Diana & Julio

[Ollie9]

Following the huge international success of the single “All Of Me”, it would have seemed a natural to pair the two for a whole album together.
With strategic marketing, it was almost guaranteed to generate massive sales around the globe.
Might have been the biggest selling album of her solo career.

[RanRan79]

I hadn't thought of that Ollie, but excellent scenario! If I'm being honest, I don't know if it would have been a truly good album. While I actually love "All Of Me", you know I prefer my Ross with some soul. I don't know if merging their styles would have worked for an entire album to produce what I- I can only speak for myself- would conclude is a very good album. That being said, Julio was one of the biggest stars in the world at the time, and Diana was still a very relevant artist, so I think the album would have sold big time. But then, how many copies of "All Of You" sold? I know it was a hit, but it was no "Endless Love".

I would rank the Diana and Julio album pairing as a missed opportunity, but I think the biggest miss was the Diana and Lionel duet album, had she remained with the label.

[reese]

Diana and Julio certainly made an attractive couple. The photo session for the ALL OF YOU single as well as its video was one of Diana's best. But like Ran Ran, I don't know if I'd want to hear an entire album by Diana and Julio. As a Diana fan, I would certainly buy it but I don't know often I'd play it.

Those duet albums by people like Sinatra and Tony Bennett were some years away. But I think a Diana duet album with the likes of Julio and other vocalists might have been attractive.

[sup_fan]

i do think the idea is compelling too. i like All Of Me and which it and Swept weren't released on top of one another. both should have charted higher.

as for a full lp, if the production style of AOM is a sign of what we'd have received, it might have been tough to listen to. AOM is very very VERY heavy on the echo. and after the Silk Electric stuff, we can see how echo can ruin things.

also in the 80s it seems like there were more collaborations on just songs rather than pairing up for a full album

[Albator]

"All of you" has grown on me, like her "Eaten Alive" album for the same reasons. In the eighties, I wasn't ready for this kind of glossy pop sound with practically no traces of Soul.
The clip was also very soap opera, like a scene from "Dynasty"
Today, my only concern is that I don't find Julio vocals appealing and the difference in quality with Diana is schoking.


Is "All of You" still remembered in the US?

[sup_fan]

"All of you" has grown on me, like her "Eaten Alive" album for the same reasons. In the eighties, I wasn't ready for this kind of glossy pop sound with practically no traces of Soul.
The clip was also very soap opera, like a scene from "Dynasty"
Today, my only concern is that I don't find Julio vocals appealing and the difference in quality with Diana is schoking.


Is "All of You" still remembered in the US?

i would guess it might occasionally appear on an oldies or AC station playlist. I think it's better remembered than Swept Away

[Albator]

i would guess it might occasionally appear on an oldies or AC station playlist. I think it's better remembered than Swept Away

That's cool, it's a good song.

There was a guy who used to post lot of old review on FB, and to my surprise, Diana sang it a few time during her 84 tour.
She even did some verses with Julio at Universal Amphitheatre.

It was a moderate hit in France where Julio was huge. But today, it's a forgotten song

[khansperac]

Diana sounds great on her versus.

[Ollie9]

After the less then stellar “SE” and miserable sales of “ross” 83, Diana needed a smash that would put her right back on top, centre stage. What better then a duets album with the dashing, extremely popular Mr Julio Inglesias.
He was keen to crack the American market and Diana widen her appeal. With strong producers and songwriters involved it could have been massive.
Regarding potential sales, one only has to look at the huge success of “110 Bel Air Place” which far outsold the hit and miss “”Swept Away” set.
I’m personally not a massive fan of “All Of You”, thinking it pleasant, if not particularly memorable. I really wish Diana had recorded the b side to “AOY”, a beautiful song called “The Last Time”.

[reese]

After the less then stellar “SE” and miserable sales of “ross” 83, Diana needed a smash that would put her right back on top, centre stage. What better then a duets album with the dashing, extremely popular Mr Julio Inglesias.
He was keen to crack the American market and Diana widen her appeal. With strong producers and songwriters involved it could have been massive.
Regarding potential sales, one only has to look at the huge success of “110 Bel Air Place” which far outsold the hit and miss “”Swept Away” set.
I’m personally not a massive fan of “All Of You”, thinking it pleasant, if not particularly memorable. I really wish Diana had recorded the b side to “AOY”, a beautiful song called “The Last Time”.

