It would be interesting to know who played trumpet. Somebody said it was Herb Alpert, but that does not seem to be correct.

There was a sketch on Saturday Night Live some years ago in which Val Kilmer played Burt Bacharach, recording the backing track for "I Say A Little Prayer", and in that sketch, he names the trumpet player as Wesley Tyson.

I presume this was some sort of Saturday Night Live in-joke, because I never heard of Wesley Tyson.

Burt produced the final record, and I remember that Hal David, when he had penned the lyrics to the instrumental demo, suggested that it was too fast, but Burt went ahead and produced it at the same tempo anyway.

He said afterwards that he was perfectly happy with it, but I think he later also said something on the lines of that this was until he heard Aretha's version which was slower, and he then thought he should have slowed Dionne's version down.

If you see Dionne on stage nowadays, she sings it slower but I do not think it sounds as good.

I did not know that Joel Whitburn liked her but I understand why he would. I bought her first single "Don't Make Me Over", and I immediately loved her and (up until he broke up with Bacharach), I think I bought everything she issued.

And she should have gotten a writing credit on that song because "Don't Make Me Over" was one of her catch-phrases which she used when she thought somebody was giving her grief, and she used it to Burt Bacharach and Hal David in some row over the fact that she wanted to record "Make It Easy On Yourself" as her first release because she had demoed it, but they had given the song to Jerry Butler.

This was a great double-header, because the flip side was "Theme From Valley Of The Dolls"!

• RE: Take #10 - Dionne Warwick - I Say A Little Prayer - 1967 - John 08/26/2010 12:07:26 EDT (1)