Alex Henderson

Dionne Warwick
Finder of Lost Loves [Deluxe Two-CD Edition]

No less than 52 years have passed since Dionne Warwick exploded onto the music scene with her breakthrough single, “Don’t Make Me Over.” Written and produced by the iconic team of Burt Bacharach & Hal David, that 1962 smash established Warwick as a star in both the R&B and pop markets—and in 2014, the New Jersey native (now 73) is still performing. Warwick has attracted a diverse following over the years, often reaching a combination of R&B, Top 40 and adult contemporary audiences. And her crossover appeal is very much in evidence on Finder of Lost Loves, which was recorded in 1984 and originally released by Arista Records in January 1985.

Finder of Lost Loves was not one of Warwick’s huge sellers. In contrast to 1982’s Heartbreaker and 1985’s Friends—both of which sold more than half a million copies in the United States alone—Finder of Lost Loves (which was released as Without Your Love in much of Europe) sold less than 100,000 copies in the U.S., where it stalled at #50 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart and #106 on Billboard’s pop albums chart. Nonetheless, Finder of Lost Loves boasts an impressive list of participants: Stevie Wonder, Barry Manilow and the team of Burt Bacharach & Carole Bayer Sager are among the producers, and Warwick performs four male/female vocal duets on this album—two with Wonder (who joins her on “It’s You” and “Weakness,” both of which he wrote), one with Manilow (who appears on a remake of the Bee Gees’ 1972 hit “Run to Me”), and one with Glenn Jones (who is heard on the title track). An adult contemporary ballad that Bacharach & Sager wrote and produced, the title song was used as the theme for a short-lived, Aaron Spelling-produced television series of the same name.

Written by Manilow and Adrienne Anderson (who co-wrote Warwick’s 1979 hit “Déjà Vu” with Isaac Hayes), “It’s Love” is one of the more energetic selections. But Finder of Lost Loves is, for the most part, an album of laid-back mood music—and Warwick’s passion for romantic ballads and slow jams asserts itself on “You Made Me Want to Love Again,” “Bedroom Eyes,” “Without Your Love” (written by Robert “Mutt” Lange), Steve Goldman’s “Love Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (not to be confused with Rose Royce’s 1978 hit “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”) and the Ken Hirsch/Marti Sharron song “No One in the World” (which later became a major hit for Anita Baker when she performed it on her multi-platinum Rapture album of 1986).

In Arista’s original 1985 incarnation, Finder of Lost Loves was a 10-song LP. But in 2014, FunkytownGrooves expands Finder of Lost Loves to a deluxe two-CD set and adds a wealth of bonus material—which ranges from the previously unreleased “Broken Bottles” (a rarity written by the Bee Gees and produced by Manilow) to previously unreleased alternate versions of “No One in the World” and “Bedroom Eyes” to the Manilow-produced demo “Dangerous.” Also included among the bonus material are the 7” single versions of “Run to Me,” “Without Your Love” and “It’s Love” as well as the Luther Vandross versions of the title song.

Reuniting with Bacharach on this album’s title song was an important event for Warwick, who in 1984, hadn’t worked with the famous songwriter/producer in over a decade. During an interview in late September 2014, guitarist/songwriter Charles Fearing—who played guitar on Finder of Lost Loves and was a member of Ray Parker, Jr.’s band Raydio in the late 1970s and early 1980s—stressed that it would be impossible to overstate how important Bacharach was to Warwick’s career. Indeed, it was Bacharach & David’s “Don’t Make Me Over” that made Warwick a star back in 1962—and they went on to write and produce a long list of other smash hits for her during the 1960s, including “Walk On By,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “You’ll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart), “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Do You Know the Way to San José,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and “Message to Michael.”  

 “If you look at the records that Dionne did with Burt Bacharach & Hal David back in the ‘60s, they aren’t black records or white records—they’re just great records,” Fearing observes. “The songs that Dionne did with Burt Bacharach & Hal David back in the day are songs that millions of people could relate to.”

Fearing adds that one of the things that made Warwick a success for so many years was the fact that she always had an ear for quality songs, whether she was recording for Scepter Records in the 1960s or Arista Records in the 1980s. Fearing emphasizes: “What other singer has the body of work that Dionne has? Gladys Knight has done some great songs. Aretha Franklin has done some great songs. But think about the body of work that Dionne Warwick has had, starting with Burt Bacharach going to ‘Then Came You’ with the Spinners in the ‘70s going to Barry Manilow. When Barry produced the Isaac Hayes song for Dionne, “Déjà Vu,” it was a smash. Dionne has recorded so many songs that people can identify with.”

Fearing has vivid memories of working with Warwick 30 years ago on this album, which he says brought him nothing but good luck. Fearing had an impressive track record long before Finder of Lost Loves: in addition to his work with Raydio, he had played guitar on hit albums such as Tina Turner’s Private Dancer, Deniece Williams’ When Love Comes Calling, DeBarge’s All This Love and Teena Marie’s Robbery. But Finder of Lost Loves was extra special for Fearing because he formed a musical bond with Manilow when the album was being recorded. Subsequently, Fearing ended up writing some songs with Manilow and Adrienne Anderson (including “After the Dance,” which Manilow recorded on his 1985 album Manilow).

“Finder of Lost Loves is part of my legacy, and I’m proud to have been a part of it,” Fearing asserts. “I can’t even begin to tell you what that album did for me.”

Finder of Lost Loves wasn’t the best-selling album of Warwick’s career, but it has a good reputation among her long-time fans—and those fans will be happy to see it reissued in this expanded two-CD form.

—Alex Henderson, October 2014

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Salon.com, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to the popular Allmusic.com website and The All Music Guide’s series of music reference books.