I Say A Little Prayer - Other Recordings

Other Recordings

• Warwick's "I Say a Little Prayer" did not appear on the Billboard Easy Listening chart although two instrumental versions of the song were Easy Listening chart items in 1968: the first by Sérgio Mendes at #21 in the spring of 1968 while that fall Julius Wechter and the Baja Marimba Band took "I Say a Little Prayer" to #10 Easy Listening.
• "I Say a Little Prayer" also returned to the Pop & R&B Top Ten in the fall of 1968 via a recording by Aretha Franklin taken from her 1968 Aretha Now album: Franklin and background vocalists the Sweet Inspirations were singing the song for fun while rehearsing the songs intended for the album and the viability of Franklin actually recording "I Say a Little Prayer" became apparent. Significantly re-invented the from the format of the Dionne Warwick original via the prominence of Clayton Ivey's piano work and the choral vocals of the Sweet Inspirations, the Aretha Franklin version was intended as the B-side of the July 1968 single release "The House that Jack Built" but began to accrue its own airplay that August. Even with "The House That Jack Built" ranking as high as #6 (#2 R&B) in September 1968, "I Say a Little Prayer" reached #10 (#3 R&B) that October, the same month the single was certified Gold by the RIAA. Franklin's version of "I Say a Little Prayer" has a special significance in her UK career, as with its September 1968 #4 peak it became Franklin's biggest UK hit; subsequently Franklin has surpassed that track's UK peak only with her #1 collaboration with George Michael: "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)". In February 1987 UK music weekly New Musical Express published its critics' top 150 singles of all time, with Franklin's "I Say a Little Prayer" ranked at #1, followed by Al Green's "Tired of Being Alone" and Warwick's "Walk On By". (Franklin's "I Say a Little Prayer" did not appear in the magazine's in-house critics' top 100 singles poll conducted in November 2002.)
• In Australia, "I Say a Little Prayer" and "The House That Jack Built" were assigned a joint chart ranking which saw the double-A-side hit reach #10 in November 1968. "I Say a Little Prayer" also gave Franklin a European hit with chartings in France (#12), Germany (#29) and the Netherlands (#4).
• The 1971 album Anne Murray / Glen Campbell features a medley of "I Say a Little Prayer" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"; the songs are sung in counterpoint to each other, with Murray vocalizing on "I Say a Little Prayer" while Campbell reprises his "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" hit. The track was a minor C&W hit at #40 and reached #81 on the Billboard Hot 100. The concept had previously been used on a 1968 single release by Big Dee Irwin and Mamie Galore and was subsequently reworked when Dionne Warwick herself sang "I Say a Little Prayer" while Isaac Hayes sang "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" on their joint live album A Man and a Woman (1977).
• The song is also a popular soundtrack item: in the 1969 comedy The April Fools, for which Warwick sang the title song,"I Say a Little Prayer" is performed at a swanky house party in a live performance by singer Susan Barrett. "I Say a Little Prayer" is one of several Bacharach/David songs featured prominently in the comedy My Best Friend's Wedding in 1997, which featured both a reggae-style cover by Diana King and a version sung by the film's cast. King's version was released as a single and brought the song back to the Top 40 almost thirty years after Dionne Warwick's original, albeit with a #38 peak; King's single also reached #38 in France.