she sang some amazing songs on this show. Her covers always match the original and I believe she is singing live over the backing track too, which was rare in those days and only a few like her and Whitney actaully sang live.
@@jeframp3805 Most of the guest performers and all of the hosts, such as Dionne Warwick here, sang live on "Solid Gold", complete with a live band arranged by the musical director for the show, Michael Miller, and this is his RUclips channel, and were accompanied by a backing track and then fine-tuned in post-production to help make them "Solid Gold" performances.
That was a musical treat from 1986. The song was done in Dionne Warwick style, but followed the Starship version. The song is a rock song, she is not a rock singer, but here she was a rock singer and covered it well. I wonder if any of you recall the localized versions that were done through radio across the country by Starship. I had not, but this was mentioned on radio recently. Anyway, a song covered by a singer not used to the genre, but did it as a natural with a wonderful performance.
@@leafl75 I do not think so. Not that I know of. I personally preferred their hit "Sara" better, however "We Built This City" became the biggest 1980s hit for the band Starship, which had formed from Jefferson Airplane in the 1960s and Jefferson Starship in the 1970s. It was their biggest 1980s hit and my favorite of theirs from that era. Mickey Thomas, in his mid-70s, still tours with the band, but Grace Slick, the other lead in the original video for this song, is 82 and retired. However, maybe Michael Miller could fill us in on if Dionne had covered any more of their songs. I know that the actual band Starship did appear on "Solid Gold" in 1986, which seemed to be a renaissance season, 1985-1986, after the Disco Duck season of 1984-1985, which had featured well-known Los Angeles-based and national radio disc jockey who had a strange appearance with his 1976 hit "Disco Duck"; however, that did seem to not resonate with the show when he had performed it on "Solid Gold" in late 1984. That helped pave the way for the return of Dionne Warwick as host and a large amount of cover songs that were more in quantity than her earlier 1980-1981 hosting period. In 1985-1986, her career had a renaissance and so did "Solid Gold", as evidenced by this performance, and the first season that they had aired in stereo sound, as more televisions began to feature stereo sound instead of monaural, so the programs were begun to be broadcast in stereo sound as long on special MTS stereo sound televisions that became the norm by the mid to late 1980s. Stereo sound was so new for television at that time that network and syndicated programs would use print on the screen, known as chyron, would state "in stereo where available" and "where available" was if you had a TV with a built-in receiver for stereo sound.
@@greggbarnette5316 Yes, they did that, at least for radio airplay. Radio airplay was still the dominant form of song exposure in the 1980s. This song is from 1986. This video from "Solid Gold" was from that same year, so they were right on current.
Seeing this would have luved to see Dionne's producers try more "cutting edge" stuff like this intersection of her inimitable "coolly elegant" orchestral style and electric pop R&R - nothing she can't do! :-) thxs for posting this video!
Since Dionne Warwick has, at long last, set to be awarded the Kennedy Center Honors award, this performance alone should have won her the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction a long time ago, as rock-and-roll is even in the lyrics and it was one of the most popular rock-and-roll songs of 1986, originally performed by the rock group Starship, formerly Jefferson Starship, formerly Jefferson Airplane. Starship went for a more 1986 sound and the public responded as well and so did Dionne Warwick with a bravura performance.
Dionne Warwick had her most versatile time in music in the mid-1980s, helped tremendously by her being host of "Solid Gold" in 1985 and 1986, which were banner times for youth culture-oriented music that which "Solid Gold" tapped into and Dionne Warwick, already a nearly 25 year seasoned veteran of the entertainment industry blended right in. She could have done a rock and roll album of 1980s rock at that time and, for that matter, still could, since she was nominated in 2020 and 2021 for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but has not won, yet. But, her recent collaborator, Dolly Parton, just got inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and is to release a rock and roll album later this year. So, maybe if Dionne Warwick gets nominated again and gets inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, maybe a Dionne Warwick rock and roll album, with maybe a duet with Dolly Parton could not be far-fetched. Dolly and Dionne just released a gospel duet called "Peace Like A River", and it is said by Dionne to be included on her upcoming gospel album. Versatility has no limits with Dionne Warwick, musically, and "We Built This City" is a prime example from 1986, 37 years ago but better than a lot of the contemporary songs of the current era.
