Dionne Warwick has a message for living the best life. A Broward teen is livin’ it ‘loca’

What happens when you become a queen of social media?

In Dionne Warwick’s case, the singer has two adult sons but her family numbers over a million. They call her “Auntie Dee.” That’s one side benefit to being anointed the “Queen of Twitter.”

Warwick, the voice of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s greatest hits, joined Twitter in 2012. But it’s in recent years that she’s used Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to maximize her reach to an audience that ranges from Bad Bunny buffs to Burt Bacharach backers. She’s done so through her pithy, respectful posts.

When you offer what sounds like praise — that Warwick, at 82, has the ability to adapt to remain relevant, Auntie Dee quickly schools you the way she makes her 634,000 Twitter followers and 121,000 Instagram and 521,000 Facebook followers see her light.

“It isn’t about adapting,” Warwick told the Miami Herald in a Zoom interview from New Jersey. “It is about being who you are. Simply. I am always me.”

Making ‘HITS!’

That self-aware and public persona was who the team behind a new touring musical was looking for last year. Along with her son, producer and songwriter Damon Elliott, Warwick is an executive producer of “HITS! The Musical,” a stage show that has four Florida dates, including April 1 at The Parker in Fort Lauderdale.

“HITS! The Musical” features 90 minutes of nearly 100 pop, rock and Broadway songs from the 1950s forward including “I Will Always Love You,” “Hero” and “Singing in the Rain” in medley arrangements. The music is performed by a cast of 29 singers and dancers, ages 10 to 22.

Warwick would apply the same message to the show’s young talents that she’s applied to herself since that day in 1962 when she counseled her songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David, “don’t make me over.” Their resulting song with that title was the first of Warwick’s 80 singles to make Billboard’s Hot 100, R&B and adult contemporary charts between 1962 and 1998.

“Be who you are. You cannot be anyone other than who you are. That’s what I would tell them,” Warwick said.

South Florida flavor

For one of the “HITS!” performers, 17-year-old Kaylie Molina, who grew up in Pembroke Pines and started training with Somerset Academy’s Pantherettes in elementary school, she’s living that message via a Ricky Martin hit.

“One of my favorite dances that we do is called ‘Livin’ la vida loca.’ And it’s probably one of my favorites because I’m Latina. I’m Puerto Rican. And especially living in South Florida there’s a whole bunch of Latin culture — everyone speaks Spanish, Latin songs and food and all that. So having that song in there represents who I am. And I also helped choreograph that dance with my choreographer Grady Bowman. It’s ballroom and Latin style of dance,” Kaylie said.

“Living in that energy, and like mom said, being honest, you can’t be anyone else. And then holding and captivating an audience. That’s it. That’s an art to hold the room,” Elliott, 49, said in the Zoom interview with Warwick.

The art of producing

Elliott produces Warwick’s recent recordings, too. In case you’re wondering what that dynamic is like in the studio, let them tell you.

“The only difference is I call her ‘Mommy.’ I mean, we’re very professional when I’m in the studio. I’m a producer so I just happen to be producing my mom who happens to be Dionne Warwick. It’s no different than if I’m in the studio producing Beyoncé or Christina Aguilera or whoever else I’m working with. I’m still hired to do my job. We grew up in a musical family. We’ve always been able to separate the hoo-ha from the reality,” Elliott said.

“It works exactly the same way with the other producers I’ve worked with,” Warwick acknowledged. “Fortunately, Damon has honed his craft and has earned the right to produce someone like me that has been in the industry recording for years and years. Otherwise he would not be producing me.”

For Warwick, whether it has been her collaborations with songwriters Bacharach and David, producers like Thom Bell or Barry Manilow, or her son, it’s about fostering that initial bond.

“It’s just a case of becoming friends first, getting to know each other and having the wherewithal to know who I am. And don’t try to make me something I’m not,” Warwick said.

As if on cue, her son sings the title melody of one of his mother’s signature songs, “Don’t Make Me Over.”

The two laugh.

Pop culture impact

Warwick’s resulting pop culture cred is such that comedienne Ego Nwodim’s spot-on satires of her inquisitive and blunt demeanor on “Saturday Night Live” have helped elevate Warwick’s profile even higher than it was when “SNL” first premiered on NBC in 1975 — when Warwick was a year removed from hitting No. 1 on the pop charts with her shared hit with the Spinners, “Then Came You.”

(Warwick has seen Nwodim’s “The Dionne Warwick Talk Show” sketches on “SNL” and calls them “wonderful.”)

That heightened awareness has Warwick in demand.

She’s just released “Peace Like a River,” a duet with the ubiquitous Dolly Parton, a song Parton originally wrote in the 1980s. The single will serve as the centerpiece of Warwick’s coming album of gospel and inspirational songs.

Warwick and Elliott met with the “HITS!” creative team during dress rehearsals in Tampa last year and quickly accepted an offer to join as executive producers.

