British singer Adam Faith also recorded the song as "A Message to Martha (Kentucky Bluebird)" in 1965, and had a substantial hit with it in the UK, reaching No.

In 1964 Bacharach had Lou Johnson record the song as "Kentucky Bluebird": this version reached Billboard's "Bubbling Under the Hot 100" chart at #104 that fall.

Johnson's single was also released in the UK where it was swiftly covered by Adam Faith as "A Message to Martha (Kentucky Bluebird)", which reached No.

[2] Warwick's association with the song began when she recommended it as a concert number to Sacha Distel, with whom she was headlining at the Paris Olympia Theatre in 1966.

[2] Scepter Records representative Steve Tyrell recalls "getting in an elevator with Burt and Hal and following them down into Times Square, begging them to let me put ["Message to Michael"] out.

The next day they called Scepter Records owner Florence Greenberg and said 'Look, Steve is so into this tune – tell him he can put it on the B-side but he shouldn't promote it'".

In fact even prior to the single's release Warwick had performed "Message to Michael" on the NBC pop music TV program Hullabaloo in an episode broadcast 9 March 1966.

In his 1968 book What the World Needs Now and Other Love Lyrics, Hal David admitted his misgivings over Warwick recording "Message to Michael" proved ill-founded, indeed stating "Dionne's vocal was so brilliant that it was obvious we had subconsciously written the song for her even while we thought we were writing it for a man.