Well, to follow up on a previous comment that I had made about this rendition of "We Built This City" by Dionne Warwick as being a qualifier for her entry into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, according to reports on the 2024 class of inductees, Dionne Warwick has indeed made induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame!!! The official ceremony is scheduled for October. She had been eligible as far back as the late 1980s, but it has taken until 2024 for her to receive that prestigious award. That and the Kennedy Center Honors Award this past December. As the saying goes, appropriate in this case, good things do come to people who wait. Congratulations to Dionne Warwick for her long, illustrious music career and her having been a part of the "Solid Gold" phenomenon and having selected you to be the Musical Director for the series and for giving approval for your theme to be the "Solid Gold" theme song. Each of you and the entire "Solid Gold" crew were a team effort and that helped make "Solid Gold" what it is, past, present, and future as well.
Thank you, kind sir! Who knew that a song that took 30 minutes for me and Dean to create 4 decades ago would be written about in such a complimentary manner by you!
@@bigeyezzzzzzz Thank you so very much! I do not know how both you and Dean wrote that song in just 30 minutes. It takes special innate gifts of talent in order to make such a wonderful piece of music with that kind of alacrity. A song that resonates deep into the individual listener is a song that is bound to have staying power and that describes your popular "Solid Gold" theme song. I cannot think of a television theme song which has had so many different singers perform it for the series, whether it be as a solo or as a duet in format and it sounding fresh as a daisy each time while being instantly recognizable as being the same song, different singer(s). The versatile nature of your theme song and that of Dean Pitchford is bound to be appreciated through the eons of time to come.
Thank you! The creation of the Solid Gold theme song was a wonderful 30-minute whirlwind! First I composed the music, then Dean wrote the words on the spot, we then went to Dionne’s house, sat at her piano and played it for her, she picked up her phone, called the producer of Solid Gold (Brad Lachman) and said to him, “We have our theme song.” 🎶🤩🎶
That is what helped make "Solid Gold" so special, in which the hosts would go outside the music box that they were used to and take on other musical genres and match the originals. I had missed this when it had aired, so RUclips brought it as it had been new to me. There is a lot of debate about the merits of the song and its place in music history, the original, that is, but I always found it a good representation of the mid-1980s pop music sounds that were so prevalent.
She once had some of these same musicians on her self titled show "Dionne and Friends." Likely story, Mike Baird and John Goux had to head back to work with Mike Post some time later to lay down tracks for Hunter and The A-Team.
Thank you for that information. "Dionne and Friends" was syndicated nationally by Tribune Television and in the Los Angeles region, aired at 12:00 midnight Sunday nights/early Monday mornings and it was a 30 minute show. The show opened with Dionne walking to the dressing room doors of the guests on set and knocking on them and the guests opening them and the kind of obscure Dionne Warwick song,"We Can Be Together", playing in the background. That was just before her 1990 Cole Porter album release. There are some clips of that show of hers on RUclips. I am not certain what album her opening theme song originated.
@@bigeyezzzzzzz @bigeyezzzzzzz Thank you Mr. Miller for noting that! She's the first solo black female popstar. She is often overlooked but actually she had actually done most of the "firsts" in the music industry! Even a young man like me from this generation knew that.
@@bigeyezzzzzzz she was not a pop star primarly , lmao. She was a jazz signer and still is, a very good one. Heartbreaker is a pop song and in the 80s she did solid gold, she was briefly a mainstream pop singer. In the 60s walk on by was nearly a pop song and that made her famous too. She has had many hit songs though, she doesn't seem to want to do heartbreaker nowdays and when she does its sung in a different way to how it was when it was first done does jazz festivals and hasn's sung this sort of thing in years to my knowledge. Her voice since the 90s is more suited to jazz now too.
