Despite a legendary career spanning six-plus decades, O.G. diva Dionne Warwick insists that she never said a little prayer to get into the Rock & Roll of Fame.
“I never thought about getting inducted into the Rock & Roll of Fame,” Warwick, 83, told The Post. “I don’t consider myself rock ’n’ roll. I never thought of myself as a rock ’n’ roller.”
But, having first become famous as a supreme soul-pop songbird with ’60s classics such as “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Alfie” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” Warwick will be enshrined into the rock hall on Saturday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.
The five-time Grammy winner, who was nominated twice before in the rock hall’s Performer category, will receive the Musical Excellence Award. And even if she doesn’t consider herself “rock ’n’ roll,” she’ll take it.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “You know, the music I sing I feel deserves to be looked at as music of excellence.”
Warwick joins a 2024 class of inductees that crosses genres and generations, including Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest.
But when it comes to her own induction performance, Warwick isn’t giving away any songs or surprise guests. “I can’t tell you that,” she teased. “Everybody’s gonna have to wait and see.”
However, it has been revealed that she will be inducted by Teyana Taylor, who will play Warwick in an upcoming biopic.
“I’ll be very happy to see her say some nice things about me,” she said with a laugh. “We’ve had many, many conversations, of course.”
In addition to the physical resemblance, Warwick said, “She’s done some expert homework on me. She knows more about me than I know about myself.”
Since becoming the Queen of Twitter — now X — in 2020, Warwick has been discovered and embraced by a younger generation of artists she calls “my babies.” After her viral Twitterverse exchange with Chance the Rapper, she teamed up with the hip-hop star — 52 years her junior — on “Nothing’s Impossible” in 2021.
And then her 1964 hit “Walk on By” was sampled by Doja Cat on the No. 1 single “Paint the Town Red” last year. Warwick admits that she wasn’t exactly familiar with the 28-year singer-rapper before that.
“My niece told me about the song, and I said, ‘Who is Doja Cat? What is that?’ ” she said. “I reached out to say thank you, and she in turn did the same thing.”
Reflecting on the 60th anniversary of “Walk on By” this year, Warwick said, “For me to say, ‘Oh, I knew it was gonna be a hit,’ that would be an absolute lie. Nobody knew. We knew we made a very good record, that’s for sure.”
The “we” that Warwick is referring to includes the composer/lyricist team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, with whom the singer collaborated on her string of ’60s gems.
“It was magic,” she said. “We were known in the industry as a triangle marriage. We were friends. We cared about each other. We knew what we each had to bring to the table and depended upon that to happen.”
But their collaboration didn’t get off to the smoothest of starts.
“I was promised that ‘Make It Easy on Yourself’ would be my first recording, and I found out that they’d given my song to Jerry Butler,” Warwick recalled. “I was not very happy about that, and I let them know that they could never … try to make me over. And Hal David came up with ‘Don’t Make Me Over’ — and here we are.”
In 1962, “Don’t Make Me Over” was released as her debut single, and her first album, “Presenting Dionne Warwick,” followed in 1963.
After working with everyone from the Spinners (“Then Came You”) and Barry Manilow (“I’ll Never Love This Way Again”) to the Bee Gees (“Heartbreaker”) and Luther Vandross (“How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye”), Warwick reunited with Bacharach — this time with Carole Bayer Sager as his songwriting/production partner — for “That’s What Friends Are For” in 1985. The chart-topping AIDS charity single also featured Gladys Knight, Elton John and Stevie Wonder.
“I was very, very fortunate that I had three friends who were in town and available to be a part of that recording with me,” she said.
Warwick has had not only famous friends, but family. Singing was in their blood, whether it was her sister, Dee Dee Warwick, or cousins Whitney Houston and opera great Leontyne Price. Her aunt Cissy Houston — Whitney’s mother — was laid to rest on Thursday after the renowned vocalist’s October 7 death.
“Cissy was the ultimate gospel singer — and she practiced what she preached,” she said. “She’s going to be missed throughout the entire industry, and of course I’m gonna miss her as my aunt. She meant an awful lot to a lot of people.”
Warwick is thankful that Houston, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, passed away peacefully. “God was merciful by allowing her to go in her sleep,” she said. “And so she’s better off right now. She had 91 glorious years.”
But Warwick is not done building on her own legacy. In fact, she just had a street renamed after her in her hometown of East Orange, New Jersey, last week. “I’m still floating around about that,” she said.
And she’s still performing — 62 years after her Rock & Roll Hall of Fame career began.
“I love what I do, and I think that comes through when I perform,” said Warwick. “They’re still sitting in the seats.”
