Dionne Warwick in Paris - History

History

The album featured a major hit single that almost didn't happen: "Message to Michael". Robin Platts says in his book, Burt Bacharach & Hal David, that Warwick was at the Olympia as co-star of "The Sacha Show" alongside Sacha Distel, a French heartthrob that Florence Greenberg was considering signing to Scepter. Distel wanted to record a version of Bacharach and David's "Message to Martha" and had asked Warwick to record a guide vocal. Warwick re-gendered the piece to suit her, and when executives at Scepter heard the recording, a single was issued. Bacharach and David were convinced that the song was better recorded by a man, but nonetheless agreed that Warwick's version was a stunning one indeed.

"Message to Michael" was arranged and recorded by Jacques Denjean, thus becoming the first real single for Warwick at Scepter to not be produced by Bacharach and David. The single peaked at number six on the Billboard charts. Additionally, according to Platts, the decision to release "Message to Michael" was largely due to the efforts of Scepter promotion executive (and a singer in his own right) Steve Tyrell.

Though the album included French versions of "A House Is Not A Home" and "You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart)", these were essentially phonetically-read versions over the same studio tracks of the original singles, and therefore not included in the actual performance. The album's liner quotes a Variety reviewer as stating that Warwick was "one Yank singer who could put over her wares completely in English and hit big."

Another song of note on the album is Cole Porter's "I Love Paris" which Warwick performed after being introduced on stage by Distel.