@@jeframp3805 I think you should take a deeper look into Dionne‘s entire career and discography. I was the musical director of Solid Gold and have known Dionne for decades and, without a doubt, if one looks at her entire career, she was - and is - an incredible pop singer (and she also is a brilliant jazz singer). In fact, she has one of the finest voices that ever graced this planet, and she can sing any style of music. But again, if you look into her history and discography, you will see that 98% of her records were pop songs that have endured the test of time and will undoubtedly continue to do so.
Not a hater but more a realist. This song is not in her wheelhouse nonetheless it's still Dionne. Listen to All is fair in love and you understand why I say that this is marginally successful .
@@jasonburger3533 and sang it live. I doubt the original artists would have sang live on a show like this (or even got permision to ) back in the 80s . That deserves more credit that anyone who could mime it.
Queen of being able to sing any genre
Dionne Warwick singing “we built this city” is pure gold! ❤️
she sang some amazing songs on this show. Her covers always match the original and I believe she is singing live over the backing track too, which was rare in those days and only a few like her and Whitney actaully sang live.
@@jeframp3805 As far as I am aware, all the hosts and co-hosts of "Solid Gold" sang live with a live band, as shown here in this performance.
@@jeframp3805 Most of the guest performers and all of the hosts, such as Dionne Warwick here, sang live on "Solid Gold", complete with a live band arranged by the musical director for the show, Michael Miller, and this is his RUclips channel, and were accompanied by a backing track and then fine-tuned in post-production to help make them "Solid Gold" performances.
At least she’s singing live without any autotune…I don’t think her voice is suited to this song but she can sing.
Dionne Warwick singing WE BUILT THIS CITY is both surreal and awesome! It's not Dionne's "style"....so I say CONGRATS!
No, it is not her style, but you would not know that by this superb performance.
that powerful rich voice makes everything sound so god damn good!
she makes every song sound better...i woulnt have let her sing my song on this show for fear of looking daft!
That was a musical treat from 1986. The song was done in Dionne Warwick style, but followed the Starship version. The song is a rock song, she is not a rock singer, but here she was a rock singer and covered it well. I wonder if any of you recall the localized versions that were done through radio across the country by Starship. I had not, but this was mentioned on radio recently. Anyway, a song covered by a singer not used to the genre, but did it as a natural with a wonderful performance.
@@jasonburger3533 I agree this is a great cover and I like it a lot. I also wonder if she covered the Starship hit "Nothing's gonna stop us now ".
localized ? you mean where they had an opening chorus mention the specific city which the song was being played ?
@@leafl75 I do not think so. Not that I know of. I personally preferred their hit "Sara" better, however "We Built This City" became the biggest 1980s hit for the band Starship, which had formed from Jefferson Airplane in the 1960s and Jefferson Starship in the 1970s. It was their biggest 1980s hit and my favorite of theirs from that era. Mickey Thomas, in his mid-70s, still tours with the band, but Grace Slick, the other lead in the original video for this song, is 82 and retired. However, maybe Michael Miller could fill us in on if Dionne had covered any more of their songs. I know that the actual band Starship did appear on "Solid Gold" in 1986, which seemed to be a renaissance season, 1985-1986, after the Disco Duck season of 1984-1985, which had featured well-known Los Angeles-based and national radio disc jockey who had a strange appearance with his 1976 hit "Disco Duck"; however, that did seem to not resonate with the show when he had performed it on "Solid Gold" in late 1984. That helped pave the way for the return of Dionne Warwick as host and a large amount of cover songs that were more in quantity than her earlier 1980-1981 hosting period. In 1985-1986, her career had a renaissance and so did "Solid Gold", as evidenced by this performance, and the first season that they had aired in stereo sound, as more televisions began to feature stereo sound instead of monaural, so the programs were begun to be broadcast in stereo sound as long on special MTS stereo sound televisions that became the norm by the mid to late 1980s.
