DIONNE WARWICK

Why We Sing

$18.98 CD

FOR YOUR GOSPEL CONSIDERATION

 For five-time GRAMMY®winner and pop/R&B vocal superstar Dionne Warwick, the music she heard in church was her first great inspiration. With WHY WE SING, the second full-length gospel project of Warwick's extraordinary career - and her first in forty years - she returns to her musical and spiritual roots with a sound that epitomizes Sunday soul. Featuring twelve newly recorded tracks, including traditional hymns and contemporary gospel songs, the album is an inspiration in and of itself as a legendary voice gives praise. 

 The disc opens with Warwick's rich, stirring rendition of “Glory Glory” (a.k.a. “Battle Hymn Of The Republic”). On “Jesus Loves Me,” Dionne revisits the first song she sang as a congregation member at the St. Luke A.M.E. Church in Newark, NJ - when she was six years old. With “Rise, Shine And Give God Glory,” she pays tribute to her family's overall gospel heritage - the number was first popularized by the Drinkard Singers, a group that included her mother, aunts and uncles. 

 Highlights also include “I'm Going Up,” featuring gospel star BeBe Winans and the title track, “Why We Sing,” with Dionne's sister, Dee Dee Warrick. Other family joining in for WHY WE SING includes her aunt, gospel/soul great Cissy Houston, who provides the call-and-response choral arrangements for “The Lord Is My Shepherd.” Warwick's son David Elliott duets with her on “Seven,” a song he also wrote and produced, and son Damon (who's written for Destiny's Child, Jessica Simpson, Macy Gray and Pink) produced many other tracks. 

Selection # 346044