May 4 and finishes on May 26. Tickets, available on Ticketmaster.

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