At that point in his career, I don't think Julio's team would have wanted an entire duets album. They wanted him to break into the American market and a full duets album probably would not have been a good move. If it was successful, who would it help more? Would it have been seen as a success only as good as Julio's duet partner? I think it was a good move to have the duets with Diana and Willie Nelson as an attraction.

Re SWEPT AWAY, yes, it was a much needed rebound from ROSS [1983]. It had four hit singles and stayed on the Billboard album chart for almost an entire year. Given how the last album had performed, I thought it was great that SWEPT AWAY was certified gold less than two months after its release and weeks before its biggest hit [MISSING YOU] was released.

[Albator]

In fact she recorded her All of you part in 1982, as revealed by an article. This may be the reason why Richard Perry is also involved in the So Close remix

Years ago my taste were Endless Love far beyond All of you and now it's just the opposite. I can't stand Endless Love anymore

[Bluebrock]

Following the huge international success of the single “All Of Me”, it would have seemed a natural to pair the two for a whole album together.
With strategic marketing, it was almost guaranteed to generate massive sales around the globe.
Might have been the biggest selling album of her solo career.

I don't think it was ever a consideration Ollie but many years later Diana and Julio appeared together on an edition of the Des O'Connor show in the UK and Des actually asked them off air why they had not recorded more songs together. There was much feigned enthusiasm from both performers regarding the idea, but that was as far as it ever got.
They got along very well with each other, but there was some tension when they were photographed together as both of them wanted to be photographed from the left hand side, and unbelievably it was Julio who got his way that day!

[Albator]

I don't think it was ever a consideration Ollie but many years later Diana and Julio appeared together on an edition of the Des O'Connor show in the UK and Des actually asked them off air why they had not recorded more songs together. There was much feigned enthusiasm from both performers regarding the idea, but that was as far as it ever got.
They got along very well with each other, but there was some tension when they were photographed together as both of them wanted to be photographed from the left hand side, and unbelievably it was Julio who got his way that day!

Julio has a lot of humour and on French tv, around those days he revealed his manager asked him to be photographed on the left side because he sold much more records this way.

I also think it's a myth that there was tension between the two of them because of face side since Diana shows the profile she favours on most of her covers.

Obviously they enjoyed each other very much. Diana attended Julio's shows in LA and NY, they were seen in Paris together while she was there for her Josephine Baker project.

[Bluebrock]

Julio has a lot of humour and on French tv, around those days he revealed his manager asked him to be photographed on the left side because he sold much more records this way.

I also think it's a myth that there was tension between the two of them because of face side since Diana shows the profile she favours on most of her covers.

Obviously they enjoyed each other very much. Diana attended Julio's shows in LA and NY, they were seen in Paris together while she was there for her Josephine Baker project.

They did seem to get along very well but contrary to press speculation i do not believe there was ever any romantic interest between them. Sure there was some casual flirting but i don't think it went beyond that.

[Ollie9]

At that point in his career, I don't think Julio's team would have wanted an entire duets album. They wanted him to break into the American market and a full duets album probably would not have been a good move. If it was successful, who would it help more? Would it have been seen as a success only as good as Julio's duet partner? I think it was a good move to have the duets with Diana and Willie Nelson as an attraction.

Re SWEPT AWAY, yes, it was a much needed rebound from ROSS [1983]. It had four hit singles and stayed on the Billboard album chart for almost an entire year. Given how the last album had performed, I thought it was great that SWEPT AWAY was certified gold less than two months after its release and weeks before its biggest hit [MISSING YOU] was released.

I guess at that point in time it would have been the wrong type of album for Julio, with “1100 Bel Air Place” proving successful in cracking the USA market for him.
I have always thought it a missed opportunity that Diana never turned to duets when sales of her albums started to slump during the latter part of her stint with rca.
I wonder had she released a mega successful duets album around in 87 it would have extended her stay with that record label?.
i guess it’s possible she’s just not that into recording duets.

[TomatoTom123]

I like "All of You" very much but I'm not familiar with any of Julio's other songs.

A duets album could have been interesting though, depending of course on the songs, style, production, etc [LOL].

[Ollie9]

I like "All of You" very much but I'm not familiar with any of Julio's other songs.

A duets album could have been interesting though, depending of course on the songs, style, production, etc [LOL].

Di & Julio sing Sonny & Cher in Spanish might have proved interesting.

[florence]

Interestingly the UK was the one main territory where it didn't perform very well failing to even crack the top 40.

[Ollie9]

Interestingly the UK was the one main territory where it didn't perform very well failing to even crack the top 40.