Inspired by young cast

Elliott, who produced this year’s Oscar-nominated song “Applause,” and “Gonna Be You,” the theme from the movie “80 for Brady” that was recorded by Parton, Gloria Estefan, Cyndi Lauper, Belinda Carlisle and Debbie Harry, said the young cast inspired them.

“We were really blown away by the amount of talent in the room, and just just how great these kids are. They asked us if there’s anything we would like to do to be a part of the show and we said absolutely,” Elliott said..

Kaylie said mother and son are awesome as mentors.

“They’re so incredibly supportive. They’re extremely nice. And they’re super fun to be around. Damon especially. He really interacts with us and he supports us and he encourages us and he has a lot of energy. It’s good to be around them,” Kaylie said in a telephone interview from New Haven, Connecticut, a few hours before performing in one of 24 numbers on the fourth stop of the 48-city tour.

And then came Dionne. The magnitude of her arrival took a moment to sink in for Kaylie.

“I actually had to do some research beforehand,” said Kaylie.

After all, Warwick’s last major hit song, the 1985 AIDS-charity single “That’s What Friends are For” that she sung with Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder and Elton John pierced the pop culture firmament years before contemporary stars like Olivia Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift were born.

“But then when I did the research I was like, wow, this is huge. I was a little bit — I wouldn’t say intimidated — I would say more like, wow, there’s a legend standing right in front of you. I was excited. Because she’s been with huge artists and she’s seen performances and other productions before so she kind of knows about this stuff. So I was a little nervous. But I was definitely excited to have someone like her endorse this,” Kaylie said.

Kaylie follows Warwick on Instagram. “I don’t do Twitter.”

Social media schooling

Warwick felt a sense of duty to bring civility to social media platforms that can seem coarse and crude. She did so not unlike the way she schooled a group of gangsta rappers in the 1990s, including Snoop Dogg and Suge Knight. The tale is a centerpiece of the CNN documentary, “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” which premiered in January on the network.

Warwick invited the younger rappers to her house with strict orders to arrive at 7 a.m., precisely. Once there, she used their own lyrics to impress upon them that misogyny was not a cool look, especially when these men might soon become fathers to girls.

“She was checking me at a time when I thought we couldn’t be checked,” Snoop said in a Billboard story about the documentary. “We were the most gangsta as you could be but that day at Dionne Warwick’s house, I believe we got out-gangstered that day.”

Auntie Dee took that no-nonsense approach to social media.

Her throaty speaking voice in a Zoom chat is as you might imagine: firm, concise, dignified. Mom’s in the house. Warwick offers a theory as to why she’s connecting with ages 8 to 80.

“I believe it’s the way I entered. Basically a grown-up is now in their presence. I got everybody’s attention,” Warwick said. “There are certain things that were not acceptable and they will be called out on it. It’s sort of why I’m known now as Auntie Dee and that makes sense to me. Say what you have to say but there is a way to say it. You don’t have to be ugly. You don’t have to be bullying. You don’t have to be bashing. You don’t have to be saying words that really don’t belong in your mouth to say. Always, always ended with a smile. Always. I was brought up in that fashion. I love to smile. It doesn’t give you wrinkles.”

Mentoring and messages

Now that Dionne Warwick has everyone’s attention, the singer of such classics as “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “Walk on By” and Barry Gibb’s made-in-Miami “Heartbreaker” isn’t squandering her golden opportunity.

As producers, Warwick and Elliott didn’t place any of her hits in “HITS! The Musical.” But Warwick and Elliott have something else for the touring cast of 29 youngsters: An instructive message.

“Basically, you’re gonna get a lot of ‘Nos’ but behind that, ‘no,’ eventually become a ‘yes.’ So don’t be discouraged. If it’s truly what you want to do, continue to pursue it to the best of your ability,” Warwick said.

Their message may also resound with the thousands of young hopefuls that would love to perform on a stage like Kaylie gets to do on some 24 songs in the production. Or those young talents who may be wondering how to achieve a career in the fickle pop music market for 60 years the way Warwick has managed. Or still others who may wish to get to work creatively with stars like Beyoncé, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Diane Warren the way Elliott has.

The advice resonated with Kaylie, who started dancing at 3.

“I know it’s a cliche, but you cannot give up,” she said. “Let’s say you audition for something, you get rejected. You just take that as a learning lesson. What can you do better? What can you do differently? And then try the next one. If you don’t get that next one? Well, guess what? You’re one step closer to your next ‘Yes.’”

Warwick is pleased she’s making connections.

“I can relate to the younger generations,” Warwick said with a chuckle. “Their parents or their grandparents had played my music to the point that they had no choice but to listen to me.”

If you go

What: HITS! The Musical

Where: The Parker, 707 NE Eighth St., Fort Lauderdale

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 1

Tickets: $26-$52.

Other Florida dates: March 29 in Orlando at Dr. Philips Center for Performing Arts; March 30 in Jacksonville at Times Union Performing Arts Center; April 2 in Tampa at Straz Center for Performing Arts.

Information: www.thehitstour.com