Dionne Warwick's huge worldwide hit Walk On By was rush released in May 1964 in both the USA and UK concurrently to prevent British artists from "stealing" Warwick's original version, as happened with "Anyone Who Had A Heart." "Walk On By" according to critics, is perhaps one of the best singles of the rock era and of the 20th century. On dual grand pianos in the studio were Artie Butler and the late great Paul Griffin. "Anyone Who Had A Heart" was released in December 1963 in the USA and became Warwick's first US top ten smash in January 1964. Dionne's single was not released in the UK until January 1964, and by that time, Sir George Martin took Cilla Black and Dionne's single into the studio and cut the tune with Cilla. Cilla's cover of "Anyone." beat Dionne's in release in the UK and became Cilla's first number one hit in the UK. Dionne's version stalled at UK 42. But, Scepter Records owner Florence Greenberg's strategy to release "Walk On By" concurrently paid off and became Warwick's first UK top ten smash and her second worldwide million seller. Dionne has joked that if she had coughed in the middle of "Anyone" Cilla would have followed suit. Walk On By hit #1 on the Billboard AC Chart and #6 on both the Top 100 and R&B charts in June 1964. A note of trivia: Walk On By was originally slated to be the "B" side of "Any Old Time of Day" but Murray the K, the famed New York DJ asked listeners of WINS-NYC to pick which side of the recording to promote and listeners chose "Walk On By" by a large margin and the tune was switched to the "A" side. Recorded in the same November 1963 session with Walk On By was Anyone Who Had A Heart. Walk On By has been hailed by music critics as one of the top 100 recordings of the twentieth century. Dionne Warwick's recording of Walk On By was inducted into the NARAS Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and was named one of the RIAA's 100 Songs of the Century.

Writes Nick Tosches, the renowned writer, music journalist, novelist, biographer and poet in the January 7, 1972 issue of the rock magazine FUSION; ".getting into Dionne Warwick is like finding buried treasure. The Bacharach/David repertoire which milady chooses to sing is so fascinatingly cynical / fatalistic / stoical / emotional / happy, simultaneously! It's pure emotion. There is a whole lot more to emotion than some rock punk bursting his dexedrine-staved blood vessels by screaming "Baby I need you baby" into a microphone. Dionne Warwick is not a rock and roll singer. She's not a jazz singer either. Rhythm and blues? Nope. A pop singer? No way. Did you ever tongue-kiss with someone who barfed a Singapore Sling bolus into your mouth, and then four years later you're with someone else and you feel good and you realize how beautiful it all was and then it's all melancholy/happiness, sort of? That's the kind of singer Dionne Warwick is. She's beautiful. Dionne, paired with Bacharach's string/horn/reed arrangements, comes up as a lyric mezzo-sopranoid par-excellence, melodious/expressiveness-wise. If you've never gotten into her, you ought to. Get hep to Dionne Warwick. For your own sake."

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