Like a large slice of the UK i have never really found the song that memorable Flo, being rather surprised at its international success. Julio being a popular lad on many a foreign shore would most certainly have helped bolster sales.

[Boogiedown]

If I’m reading it correctly , ALL OF YOU was as fake a duet as her Marvin Gaye ones.
Did Diana perform the song in her live shows seeing as it was one of her bigger latter day hits?

[florence]

Like a large slice of the UK i have never really found the song that memorable Flo, being rather surprised at its international success. Julio being a popular lad on many a foreign shore would most certainly have helped bolster sales.

Not keen on it myself - if Diana's name wasn't on the label it wouldn't be in my record collection.

It did hang around the lower end of the chart for a while and was #314 in the end of year top 1000.

[reese]

If I’m reading it correctly , ALL OF YOU was as fake a duet as her Marvin Gaye ones.
Did Diana perform the song in her live shows seeing as it was one of her bigger latter day hits?

I don't recall if ALL OF YOU had the vocals recorded separately. If so, I certainly can't tell. And again, many duets are done this way.

I think she might have performed it a couple of times while she was promoting the SWEPT AWAY album. But it doesn't seem to have stayed in the act too long.

[Ollie9]

I guess one of the main problems in recording a duets album is in promoting it live. Other then performing solo versions of the songs, it might prove difficult to align individual work schedules for tv or concert appearances.

[Boogiedown]

I don't recall if ALL OF YOU had the vocals recorded separately. If so, I certainly can't tell. And again, many duets are done this way.

by “many” I presume that means when
you count all the ones Marv and Diana didn’t do together.

im
only aware of two [?] from the golden
era that were done that way …. YOU DONT BRING ME FLOWERS and ON MY OWN , but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a sprinkling
of others but not enough to say it was common practice.

i am curious what the problem
was between Michael and Patti that they couldn’t get together.

[Jaap]

It is [[and was) a common practice to record the voices of duets separately. Even many of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duets were recorded separately.

[reese]

I guess one of the main problems in recording a duets album is in promoting it live. Other then performing solo versions of the songs, it might prove difficult to align individual work schedules for tv or concert appearances.

I remember seeing a concert video of Johnny Mathis where he did a medley of his duets [[Jane Oliver, Dionne Warwick, etc.) but sang to a tape of their voices.

Not long after, I went to see Dionne in concert and when she sang her duet with Johnny, FRIENDS IN LOVE, she sang to a tape as well. She kept turning towards the wings as if to suggest he might walk on stage but of course, he didn't. I thought the performance was cute but I remember some reviewers thought otherwise.

Of course, nothing beats the story of Marvin Gaye performing IT TAKES TWO on tv with a stuffed animal, as Kim Weston had left the label by the time of its release.

[jobucats]

As others have alluded, duet projects, especially for male and female vocalists, present extra challenges. Most of the time, arrangers have to account for the optimal key [[pitch) in which to place the vocalist singing. The female artist may sing a song in the key of C; however, when the male artists tries to sing it in that key, it doesn't work. The arrangers consider who is singing the melody line and who is singing the harmony line. That is why we often will hear modulations in a song: the female artist may be singing the lead on one verse while the male artist needs the song to be modulated [[to have the key changed) as he sings the lead on another verse.

Marvin Gaye, because his 'sweet range' was similar to Diana's, made it that their project together did not require many modulations of keys within their songs. Yes, Lurlean, there are exceptions.

Listen closely, there are some modulations of the keys on Julio and Diana's "All of You' which indicates that had they decided to do a full album together, it would have required a lot of crafty modulations/arranges and a lot of compromise between the two artists.

One cannot just pull out an instrumental track which had previously been assigned to someone else and expect another artist to be able to perform it in his/her optimal range. There are exceptions.

[Boogiedown]

It is [[and was) a common practice to record the voices of duets separately. Even many of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duets were recorded separately.

Well there’s one more example. That makes 4. With Tammi and Marvin wasn’t that kind of a last ditch effort , or did they sing apart from day one ?? If it’s even Tammi…. Motown was not above any which kind of shenanigans.

[Boogiedown]

As others have alluded, duet projects, especially for male and female vocalists, present extra challenges. Most of the time, arrangers have to account for the optimal key [[pitch) in which to place the vocalist singing. The female artist may sing a song in the key of C; however, when the male artists tries to sing it in that key, it doesn't work. The arrangers consider who is singing the melody line and who is singing the harmony line. That is why we often will hear modulations in a song: the female artist may be singing the lead on one verse while the male artist needs the song to be modulated [[to have the key changed) as he sings the lead on another verse.

