Dionne Warwick has opened up about her friendship with Elvis Presley back in the 1960s as she prepares for an all-new tour.
The iconic soul singer, who recently appeared on screens in ITV’s The Masked Singer, is returning to the stage over six decades on from her first foray into the limelight.
The six-time Grammy winner will be performing her back catalog of classic hits to crowds everywhere with her aptly titled tour, Don’t Make Me Over.
A powerhouse on stage for decades, Warwick recently opened up about her first experiences as a budding singer bursting onto the scene.
Casting her mind back to 1969, Warwick has reminisced about her first encounter with Hound Dog hitmaker Elvis Presley and how he played a major part in getting the Las Vegas crowds to buy her records.
At the time, Warwick’s sister Dee Dee was performing as one of Presley’s backing singers which led to their first face-to-face meeting.
Dionne Warwick burst onto the music scene in the 1960s
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“Elvis was in rehearsal when I met him and he was so kind to me,” Warwick detailed.
“He let me know he enjoyed my music and that he was a fan and said he was going to do something wonderful for me.”
Delving into what Presley told her, Warwick added: “‘My gift to you will be when I announce on stage during my show that I am going to slip a signed photograph of mine inside each Dionne Warwick album on sale in Vegas’.”
The gesture clearly worked as Warwick added to the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine: “I sold more albums in Las Vegas than I ever have since.
Elvis Presley remains a beloved figure to music fans across the globe
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“It was a wonderful thing to do.”
Presley died eight years later in 1977 but remains one of the world’s most iconic musicians to this day.
So much so, it was announced in January that the Jailhouse Rock singer is set to return to the stage virtually with the help of AI.
Titled Elvis Evolution, the show will use AI and holographic projections to virtually recreate the star on stage.
Dionna Warwick and Elvis Presley had a heartwarming first encounter
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The show is penned to open in November in London before it’s toured across Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo.
Elvis Evolution is tipped to follow in the footsteps of ABBA Voyage, another virtual concert that features holograms of the Swedish four-piece group.
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