Diana Ross - "How About You"

[PeaceNHarmony]

The penultimate cut from Diana's second solo lp, written and produced by Deke Richards with co-writing credits by Sandra Sanders and David Van De Pitte [[who also did the arrangement). Deke had previously produced the song for Chris Clark. A nice, uptempo song with a breezy vocal by our girl!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A25k5EaiYg

[sophisticated_soul]

"How About You" is a great example of how Ross can take love lost [[or in this case maybe questioning is the better word) lyrics and keep the emotion but soften the sadness to give a more breezy interpretation, that makes repeated listening a pleasure. Ross is a master of such subtleties.

Always love the lines:

"Hey! baby, what's wrong? You look so surprised,
I can tell by the look in your eyes that you need me
And I need you too".

Raw need, sugar coated.

[lucky2012]

"How About You" is a great example of how Ross can take love lost [[or in this case maybe questioning is the better word) lyrics and keep the emotion but soften the sadness to give a more breezy interpretation, that makes repeated listening a pleasure. Ross is a master of such subtleties.

Always love the lines:

"Hey! baby, what's wrong? You look so surprised,
I can tell by the look in your eyes that you need me
And I need you too".

Raw need, sugar coated.

Agree, especially about the lines. I always thought this what a Diana Ross/Bacharach collaboration might sound like.

[sophisticated_soul]

Agree, especially about the lines. I always thought this what a Diana Ross/Bacharach collaboration might sound like.

Yes I think a Ross/Bacharach collaboration would have been a great combination. I would love to see Ross work with David Foster. My dream duet partner for Ross would be Johnny Mathis. Foster would be, IMO, the perfect producer for such a project.

[lakedistrictlad1]

Gorgeous song. Definitely a highlight of the album. Diana is quoted as saying she only liked a few of the tracks on EIE. I'll bet this is one of them. Classic Diana.

[daviddh]

Always thought a Burt Bacharach project would be great.
This song always had that feel to me.

[TomatoTom123]

This one's completely passed me by, what a wonderful track!!!

[TomatoTom123]

The trumpet solo is very Bacharach to me!!!

[mysterysinger]

Up there with her best work for me. Regular for listening and Chris's version is great too. Wonderful song. Agree with the Bacharach feel but also has a likeness to "Call Me" written by Tony Hatch.

[lucky2012]

Up there with her best work for me. Regular for listening and Chris's version is great too. Wonderful song. Agree with the Bacharach feel but also has a likeness to "Call Me" written by Tony Hatch.
Yes, it does recall the Tony Hatch song [[not Aretha's)!

[sup_fan]

i like the idea of a Bacharach combination but i have to say that i don't know if it would have "done anything new" for Diana. at least in the 70s. Dionne sort of had that market cornered and i don't know that it would have really done much with her image or development of sound. the A&S stuff was SO unique and defining. But then so were the soap-opera ballads from Masser.

now later in her career, i think a Bacharach songbook would have been lovely

[Boogiedown]

This is nice, Diana is/was quite versatile and most willing to explore beyond her expected norms.

Noticeable edits at 1:15 and 1:50.

A male 'Supreme' heard herein ? , like the "yes I do" sung at 1:49 ??


Am I way off to say this reminds me a bit of :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1uEy-n4IsU

[RanRan79]

"How About You" is a great example of how Ross can take love lost [[or in this case maybe questioning is the better word) lyrics and keep the emotion but soften the sadness to give a more breezy interpretation, that makes repeated listening a pleasure. Ross is a master of such subtleties.

Always love the lines:

"Hey! baby, what's wrong? You look so surprised,
I can tell by the look in your eyes that you need me
And I need you too".

Raw need, sugar coated.

Absolutely agree. And with the arrangement, I think her interpretation choice was the right move.

[RanRan79]

Yes I think a Ross/Bacharach collaboration would have been a great combination. I would love to see Ross work with David Foster. My dream duet partner for Ross would be Johnny Mathis. Foster would be, IMO, the perfect producer for such a project.

I love the idea of Diana covering Bacharach [[fingers still crossed that the vocal to "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" turn up), but not so much on them actually working together. While I find a few of Dionne's songs from her Bacharach period appealing, mostly for the sheer beauty of her voice at that time coupled with the sweet arrangements, I find much of it pretty boring. My love of Dionne doesn't start to kick up until the mid 70s, and even then it's a passing interest, whereas I'm a big fan once she gets to Arista.

But Diana and Johnny? Aww man, how I would have loved that! Deniece Williams is one of my absolute favorite artists of all time and so pairing her with Johnny is great for a fan like myself. I'd be over the moon if Diana had also had an album with him. Not exactly sure when that type of album works best in her catalog. Perhaps in the 90s, a time that I feel Diana may have had more success going the Natalie Cole route.

[RanRan79]

Up there with her best work for me. Regular for listening and Chris's version is great too. Wonderful song. Agree with the Bacharach feel but also has a likeness to "Call Me" written by Tony Hatch.

Until now I don't think I knew Chris Clark had a version. Just listened to it and it's cool. I love the track. [[Not a fan of Chris vocally.) I always thought that the lines in Diana's version "...call me...hurry...come see me..." were written specifically for her. I thought "call me" was a reference to the song directly preceding "How About You", "hurry" referencing "You Can't Hurry Love", and "come see me" referencing "Come See About Me". Listening to Chris' version, unless I missed something, I don't hear those references in her version, so I guess I was right.