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Dusty Springfield OBE ( 16 April , 1939 – 2 March , 1999 ) was a popular English Singer whose career spanned four decades. She achieved her most notable success during the 1960s , with a successful comeback in the late 1980s . BIOGRAPHY Early life and group career Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/67646.stm (born of Ealing . She was of Irish heritage. The name "Dusty" was given to her when she was a child, probably as she had been a Tomboy in her early years. As a child, she was a fan of American Jazz and the music of Peggy Lee . At age 11, she went into a local record shop in Ealing and made her first record, an amateur imitation of Peggy Lee singing the Irving Berlin song "When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabam".http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_1999_April_27/ai_54492600 Mary O'Brien's first professional musical experience came in 1958, when she joined the British vocal group The Lana Sisters , with whom, over the following two years, she recorded a number of singles. In 1960 she left the Lana Sisters and formed the pop-folk trio The Springfields with brother Dion O'Brien and Tim Feild (the two of whom had been working together as the Kensington Squares). According to Tim Feild , the new trio chose "the Springfields" as their name while practising in a field in Somerset in the spring of that year. Mary took the name Dusty Springfield after forming the group, while brother Dion became Tom Springfield . The first recording contract The Springfields signed was offered to them by producer Johnny Franz at Philips Records in London. With early singles including "Breakaway" and "Bambino", and numerous television appearances, the trio soon became very popular in the UK . After Tim Feild left the group, he was replaced by Mike Hurst , and the Springfields became even more successful. Their biggest hit, "Island of Dreams", was released towards the end of 1962, rose to the Top 5 and stayed in the charts for six months. Earlier in 1962 the Springfields had scored a Top 20 hit in the United States with their single "Silver Threads And Golden Needles". Pre- Beatles , this was a very unusual achievement for a British act. In late 1962, intent on producing an authentic American recording, The Springfields travelled to Nashville , Tennessee , to begin work on an album. It was during a stopover in New York City that Dusty Springfield first heard "Tell Him" by The Exciters and immediately became smitten and inspired by its sound. She also developed a love around this time for The Shirelles and similar vocal groups — and was later to become obsessed with Motown music, being particularly fond of the voice of Martha Reeves (of Martha & The Vandellas ). The experience of hearing the Exciters' record was a key moment for Springfield. She knew at once that her future was no longer with the folk- and country-influenced sounds of the Springfields but with a form of pop music more rooted in Rhythm And Blues . She also knew she wanted to be in a position of far greater control, especially in the recording studio. So even though the Springfields were at the height of their fame — the spring of 1963 bringing them another UK Top-5 hit with "Say I Won't Be There" — the three of them agreed that it was now time for them to think about going their separate ways. They played their last gig in October 1963. Tom Springfield and Mike Hurst both largely gave up performing and moved into production. As Producer (and primary Songwriter ) for the UK-based Australian pop-folk band The Seekers , Tom Springfield scored major hits in the UK, the United States and Australia. Hurst, meanwhile, achieved success as producer for Cat Stevens , Manfred Mann , The Move , The Spencer Davis Group , Showaddywaddy , The Four Tops and others. Solo success Dusty Springfield's first single, " I Only Want To Be With You ", was released in early November 1963, just three weeks after The Springfields had disbanded, and quickly became a big success, both in Britain, where it reached number 4 in the national charts, and in the United States. It was a "sure shot" on WMCA in New York , even before the station started playing The Beatles , they thought so highly of its release. "I Only Want To Be With You" was ultimately a Top 10 hit in New York, and reached number 12 in the national US charts. It was followed by a series of successful singles, including "Stay Awhile", " I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself ", "All Cried Out" and "Losing You". Springfield maintained that she became a Burt Bacharach fan upon hearing " Don't Make Me Over " in 1962, and with that, she recorded a number of Bacharach - David compositions, including "Wishin' And Hopin'", which