Saturday Night Live did a skit this past show featuring one of the up-and-coming new players Ego Nwodim doing an awesome impression of the legendary Miss Dionne Warwick. It poked gentle fun at the now octogenarian singer positing her as the host of her own talk show, struggling with her boomer luddite tendencies, yet yearning to embrace the Z-Generation and newfangled technoscape of the social media world we find ourselves smothered enfolded in.
Take away Number 1: Um, she's still alive?! Who's to blame me? I mean, so far just this past year, my pop culture heroes of my youth have been droppin' like flies.
Take away Number 2: I thought she'd had her own talk show back in the day. Turns out I'm recalling her near decade-long stint in the 90s as the host of the Psychic Friends Network. Back then, only really nerdy dudes were buying expensive computer equipment to access the fledgling internet. Other folks cured their late night boredom with wee-hours infomercials and pay-by-the-minute 900 numbers.
Take away Number 3: Ego as Dionne belted out a few of her most notable ditties during her rare five minutes of aired sketch time and it got me remembering...Miss Dionne could sing!
Oh yes, honey. She was already uber-famous by the eighties when I caught wind to her stylings and I listened to her non-stop in that halcyon decade. But, like all good music, the songs eventually no longer got time on the pop or R&B stations, and since I rarely bought music, my listenership faded as well. The 90s music scene had a whole new vibe and though I loved it early on, it eventually morphed, slowly yet surely into the crap we still have today.
But, again to get back to the classics that Miss Dionne blessed with her gentle lilting yet highly emotive voice...I mean, c'mon! I first was hooked by her AIDS fundraiser colab "That's What Friends Are For" of course, but then, think of all the other fabulous songs: "Walk On By" "I Say A Little Prayer" "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" "Then Came You" "Love Power" the list goes on and on.
Yet what song above all is needed most, right now? The date on this video appears to be from a year or so ago, but boy, you'd have thought she made this specifically for 2020. I mean, well, really!