Stereo sound was so new for television at that time that network and syndicated programs would use print on the screen, known as chyron, would state "in stereo where available" and "where available" was if you had a TV with a built-in receiver for stereo sound.
@@jasonburger3533 Thank you very much !
@@greggbarnette5316 Yes, they did that, at least for radio airplay. Radio airplay was still the dominant form of song exposure in the 1980s. This song is from 1986. This video from "Solid Gold" was from that same year, so they were right on current.
Seeing this would have luved to see Dionne's producers try more "cutting edge" stuff like this intersection of her inimitable "coolly elegant" orchestral style and electric pop R&R - nothing she can't do! :-) thxs for posting this video!
Since Dionne Warwick has, at long last, set to be awarded the Kennedy Center Honors award, this performance alone should have won her the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction a long time ago, as rock-and-roll is even in the lyrics and it was one of the most popular rock-and-roll songs of 1986, originally performed by the rock group Starship, formerly Jefferson Starship, formerly Jefferson Airplane. Starship went for a more 1986 sound and the public responded as well and so did Dionne Warwick with a bravura performance.
Dionne Warwick had her most versatile time in music in the mid-1980s, helped tremendously by her being host of "Solid Gold" in 1985 and 1986, which were banner times for youth culture-oriented music that which "Solid Gold" tapped into and Dionne Warwick, already a nearly 25 year seasoned veteran of the entertainment industry blended right in. She could have done a rock and roll album of 1980s rock at that time and, for that matter, still could, since she was nominated in 2020 and 2021 for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but has not won, yet. But, her recent collaborator, Dolly Parton, just got inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and is to release a rock and roll album later this year.
So, maybe if Dionne Warwick gets nominated again and gets inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, maybe a Dionne Warwick rock and roll album, with maybe a duet with Dolly Parton could not be far-fetched. Dolly and Dionne just released a gospel duet called "Peace Like A River", and it is said by Dionne to be included on her upcoming gospel album.
Versatility has no limits with Dionne Warwick, musically, and "We Built This City" is a prime example from 1986, 37 years ago but better than a lot of the contemporary songs of the current era.
Back in the day she could sing almost anything.
she really could despite her chain smoking she was deeper and huskier than the 60s but just as powerful
WHAT A QUEEN!!!
The rhythm of the music is like the pace of the runner through the clearing to the car.
Well, to follow up on a previous comment that I had made about this rendition of "We Built This City" by Dionne Warwick as being a qualifier for her entry into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, according to reports on the 2024 class of inductees, Dionne Warwick has indeed made induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame!!! The official ceremony is scheduled for October. She had been eligible as far back as the late 1980s, but it has taken until 2024 for her to receive that prestigious award. That and the Kennedy Center Honors Award this past December. As the saying goes, appropriate in this case, good things do come to people who wait. Congratulations to Dionne Warwick for her long, illustrious music career and her having been a part of the "Solid Gold" phenomenon and having selected you to be the Musical Director for the series and for giving approval for your theme to be the "Solid Gold" theme song. Each of you and the entire "Solid Gold" crew were a team effort and that helped make "Solid Gold" what it is, past, present, and future as well.
Thank you, kind sir! Who knew that a song that took 30 minutes for me and Dean to create 4 decades ago would be written about in such a complimentary manner by you!
@@bigeyezzzzzzz Thank you so very much! I do not know how both you and Dean wrote that song in just 30 minutes. It takes special innate gifts of talent in order to make such a wonderful piece of music with that kind of alacrity. A song that resonates deep into the individual listener is a song that is bound to have staying power and that describes your popular "Solid Gold" theme song. I cannot think of a television theme song which has had so many different singers perform it for the series, whether it be as a solo or as a duet in format and it sounding fresh as a daisy each time while being instantly recognizable as being the same song, different singer(s). The versatile nature of your theme song and that of Dean Pitchford is bound to be appreciated through the eons of time to come.