was a Top 10 hit for her in 1964. Another notable Bacharach-David song, "The Look Of Love" (from the 1967 spoof Bond movie '' Casino Royale ''), was written specifically for Springfield and nominated for the Academy Award For Best Song in 1967. That year Springfield's original version of this song was a Top 10 radio hit on stations like KGB in San Diego and KHJ in Los Angeles, but a cover version in 1968 by Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66 became a bigger hit and reached the national Top 10. By 1964 , Springfield was one of the biggest solo artists of her day. Other popular Springfield singles included "Your Hurtin' Kinda Love" and "In The Middle Of Nowhere", culminating in her biggest hit, and her first (and only) UK number-1 single, "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me". Springfield had heard the song at the San Remo Music Festival and obtained an acetate of the song, but didn't move to record it until almost a year later. Her future manager, Vicki Wickham , and collaborator Simon Napier-Bell reportedly wrote English lyrics for the song in the back of a cab the night before the recording was due to take place. The song also reached number 4 in the American charts. Early in her career, Springfield created a controversy when she refused to play in front of a segregated crowd in South Africa . She had a clause written into her contract that specifically stated she would perform only before mixed audiences. She performed two concerts thus, and was promptly asked by the South African government to leave the country. She stated that she didn't intend her insistence on the clause to be any sort of social statement, but rather that she felt anyone should be able to listen to her music. Springfield was often a featured artist, and also, the first guest on the British television music show '' Ready Steady Go! '', produced by Vicki Wickham , who would later become her manager. Because of her interest in Motown music, Springfield was selected in 1965 to host ''The Sound Of Motown'', a ''Ready Steady Go!'' special that introduced Motown and American soul music to British audiences. In the 1994 video biography, ''Dusty — Full Circle'', several of the musicians who participated, most notably Martha Reeves , credited the media exposure, and Springfield's advocacy of the music, with helping them to break into the British pop charts. Springfield's UK success led to her being given four television series of her own: ''Dusty'' ( BBC , 1966 and 1967), ''It Must Be Dusty'' ( ITV , 1968) and ''Decidedly Dusty'' (BBC, 1969). Her shows featured many leading stars of the day as guests. One of the most memorable was Jimi Hendrix , who appeared in a duet with Springfield on the song "Mockingbird". The master videotape of this appearance was later erased, although a brief fragment of Hendrix's performance on the show, filmed directly off the television screen by a fan, has survived. Like many other solo singers who did not write their own material, Springfield's recording career was dependent on the quality of the material she could obtain, and by the end of the decade, top-notch material was becoming harder to find: Carole King , who had written two of her biggest British hits, "Some Of Your Lovin'" and "Goin' Back", was embarking on a singing career, and the chart-busting Bacharach-David partnership was foundering. Springfield's status in the music industry was further complicated by the gradual fracturing of the formerly homogeneous "pop" market into many distinct musical genres in the late 1960s . Her music was coming to be seen as "unhip" at a time when hipness was necessary for musical success, and in addition, her performing career was becoming bogged down on the UK touring circuit, which at that time largely consisted of Working Men's clubs and the hotel and cabaret circuit. Hoping to reinvigorate her career and boost her credibility, she signed with Atlantic Records , home label of one of her idols, Aretha Franklin , and began recording an album in Memphis, Tennessee , with producers Jerry Wexler , Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd . The Memphis sessions were a challenge for Wexler, who was not used to working with an artist with Springfield's reported penchant for perfectionism, which she later attributed to her deep insecurity and her very real anxiety about being compared with the soul greats who had recorded there. In the end, the Memphis tracking sessions were completed without any major work being done on the vocals; almost all her vocals were cut some weeks later in at a studio in New York. ''.]] Despite the problems with its production, the album, '' Dusty In Memphis '' is considered Springfield's definitive work; it has appeared in several "best of all time" lists, including