Legendary singer Dionne Warwick will perform at Spotlight 29 Casino’s Showcase Showroom Friday evening.
The six-time Grammy-winning artist has been performing for more than six decades, having earned inductions into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Warwick’s versatile contralto is most familiar on songs such as “Walk on By,” “I’ll Never Love This Way Again,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and “That’s What Friends Are For.” Her 69 songs on the Billboard Top 100 is second only to Aretha Franklin among women in the rock era.
Originally from New Jersey, Warwick got her start with a few gospel groups before being noticed by Burt Bacharach as she was singing background vocals for a song he composed. After Bacharach signed her to Scepter Records, she rose to prominence in the 1960s, becoming increasingly in the public eye by performing variety shows and recording a song for a James Bond film’s soundtrack.
After a label switch, she found more success toward the end of the 70s with her first RIAA Platinum-certified album, “Dionne,” and a TV special, “Solid Gold ’79,” which she hosted as a weekly on-air program in 1980-81 and 1985-86.
“That’s What Friends Are For,” a benefit single co-recorded with Gladys Knight, Elton John and Stevie Wonder (officially credited to “Dionne and Friends”), raised over $3 million for AIDS research and topped the charts for four weeks in 1982. She continued releasing music into the 1990s and 2000s, including the 1993 LP “Friends Can Be Lovers,” featuring a first-ever collaboration with Whitney Houston, her cousin.
Warwick received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 and launched the long-running “She’s Back: One Last Time” tour in 2022. Following Friday’s 8 p.m. stop in the Coachella Valley, she is set to take the stage in Jamaica, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands over the next month.