Dionne Warwick "The Complete Scepter Singles 1962-1973" 3CD set [4/7/2023-Real Gone]

Description
Very, very few artists have reached the heights attained by Dionne Warwick and the songwriting/production team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David on their historic string of hit singles for the Scepter label. Over the course of a little over ten years, Dionne scored no less than 40 charting Pop hits and 29 charting R&B hits for Scepter, propelling Dionne to a ranking second only to Aretha Franklin among female singers with the most chart hits in the rock era, not to mention five Grammy nods. More importantly, Warwick, Bacharach, and David brought a new level of sophistication to popular music…and by doing so, created some of the most indelible recordings of all time. However, despite its brilliance and lasting influence, there has never been a collection at music retail that truly captured this incredible body of work…until now. The Complete Scepter Singles 1962-1973 offers the A and B-side of every single Dionne cut for the Scepter label [with the bonus inclusion of her single for Musicor featuring the hit “Only Love Can Break a Heart”], all original, [mostly] mono single versions remastered by Mike Milchner of Sonic Vision from original tape sources and annotated by veteran music journalist and Billboard contributor Paul Grein. Among the 74 [!] tracks on this 3-CD set are some of the most hallowed sides in ‘60s pop, including “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Walk On By,” “Message to Michael,” “[Theme from] Valley of the Dolls,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Alfie,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “Trains and Boats and Planes,” “This Girl’s in Love with You,” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” But really, pretty much every track in this collection is a masterpiece…and remember, the single mixes you’re hearing on this collection is exactly what folks thrilled to when they turned on their radio back in the day. A cornerstone of any pop music collection…and a timely tribute coinciding with the release of the new Dionne documentary Don’t Make Me Over. We are limiting this release to 2000 copies…don’t “Walk On By!”

Tracklist
[CD1]
1. Don’t Make Me Ever
2. I Smiled Yesterday
3. This Empty Place
4. Wishin’ And Hopin’
5. Make The Music Play
6. Please Make Him Love Me
7. Anyone Who Had A Heart
8. The Love Of A Boy
9. Walk On By
10. Any Old Time Of Day
11. You’ll Never Get To Heaven [If You Break My Heart]
12. A House Is Not A Home
13. Reach Out For Me
14. How Many Days Of Sadness
15. You Can Have Him
16. Is There Another Way To Love You
17. Who Can I Turn To
18. Don’t Say I Didn’t Tell You So
19. Here I Am
20. They Long To Be Close To You
21. Looking With My Eyes
22. Only The Strong, Only The Brave
23. Are You There [With Another Girl]
24. If I Ever Make You Cry
25. Message To Michael
26. Here Where There Is Love

[CD2]
1. Trains And Boats And Planes
2. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
3. I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself
4. In Between The Heartaches
5. Another Night
6. Go With Love
7. Alfie
8. The Beginning Of Loneliness
9. The Windows Of The World
10. Walk Little Dolly
11. I Say A Little Prayer
12. [Theme From] Valley Of The Dolls
13. Do You Know The Way To San Jose
14. Let Me Be Lonely
15. Who Is Gonna Love Me?
16. [There’s] Always Something There To Remind Me
17. Promises, Promises
18. Whoever You Are, I Love You
19. This Girl’s In Love With You
20. Dream Sweet Dreamer
21. The April Fools
22. Slaves
23. Odds And Ends
24. As Long As There’s An Apple Tree
25. You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling
26. Window Wishing

[CD3]
1. I’ll Never Fall In Love Again
2. What The World Needs Now Is Love
3. Let Me Go To Him
4. Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets
5. Paper Mache
6. The Wine Is Young
7. Make It Easy On Yourself
8. Knowing When To Leave
9. The Green Grass Starts To Grow
10. They Don’t Give Medals To Yesterday’s Heroes
11. Who Gets The Guy
12. Walk The Way You Talk
13. Amanda
14. He’s Moving On
15. The Love Of My Man
16. Hurts So Bad
17. Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head
18. I’m Your Puppet
19. The Good Life
20. Medley: Reach Out & Touch [Somebody’s Hand] / All Kinds Of People
21. Only Love Can Break A Heart
22. If I Ruled The World

Pre-Order at Amazon USA-
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTHFV12Z/?tag=imwan-20

Pre-order at Real Gone Music-
https://realgonemusic.com/collection...2-1973-3cd-set


https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...L._SL1400_.jpg

Hi Eddie - I'll be on board for this one!

Back in 2018, TJL and Rhino released a set with same contents, and even the same cover photo. Theirs was titled THE COMPLETE 60S SINGLES PLUS. It might have been released in conjunction with a PBS special.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reese

Back in 2018, TJL and Rhino released a set with same contents, and even the same cover photo. Theirs was titled THE COMPLETE 60S SINGLES PLUS. It might have been released in conjunction with a PBS special.