those compiled by '' Rolling Stone '' magazine in the United States, and '' Q '' music magazine in Britain. The album is best known for " Son Of A Preacher Man ", which was a hit in both the United Kingdom and the United States, though the album itself was a commercial disappointment. The song enjoyed a significant revival in the 1990s thanks to its inclusion on the best-selling soundtrack for the Quentin Tarantino film '' Pulp Fiction '' ( 1994 ). "Son of a Preacher Man" also encapsulates some of the ironies of Springfield's career, and how she perceived herself in comparison with other artists. It had initially been offered to, and turned down by, Aretha Franklin . Franklin later recorded the song, and Springfield felt Franklin's version was superior, especially Franklin's phrasing in the chorus. She thereafter always performed the song with the phrasing Franklin had used. The Seventies and Eighties Springfield's second album for Atlantic Records , ''A Brand New Me'', was released in 1970 (and appeared in the UK on the Philips Records label with the title '' From Dusty With Love ''). Although it yielded the Top 25 single "A Brand New Me", the album itself was as commercially unsuccessful as ''Dusty in Memphis''. It was one of the first works produced by Gamble And Huff productions, who would go on to great success in the R&B genre with their "Philadelphia sound". Gamble and Huff themselves wrote all the songs; however, production is anonymously credited to "Staff". A third album for the Atlantic label, produced by Jeff Barry , was abandoned because of unsuccessful single releases (including the intended title track "(I'll Be) Faithful". The masters were later destroyed in a fire, but Barry reportedly kept copies of the intended final mixes, and most of the material was released on the 1999 American deluxe reissue of ''Dusty in Memphis'' on Rhino Records . Her next album, ''See All Her Faces'' ( 1972 ), was released only in Britain. With a mix of tracks recorded in England and the States between 1969 and 1971, ''See All Her Faces'' had none of the cohesion of her previous two albums. In 1972 Springfield signed a contract in the States with ABC Dunhill Records , and the resulting album, '' Cameo '', was released early in 1973 with a minimum of publicity. It remains the hardest to find of Springfield's official Discography . The album's producers ( Lambert & Potter ) went on to make a string of hits with, among others, The Four Tops and Glen Campbell . In 1974, Springfield began work in New York on a second ABC Dunhill album, which was given the working title ''Elements'' but scheduled for release as '' Longing ''. Its producer was Brooks Arthur, who had been responsible for hit records by singer-songwriters such as Janis Ian . Arthur produced for the ''Longing'' album a version of Ian's "In The Winter" that was to rank among Springfield's most critically acclaimed recordings, with Ian quoted as saying that after hearing Springfield's performance, she felt she could no longer "do the piece justice". The ''Longing'' sessions, however, were eventually abandoned due to Springfield's problematic personal life at the time, but much of the resulting material was later released (including, controversially, some tentative and incomplete vocals) on the 2001 compilation ''Beautiful Soul''. Springfield put her career on hold during the mid- 1970s , though she did sporadic work with fellow artists like Anne Murray and Elton John , providing background vocals on John's hit single "The Bitch Is Back". She continued to work on material for new albums throughout the late 1970s for the United Artists Records label, resulting in the albums '' It Begins Again '' ( 1978 ) and '' Living Without Your Love '' ( 1979 ). Both were critically lauded, but commercially unsuccessful; only ''It Begins Again'' charted on either side of the Atlantic, and only briefly made the British charts. During this time Springfield had very few charting singles and soon drifted from popular view. She then endured a string of bad luck with record companies. In London she recorded two singles for her British label, Mercury Records (part of the Phonogram group). The first was the disco-influenced "Baby Blue", which reached number 61 in Britain. The second, "Your Love Still Brings Me To My Knees", was to be Springfield's final single for Phonogram , who after twenty years were appearing to lose interest in the singer. Returning to the States, Springfield signed a deal with Twentieth Century Fox Records , which resulted in the unsuccessful single "It Goes Like It Goes" (a cover version of the song from the film '' Norma Rae ''). Next came the 1982 album '' White Heat ''. Heavily influenced by the New Wave genre, this album was something of a departure for Springfield, who