The job of the catalog divisions of major record labels is to re-sell music from the companies' catalogs, and when it comes to a vintage artist like
Dionne Warwick, record executives wrack their brains to come up with ways to go beyond the basic hits compilations and exploit the many other tracks such a singer cut during her career. One increasingly popular concept is the "Love Songs" album, its release timed to occur around Valentine's Day. Of course, most of
Warwick's recordings are love songs of one sort or another, anyway, but the idea usually is to come up with a disc that will accompany the holiday's happy romantic moments.
Rhino Records'
Warwick Love Songs album, drawn from her
Scepter and
Warner Bros. Records catalogs of 1964-1976, which arrived more than a month after Valentine's Day 2001, is really a canard. It contains as many love songs as any random selection of 16
Warwick tracks would, which is to say that most of the songs are love songs, although some are not and some are unhappy love songs that aren't appropriate to Valentine's Day (
"One Less Bell to Answer," "Jealousy"). But the real title of this album should be something like "A Bunch of Rare and Obscure
Dionne Warwick Records, Bated with a Couple of Hits." The hits, of course, come right up front:
"You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)" (another sentiment not exactly in keeping with the holiday) and
"I Say a Little Prayer." For the rest, British
soul music expert
David Nathan has dug into the
Warwick Scepter and
Warner catalogs for a collection of LP tracks, B-side singles, and other obscurities, sifting for gems. Certainly, he's found a few. Among the forgotten
Bacharach and
David compositions that make up Tracks three-nine is
"Here Where There Is Love," which easily could have been one of
Warwick's hit singles of the '60s, as well as characteristic if minor efforts such as
"Whoever You Are, I Love You." Warwick's version of
Lesley Duncan's
"Love Song" (a tune best known for its inclusion on
Elton John's
Tumbleweed Connection album) is excellent, and her 1972 re-recording of
"Close to You," made after the song became a hit for
the Carpenters, is good, too. Still, this is really an album for
Warwick completists who will welcome the arrival on CD of
"Dream Sweet Dreamer," previously available only as the B-side of the 1969 single
"This Girl's in Love with You," and
"I Didn't Mean to Love You," Warwick's last
R&B chart entry on
Warner, which
Nathan notes was "withdrawn a few weeks after its original late 1976 release." ~ William Ruhlmann
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