Thank you! The creation of the Solid Gold theme song was a wonderful 30-minute whirlwind! First I composed the music, then Dean wrote the words on the spot, we then went to Dionne’s house, sat at her piano and played it for her, she picked up her phone, called the producer of Solid Gold (Brad Lachman) and said to him, “We have our theme song.” 🎶🤩🎶
She did an awesome job on it/
Definitely not Dionne's personal style, but she is really an incredible artist and she covered it super well.
That is what helped make "Solid Gold" so special, in which the hosts would go outside the music box that they were used to and take on other musical genres and match the originals. I had missed this when it had aired, so RUclips brought it as it had been new to me. There is a lot of debate about the merits of the song and its place in music history, the original, that is, but I always found it a good representation of the mid-1980s pop music sounds that were so prevalent.
She once had some of these same musicians on her self titled show "Dionne and Friends."
Likely story, Mike Baird and John Goux had to head back to work with Mike Post some time later to lay down tracks for Hunter and The A-Team.
Thank you for that information. "Dionne and Friends" was syndicated nationally by Tribune Television and in the Los Angeles region, aired at 12:00 midnight Sunday nights/early Monday mornings and it was a 30 minute show. The show opened with Dionne walking to the dressing room doors of the guests on set and knocking on them and the guests opening them and the kind of obscure Dionne Warwick song,"We Can Be Together", playing in the background. That was just before her 1990 Cole Porter album release.
There are some clips of that show of hers on RUclips.
I am not certain what album her opening theme song originated.
She totally could’ve been a mainstream pop star too. She pulls this off well!
Dionne was a mainstream popstar for 4 decades! And, because of that she is, and will always be, a one-of-a-kind iconic legend!
@@bigeyezzzzzzz @bigeyezzzzzzz Thank you Mr. Miller for noting that! She's the first solo black female popstar. She is often overlooked but actually she had actually done most of the "firsts" in the music industry! Even a young man like me from this generation knew that.
@@oldsoul_anth243 Perfectly stated, fine sir!
🎶🎤🎶🎤🎶🎤🎶
@@bigeyezzzzzzz she was not a pop star primarly , lmao. She was a jazz signer and still is, a very good one. Heartbreaker is a pop song and in the 80s she did solid gold, she was briefly a mainstream pop singer. In the 60s walk on by was nearly a pop song and that made her famous too. She has had many hit songs though, she doesn't seem to want to do heartbreaker nowdays and when she does its sung in a different way to how it was when it was first done does jazz festivals and hasn's sung this sort of thing in years to my knowledge. Her voice since the 90s is more suited to jazz now too.
@@jeframp3805 I think you should take a deeper look into Dionne‘s entire career and discography. I was the musical director of Solid Gold and have known Dionne for decades and, without a doubt, if one looks at her entire career, she was - and is - an incredible pop singer (and she also is a brilliant jazz singer). In fact, she has one of the finest voices that ever graced this planet, and she can sing any style of music. But again, if you look into her history and discography, you will see that 98% of her records were pop songs that have endured the test of time and will undoubtedly continue to do so.
Ever since the Celebrity Apprentice I cannot stand her. You know she walked off the stage and was like... "Damn. I sang that better than Grace Slick."
Wdym
I mean, she kind of did, though.
@@vinnym5607 nah, Grace did better especially in the low notes, Mickey Thomas too
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! This IS AWFUL!!! This song is so NOT HER!!!!
Hater
Not a hater but more a realist. This song is not in her wheelhouse nonetheless it's still Dionne. Listen to All is fair in love and you understand why I say that this is marginally successful .
She sung it her way.
She made this song her own.
@@jasonburger3533 and sang it live. I doubt the original artists would have sang live on a show like this (or even got permision to ) back in the 80s . That deserves more credit that anyone who could mime it.