was uncharacteristically proud of the piece. Due, however, to corporate reorganisation, ''White Heat'' ended up on the Casablanca label and, despite some excellent reviews, was released only in the USA and Canada. (Casablanca, with no distribution outlet in the UK, had been hopeful of securing its UK release through Phonogram, but the British company declined, feeling that Springfield was no longer popular enough to warrant the expense of promotion.) It was not long after the record's release that another reshuffle saw the end of Casablanca Records, and ''White Heat'' was eventually absorbed into the Universal Music Group along with Springfield's Phonogram recordings. This, though, was no bad thing, as it meant that a good number of the singer's important works were now in the hands of one company. Springfield tried to revive her career again in 1985 by returning to the UK and signing to Peter Stringfellow 's Hippodrome Records label, which resulted in a single called "Sometimes Like Butterflies" and a disastrous appearance on Stringfellow's live television show. The song was released against Springfield's wishes with a practice vocal recorded while she had Laryngitis . The singer left the label in response. A return to popularity Springfield's fortunes finally took an upward turn in 1987 , when she accepted an invitation from the British pop duo Pet Shop Boys to sing with the duo's Neil Tennant on their single "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" and appear in its promotional video. The record became a best seller around the world, rising to number 2 in both the British and the American charts and bringing Springfield firmly back into public view. The song subsequently appeared on the Pet Shop Boys' album '' Actually '', as well as on both of their greatest-hits compilations. It was also included on ''The Dusty Springfield Anthology'' (1997), which was the singer's first-ever anthology in the States. Springfield and the duo performed the song at the 1988 BRIT Awards ceremony in London. Eleven years later, shortly after Springfield had died, the Pet Shop Boys staged a special version of "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" as part of their '' Nightlife '' tour in 1999. This time, Neil Tennant sang with Springfield by means of a video projection that featured the late singer's performance from their original promotional video along with clips of her television appearances from the 1960s. Footage of this event was later released on the Pet Shop Boys DVD ''Montage''. Also in 1987, Springfield sang lead vocals on the Richard Carpenter track "Something In Your Eyes", which was recorded for Carpenter's album ''Time'' and released as a single, becoming a number-12 Adult Contemporary hit in the US. There was now a significant resurgence of interest in Springfield's music, and in 1988 a new compilation of her greatest hits, ''The Silver Collection'', became a best seller. The following year she was back in the studio with the Pet Shop Boys, who now produced her recording of their song "Nothing Has Been Proved". This had been commissioned for the soundtrack of the film '' Scandal '', based on the 1960s British political scandal known as the Profumo Affair . "Nothing Has Been Proved" was also released as a single and gave Springfield another Top 20 hit in the UK, as did its follow-up, the upbeat "In Private", written and produced, again, by the Pet Shop Boys. Springfield capitalised on these achievements by recording the 1990 album '' Reputation ''. This was another Top 20 success. The writing and production credits for half of the album, which included the two recent hit singles, went once more to the Pet Shop Boys, while the album's other producers included Dan Hartman . These successes persuaded Springfield that the time was right to leave California and return to Europe, initially to Amsterdam (where animal quarantine restrictions were less stringent), and finally back to Buckinghamshire, England. In 1993 , she was invited to record a duet with her former '60s professional rival and friend Cilla Black . This was "Heart And Soul", which comes from Black's ''Through The Years'' album on the Columbia label (part of the Sony Records group). Springfield herself was subsequently offered a recording contract by Sony, for whom she made what was to be her final album, '' A Very Fine Love '' (Columbia), which was released in 1995. Although she recorded this album in Nashville, Tennessee, Springfield was emphatic that ''A Very Fine Love'' was a pop, rather than a Country , album. One or two of the songs, however, were written by well-known Nashville songwriters and produced with a typical country feel. Dusty Springfield's last-ever recording, which she made in London in 1995 for an insurance company's television