BY: Cathy Maestri
The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, C.A.)

Dionne Warwick was singing backup for the Drifters when a budding songwriter by the name of Burt Bacharach was impressed by her dusky, stylish vocals and asked if she'd be interested in doing some demos of songs he'd been working on with lyricist Hal David.

"That was the beginning of what has lasted for more years than we wanted to admit," said Warwick, who turns 60 in December.

Bacharach and David account for much of her classic repertoire -- 1962's "Don't Make Me Over" was the first in a stunning catalog of pop classics that includes "Anyone Who Had a Heart," "Walk On By," "You'll Never Get to Heaven," "I Say A Little Prayer," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?,"Promises, Promises" and "I'll Never Fall In Love Again."

She's won five Grammys during her 38-year career -- and she's not about to stop there.

"I want the Oscar, I want the Emmy, I want the Tony," she said. "Not necessarily in that order."

Warwick has already had her own TV show, "Dionne and Friends," as well as served as host of the music series "Solid Gold," and she's been on the big screen in "Slave" and "Rent-A-Cop." She wants to try her hand at Broadway, if she can find the right sort of vehicle.

"I think it's something that has to be absolutely me," she said -- maybe a musical. Or a one-woman show, a la Lena Horne's, "to be able to literally tell my life story without putting it into a book."

Warwick was born into a family of vocalists. Her mother managed the gospel group the Drinkard Singers, which included Warwick's sister Dee Dee and aunt Cissy Houston. It was only natural that Dionne should sing, too.

"I don't think I really had much of a choice," Warwick said. She attended the Hartt College of Music (she has a master's degree), originally planning to become a music teacher.

She even likens the work of her interior design firm to music -- the color, texture, fabrics and wallcoverings are all made to harmonize. Warwick, who has homes in New Jersey and Brazil, collects furnishings and decor on her travels, and she herself will move a piano so she can strip and hang wallpaper.

"I'm a hands-on person," she said. "It is fun. It's very fulfilling to see creative ideas come to fruition."

At the moment, Warwick is concentrating on her current round of shows. Selecting the material is fairly simple, since most of what she's recorded has been a hit. Picking favorites isn't.

"Oh golly, that's a hard question to answer," she said.

Her partnership with Bacharach and David resulted in a string of Top-10 hits that stretched through the '60s. In the early '70s she started working with other songwriters and producers, but only had a scattering of hits. The '80s brought a string of duet successes with Johnny Mathis, Luther Vandross, Jeffrey Osborne and the Grammy-winning benefit tune "That's What Friends Are For," which also featured Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder.

During the '80s, Warwick became a familiar face on infomercials for the now-defunct Psychic Friends Network.

"They were able to help an awful lot of people," Warwick said, even if it just came down to listening to someone who needed to talk. "It was incredibly successful because we were the first to do it. It worked."

Though she said the successful advertisements helped pay the bills, Warwick wasn't just in it for the money. In the late '70s, a psychic informed her she'd win two Grammys and that a new album would go platinum instead of gold.

The advisor "just told me, and told me the names of the songs," before they'd even been released. "I'll Never Love This Way Again" and "Deja Vu" both won Grammys in 1979; the album, "Dionne," went gold that year, and platinum the next. "It was like -- duh," she said.

"That's not to say there aren't charlatans," but Warwick is convinced there's something to a genuine psychic (During the '70s, she added an "e" to her name on the advice of a numerologist, but later dropped it).

More recently, Warwick was approached as a sort of family spokesperson when speculation arose about suspected drug use by her cousin, Whitney Houston. The two dueted on Warwick's "Love Will Find A Way," but that hardly leaves Warwick qualified to speak on anything beyond Houston's considerable talent.

"By and large I'm a pretty private person," she said. Gossip, press accounts and queries left her befuddled. "I don't live with her," Warwick said firmly. If people have questions about Houston's private life, "You ask her."

As for contemporary pop and R&B music in general, "I don't know where music is going, I really don't. It's completely different from the music I was growing up with," Warwick said. "I think I am noticing, though -- thank goodness -- they are finding the wonderful evergreens we would sing."

While sampling pays compliment to the original, the practice still bothers her, "based on only the fact that if you have an ounce of talent, you don't have to sample," she said. "In the same breath, who will remember what whoever it is recorded -- and will they be singing it in 20 years?"

Solid Gold: To hear samples of5 Dionne Warwick, call NewsLink: Riverside-Moreno Valley, (909) 222-7000; Hemet-San Jacinto, (909) 765-2833; Temecula-Murrieta, (909) 693-3338. Category 58126. Toll charges may apply outside local calling areas.

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PREVIEW
Dionne Warwick
With Neil Sedaka

When: 8 p.m. today-Saturday.

Where: Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos.

Admission: $ 50-$ 65.

Information: (800) 300-4345, (562) 916-8500.

On the Internet: www.dionnewarwick.com