Marvin Gaye, because his 'sweet range' was similar to Diana's, made it that their project together did not require many modulations of keys within their songs. Yes, Lurlean, there are exceptions.

Listen closely, there are some modulations of the keys on Julio and Diana's "All of You' which indicates that had they decided to do a full album together, it would have required a lot of crafty modulations/arranges and a lot of compromise between the two artists.

One cannot just pull out an instrumental track which had previously been assigned to someone else and expect another artist to be able to perform it in his/her optimal range. There are exceptions.

Interesting …. Makes sense that a certain key will be preferred that doesn’t always match for the two. In the end , the song has to be heard in a certain key. Isn’t one of the voices going to sound out of whack. So how do you explain karaoke ?? Or those random duets on American idol ?
Marvin and Diana’s voices were well suited for each other [when it comes to ease of recording ], yet even with this advantage, they still couldn’t pull it off. Pity I wonder how much better their songs would have been had they sung one on one in person, building off each other ?

[jobucats]

Interesting …. Makes sense that a certain key will be preferred that doesn’t always match for the two. In the end , the song has to be heard in a certain key. Isn’t one of the voices going to sound out of whack. So how do you explain karaoke ?? Or those random duets on American idol ?
Marvin and Diana’s voices were well suited for each other [when it comes to ease of recording ], yet even with this advantage, they still couldn’t pull it off. Pity I wonder how much better their songs would have been had they sung one on one in person, building off each other ?

Of course, depending on the two voices themselves will determine if a song sounds out of whack. Oftentimes, if only one key is used on the song and you have two singers with completely different vocal ranges, one will find that one of the artists is singing the melody and the other is singing harmony [[or doing some kind of improvisational riffing). It is also likely that the one of the singers sings his/her verse in the same key but at an octave higher or lower than the other singer.

It is interesting that you mention karaoke. Back in the day when I was brave enough to attempt to sing karaoke, I found that there were quite a few songs I couldn't sing because they were pitched way too high or too low...they were out of my comfortable key range. I could do something simple like "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" because it was in my range.
I believe most of the random duets on American Idol were done where one singer might have been just harmonizing with the other OR doing the switching to another octave like I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Take a listen to "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" by two completely different voices, Streisand and Diamond. They are doing the whole song in the same key without any modulations AND they are switching off singing the lead line in what appears to be the comfortable same key for each of them. HOW? Barbra is singing her lines a perfect octave above what Neil is singing. It was still the same key.

Both Streisand and Diamond had each recorded "Flowers" on one of their own albums prior to them coming together to do their own studio version together. This was after several radio stations had spliced their individual versions together [[which were in the same key).

[TNSUN]

Love this song ever more today. It remains a
favorite wedding song for the newlyweds' 1st dance number.

[Ollie9]

I remember seeing a concert video of Johnny Mathis where he did a medley of his duets [[Jane Oliver, Dionne Warwick, etc.) but sang to a tape of their voices.

Not long after, I went to see Dionne in concert and when she sang her duet with Johnny, FRIENDS IN LOVE, she sang to a tape as well. She kept turning towards the wings as if to suggest he might walk on stage but of course, he didn't. I thought the performance was cute but I remember some reviewers thought otherwise.

Of course, nothing beats the story of Marvin Gaye performing IT TAKES TWO on tv with a stuffed animal, as Kim Weston had left the label by the time of its release.

Come to think of it, during the early 80’s Lionel Ritchie was performing “Endless Love” in concert with a hologram of Diana singing her part.
As regards “It Takes Two”, never knew Marvin was forced to perform to a stuffed animal. Must have looked quite amusing, if not for him then the audience.
Of all the duets Diana has ever recorded, i think her and Marvin’s voices compliment each other the most. Second would be Paul Williams.
Diana and MJ’s voices were just to similar to create much of a spark.
”I Love Being In Love With You” provides a glimpse of how she might have sounded duetting with Barry Gibb.

[Boogiedown]

REESE:

Of course, nothing beats the story of Marvin Gaye performing IT TAKES TWO on tv with a stuffed animal, as Kim Weston had left the label by the time of its release.

Hee haw
, do I really need to point out the irony of this title, when it comes to pairings not really "dueting" on recordings of songs that are presented as such.

Ha ha stuffed animal , might as well be ....