advertisement, was a rendition of George and Ira Gershwin's "Someone To Watch Over Me". It was eventually released commercially on ''Simply Dusty'' (2000), the extensive anthology the singer had helped to plan but would not live to see released. Death Before releasing her final album, ''A Very Fine Love'', in 1995, Springfield was diagnosed with Breast Cancer . While recording the album the previous year in Nashville she had felt unwell, but it was only when she returned home to England that she discovered the cause. She received treatment and, for a time, the cancer was in remission. In apparent good health again, the singer set about promoting the album and gave a particularly memorable live performance of one of its tracks, "Where Is A Woman To Go?", on the television music show ''Later With Jools Holland '' (BBC), backed by Alison Moyet and Sinéad O'Connor . The cancer was detected again in the summer of 1996, and Springfield, after a spirited fight, was eventually defeated. She died, aged 59, on 2 March 1999 , just ten days before her induction into the US Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame . The day she died was also the day she had been due to go to Buckingham Palace to receive her OBE . A short while earlier, however, her manager Vicki Wickham had been given permission to go to St James's Palace and collect Springfield's OBE medal, which she duly presented to the singer in hospital, where a small number of family members and friends had gathered for the occasion. Springfield's funeral service, which attracted considerable media attention, was attended by hundreds of fans as well as such figures from the music business as Elvis Costello , Lulu and the Pet Shop Boys . It took place in Oxfordshire at the ancient parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Henley-on-Thames, where the singer had lived for the last few years of her life. A marker dedicated to her memory can now be found in the church's graveyard. Some of Springfield's ashes were buried at Henley, while the rest were scattered by her brother, Tom Springfield , at the Cliffs Of Moher , County Clare , Ireland . CAREER CHALLENGES AND PERSONAL STRUGGLES Springfield had been raised as a strict Catholic and, despite her reported reluctance to participate in Confession and Mass , she kept her faith in a Higher Being to the end of her life. The conflict between her conservative religious faith and her life was one that affected her deeply. Springfield's biographers and several journalists have suggested she had two personas: shy, quiet Mary O'Brien, and the persona she created in Dusty Springfield. In all aspects of her career, but especially in the studio, Springfield was a notorious perfectionist. Some labeled her as "difficult". Much of this can now be seen as a reaction from male colleagues who, in a very male-dominated industry, were wholly unused to women taking control in the studio. She often produced her songs, but could not take credit for doing so, as it was seen as bad form. Springfield's musical ear was very finely tuned and she was totally intolerant of anything less than perfection, which some session musicians did not appreciate. To add to the challenges, she did not read and write music as the session musicians did, making it even harder for her to communicate what she wanted. She was notorious for her agonisingly painstaking vocal sessions, during which she would often record short phrases or even single words or syllables, over and over again, to get the precise feeling and musical quality that she wanted. She was not alone in this practice: many of the Motown artists in the 1960s had wrecked the nerves of recording engineers by insistently Punching In vocal phrases (a practice which overwrites the recorded vocal but in the 1960s could have ruined an entire recording if anything went wrong). Springfield's version of this technique was decidedly extreme by all accounts. Springfield's biographers attribute much of her "difficult" behaviour to her dysfunctional family background and her deep insecurity, which began in childhood. Her mother was prone to explosive rages and would often throw things to express anger — a trait which Springfield herself soon adopted. Her accountant father, conversely, was quiet and withdrawn, and it is evident that, at least in part, her mother's violent "acting out" was an attempt to gain her husband's attention. Mary/Dusty's growing insecurity was heightened by her parents' blatant favouring of her older brother Dion (Tom). In her early career much of her odd behaviour was carried out more or less in fun — like her famous food fights — and it was at the time dismissed as merely "eccentric". One story related in her biography tells how, when Springfield first performed in America, she