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I thought the set sounded familiar, but I did not obtain my own at the time so I'm happy the set is available now. My guess is that PBS had a limited contract on the material. I hope you are well, Reese! I read each and every post of yours -

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PeaceNHarmony

I thought the set sounded familiar, but I did not obtain my own at the time so I'm happy the set is available now. My guess is that PBS had a limited contract on the material. I hope you are well, Reese! I read each and every post of yours -

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Until I read this thread, I had forgotten that I have the PBS set. Something about the Real Gone collection sounded familiar.

Now my dilemma is do I buy the Real Gone set? Hmm...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reese

Back in 2018, TJL and Rhino released a set with same contents, and even the same cover photo. Theirs was titled THE COMPLETE 60S SINGLES PLUS. It might have been released in conjunction with a PBS special.

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I had forgotten about this; PBS had a Special on Dionne Warwick back in 2018. This collection was available exclusively to people who made a donation to the network. Anyway, glad The Scepter Singles Collection is being put on the general market [even for a limited time].

Looks like a great collection. I never knew about the earlier edition based on the PBS special. Right now the price tag on this one seems to be kind of hefty, $60 on Amazon, or from the seller itself, but I suppose I’ll end up paying more later like I did for the Arista box set if I don’t buy it now! I like when they include all the B-Sides on the single sets, it adds so much more depth and variety to the program.

On a related note, I have noticed in the past few days that the prices for the soon-to-be-released Warner Brothers set are coming down. So for those of you who have not yet ordered that, you might get a better buy. I have seen it as low as $32, and that is for a six CD set.

The Second Disc article on this release also includes the following paragraph. Please note, it seems they've raised the number of units to 3,000.

Every track on this anthology is presented in its original mono single mix, except for a few later titles originally issued as stereo singles. Mike Milchner at SonicVision has remastered the singles from original tape sources while veteran music journalist Paul Grein has provided liner notes. John Sellards has designed the package which includes rare photos of Warwick in the 28-page booklet. Eagle-eyed readers might remember that this collection was originally offered under the title The Complete 1960s Singles Plus by TJL Productions in 2018 as a Public Television pledge premium. This first-time release to general retail features new design elements and is limited to just 3,000 units.

I also got this set from PBS a few years back. It's a great set. Real Gone confirmed in the comments on one of their Facebook posts that the mastering on this latest reissue is the same as the 2018 release. It sounds and looks like Real Gone has re-designed some of the artwork for this latest reissue.

I could be wrong about this, but I gave this set another listen over the weekend, and I suspect that a small handful of the tracks were ripped from the 7" singles. It would not surprise me if this is the case, since it seems that there are always issues with locating all of the original masters for these kinds of projects, 50+ years after the fact.

A few tracks sounded like vinyl rips, towards the end of disc 2, but they did a good job with cleaning them up.

I recall the ending of "You Can Have Him" sounds like it was spliced in from another mix source. How many of Dionne's singles were dedicated mixes? It wouldn't surprise me if Scepter took to folding down stereo mixes for singles. The horns in Maxine Brown's "One In A Million" sound rather recessed in the mono mix, for instance.

Got an email today from Real Gone, and apparently their price on this set has dropped to $39.99 here in the US, 33% less than the original price of $59.99. I canceled my pre-order at Amazon [[I think it was $51.99 last I checked). RG charges for shipping so I'll wait and see if the Amazon price also drops. Of course they have that pre-order guarantee on the price but that's a fairly hefty difference so will keep an eye on the sites before reordering.

https://realgonemusic.com/products/d...92c42634&_ss=r

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Originally Posted by kenneth

Got an email today from Real Gone, and apparently their price on this set has dropped to $39.99 here in the US, 33% less than the original price of $59.99. I canceled my pre-order at Amazon [[I think it was $51.99 last I checked). RG charges for shipping so I'll wait and see if the Amazon price also drops. Of course they have that pre-order guarantee on the price but that's a fairly hefty difference so will keep an eye on the sites before reordering.

https://realgonemusic.com/products/d...92c42634&_ss=r

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My copy has shipped and is on the way! Went with Real Gone when I found out they had knocked down the price for Dionne's Scepter Singles Collection.

Mine arrived in the mail yesterday [[April 3rd.)

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Originally Posted by daviddesper

Mine arrived in the mail yesterday [[April 3rd.)

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That's great! Mine came today, April 5th. I'm glad I ordered this set from Real Gone as it came in at a lower price than Amazon [and way ahead of the April 14th release date currently posted by Amazon].