Or folks do like Dionne Warwick left the US for Brazil because 'It continued the values I learnt here at home (she said) - family, and the importance of not being denigrated because you happen to love God. That happens to be high on my priorities, and it seems it is everywhere else except the United States. And, of course, the music. For me it's paradise, it really is. I think that is where God lives. Their values are all in the right place.'
When I say God is Brazilian, I mean it!
'Why Brazil? Why not Brazil?' She had played there often and always liked Brazilians. 'It continued the values I learnt here at home - family, and the importance of not being denigrated because you happen to love God. That happens to be high on my priorities, and it seems it is everywhere else except the United States. And, of course, the music. For me it's paradise, it really is. I think that is where God lives. Their values are all in the right place.'
To a European, the US seems a godly place: President Bush often refers to God and recently told the Chinese that 95 per cent of Americans believed in the Almighty. But Warwick is sceptical. 'Take a look at what's going on in our courts over God,' she said, referring to an appeal court decision in San Francisco last month that ruled that the words 'under God' in the pledge of allegiance were unconstitutional in that they blurred the constitution's insistence on the separation of church and state. The court's decision provoked outrage in the US and led to almost every senator publicly reciting the words 'under God' for the television cameras. Does Warwick think the Senators were just putting on a display for political reasons?
'I don't discuss politics or sex or religion,' she says with a smile. 'I happen to believe in God. I have no problems speaking his name. I am not fanatical about it. I do not impose my opinions on others. I think we should all be free to practise as we've been taught.'
There were other reasons for going to live in Brazil. 'I call Brazil my stress-free country. I don't feel any need to be anything other than who I am and what I am there. I was born and raised in the United States and I will always love my country. But there are certain things that have occurred that don't please me a lot - the mere fact that I can be looked at in a different way (in the US) because I am female and I am black and how people can stigmatise me because of the colour of my skin and the gender that I happen to be.'
Does that not happen in Brazil? 'I haven't seen it. I have Brazilian friends who are as fair-skinned as you are who absolutely insist and are proud of the fact that their heritage is African. That is not an issue because they are all Brazilians. We have become so engrossed in being Jewish-American, Irish-American, Spanish-American... why can't we just be Americans?'
It is her concern about the way the African and African-American experience has been marginalised, she says, that led her into working with a group of academics to produce an accessible history of the continent and its diaspora. 'The African and African-American have not by any stretch of the imagination been included in our history,' said Warwick, who has traced her own ancestry to Ghana. 'They've chosen four or five or six people that they continuously elevate as our history when they haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what we are about and the contributions we have made, not only to the United States but throughout this entire world. I was mandated to learn European history and the history of other nationalities and yet was denied my own. I think it's now time that everybody was given an opportunity to understand the value and richness that we have brought to history.'
Part of that history will surely include the work of the woman Warwick admires more than anyone, the late black Congresswoman, Barbara Jordan. Warwick says she found Jordan inspirational but was not tempted to follow her into politics: 'I'm too much of a loose cannon.'
The day before we meet, Michael Jackson, in a dispute with his record company, Sony, accused the music business of racism. Does she feel the business has changed from a racial point of view since she started in the Sixties? 'No - it's the nature of the beast. I don't think the business will ever change. Record companies will always get rich, and it's just unfortunately the way it was set up in the beginning. It would be wonderful to see artists participate on a higher level.'
Of her early days, she says: 'Who knew about being taken advantage of? We were just making music and enjoying that. I think the last thing on our minds was the business of music that it has now become, instead of the music business.'
Warwick has made more than 50 albums and is never out of the charts. Next year there will be another Brazilian CD to follow her 1994 collection Aquarela Do Brasil. She is also making an album of duets called My Friends and Me to celebrate 40 years in the business. Those friends include Elton John, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, George Benson, Kenny Rogers, Julio Iglesias, José Feliciano, Mary Wilson and Luther Vandross.
She has never minded being asked to sing her biggest hits. 'Anybody that says they do mind, I think they're crazy. Without those particular songs, where would they be? You don't argue with success. How can you not say "Yeah, I'll sing this song, that's the reason I'm standing here tonight".'
She has played herself in a number of movies but says: 'If you blinked, you missed me.'
Of the young musicians that stand out now, she mentions Mariah Carey and her own two sons, David and Damon, by her ex-husband, the percussionist Bill Elliott. This is a very musical family; her cousin, Whitney Houston, has also had a hit or two. She has not yet heard Elvis Costello's collaboration with Burt Bacharach but says she likes Costello's music.
Does she think that 11 September changed life in the US significantly? 'I think we are a little more aware of the things around us but we still don't know what we're looking for. I don't know if what could have happened has happened yet - complete compassion for everyone. There were all races and creeds and colours in that building and yet there still seems to be differentiation going on. If we're going to really get to it, we've got to really try and understand each other.'
Apart from her music and the history project, she has been involved in campaigning and raising money for Aids research and treatment, particularly in Africa. In 1986 her collaboration with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight, 'That's What Friends Are For', raised more than $1 million for the American Foundation for Aids Research. The wealthier nations of the West are not doing enough, she says. When she was in Africa 15 years ago, the most basic medicines were unavailable. 'Here, in every hospital warehouse there was a surplus that was dry-rotting that could have been sent over. I don't understand how people can not be compassionate about the problems of others. To have so much and yet not be able to share it with others who have so little...'
On the road, she does her needle-point, plays cards on her computer and reads 'trashy books by Miss (Jackie) Collins'. She had been involved on television in something called the Psychic Friends Network, but that is in the past. Is she still involved in that world? 'Like everyone else, I look at the newspapers and see what I'm not supposed to do today,' she laughs.
Her schedule keeps her slim. 'I'm too lazy to exercise - I get most of my exercise running through airports and through malls, shopping.'
Warwick was in the news in May when 11 marijuana joints were found in a lipstick container in her bag while she was passing through Miami international airport. She was initially charged with possession but the charges have now been dropped and she will make a public service broadcast warning of the dangers of drugs and alcohol and a donation to a children-with-Aids charity. So what happened?
'Somebody dropped it (the marijuana) in my bag. Just that simple. Subsequently all the charges have been dropped and I've been cleared of everything. I don't know whose it was. I was very disturbed about it. As my attorney said, it could have been anyone's bag it was dropped into. All it did was to give me complete impetus to tell all my friends and everyone else that travels - just watch yourself, watch your back, you never know who is going to do what to you, especially in our business. We are so vulnerable to everything.'
Does she think someone did it maliciously? 'No, not at all - just someone that didn't want to get caught with it and decided to put it in this bag, and it happened to be mine."'
So does she disapprove of drugs? 'Drugs generally have no place in our lives. If they were supposed to be there, God would have put them there or made it so that they would be readily available.'
Now 61, Warwick plans to slow down her punishing touring schedule but says she will quit only when the concerts became a chore. 'There's not too many people who can say that they are doing exactly what they love doing and get paid for it.'
So there will not be a farewell tour for a few years yet. 'And when I announce it, it will be - farewell.'
• Dionne Warwick plays Ocean, London E8 on 30 July, tel 020 7314 2800 for credit card bookings or 020 8533 0111 for venue information. Heartbreaker - The Very Best Of Dionne Warwick is out 22 July on Warner Music
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