was too nervous to meet the other performers on the bill, so she found a box full of crockery and hurled it down a flight of stairs in order to bring the other performers out of their dressing rooms. But as the Springfield persona became more and more famous, she was indulged, pampered and spoiled, and plummeted into chronic drug and alcohol abuse. For much of the Seventies, living in Hollywood, Springfield alternately battled mental health and substance abuse issues. When her career imploded, she began to internalise her violent behaviour. The seriousness of her increasingly frequent acts of Self-harm resulted in her being hospitalised on numerous occasions. Though she reportedly attempted suicide several times, it was later realized that she was battling with the mental health problem of Cutting . SEXUALITY Throughout much of Springfield's career, her sexuality was a matter of speculation. In 1970 , she disclosed that she was Bisexual when she told Ray Connolly of the London ''Evening Standard'' during an interview that "A lot of people say I'm bent, and I've heard it so many times that I've almost learned to accept it....I know I'm perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy." By 1970 standards, Springfield had made a very bold statement. The fact that she never married meant that the issue continued to be raised throughout her life from this point onwards, although she stated that she had enjoyed relationships with both men and women "and liked it". There is some debate among friends and fans regarding this issue; Springfield was intensely private about her personal life, and after the 1970 interview, she seldom directly addressed the issue or made a definitive statement regarding her sexuality in the press and questions of a certain nature were prohibited in press interviews. However, Springfield occasionally made subtle references and openly appreciated her homosexual audience. For example, during a 1979 concert at Royal Albert Hall in London , her last large scale concert in the UK, Springfield noted the number of obviously homosexual men in the front rows, commenting that she was "glad to see that the royalty isn't confined to the box", playing on the term "queens", which is also used to refer to homosexual men. This offended Princess Margaret , who was present in the box, and Dusty was sent a letter to be signed, apologising for insulting the monarchy. She still eventually received the OBE . Several biographies about Springfield have touched on the issue of Springfield's sexual orientation. Lucy O'Brien's biography ''Dusty'' (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989) mentions the rumours in passing. Penny Valentine's 2000 book ''Dancing with Demons'', which included significant contributions by Springfield's friend and manager Vicki Wickham, identifies Springfield as a Lesbian , indicating Springfield never had a relationship with a man, except when she had wanted to make a lover jealous. Singer-songwriter Carole Pope of the Canadian band Rough Trade disclosed in her 2001 book ''Anti-Diva'' that she and Springfield had a relationship and lived together in Toronto when Springfield worked with her (Pope wrote the song "Soft Core", which appeared on Springfield's ''White Heat'' album). LEGACY Springfield is widely regarded by many as one of the finest Soul singers of all time, an accomplishment made even more notable by the fact that she was a " Blue-eyed Soul " Singer — a white singer who sang material in a way normally associated with African-American Singers . It is also notable that she was held in high esteem by many Black Singers (such as Aretha Franklin and Martha Reeves ) whom she, in turn, also emulated and idolised. Aside from her contemporaries, many other artists have cited her as an influence or have cited their love of her music, including Neil Tennant , Elvis Costello , Beth Orton , Annie Lennox and Elton John . The diversity of music — Jazz , R&B , Pop , Rock , Show Tunes , Country , Electronica , and even Rap (in her song "Daydreaming") — and the authority with which she sang in those genres is often mentioned. Springfield was among few singers in the Rock Music genre known for their interpretive prowess. In her 2005 list for ITunes , Carole King accompanied her inclusion of " Son Of A Preacher Man " with the comment "there is a hole in music where Dusty Springfield used to be", and elaborated that Springfield was indeed a unique and respected talent (and premised the statement authoritatively by citing Springfield's many recordings of Carole King songs). POSTHUMOUS Springfield's work has continued to draw attention after her death, and the critical acclaim for '' Dusty In Memphis '' has kept her in the spotlight.
TRIVIA
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