Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield (Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, b.1939, d.1999) was a British pop singer, recording artist and record producer. Bringing in a considerable influence from the US soul scene of the early 60s, she had thirteen UK Top Twenty singles and three Top 10 albums between 1963 and 1968.
Continuing to record and perform in the seventies and eighties, with limited commercial success, her career was revived in the late eighties through her collaboration with Pet Shop Boys with whom she recorded the hit single What Have I Done To Deserve This?. 
Springfield died in 1999 from cancer, first diagnosed in 1994.
==Links to Peel==
Springfield made her first appearance on a Peel show as a backing singer for PP Arnold on her first and only session recorded and broadcast on Top Gear in January 1968. Peel does not appear to have played Dusty's records during her late 1960s commercial peak, probably because she (like Scott Walker, Alan Price and Georgie Fame) enjoyed the respect of contemporaries and British pop critics but was a little too showbiz for his taste at that time, making frequent TV appearances but having no connection with the hippy underground which he supported. (He did however express amusement at having received a Christmas card from her - presumably they were sent to all the other Radio One DJs.)
This began to change with her defining album Dusty in Memphis (1969), which gained praise from US rock critics in magazines such as Rolling Stone. From the album, her signature hit "Son Of A Preacher Man" and Drifters cover In the "Land of Make Believe" were both featured on the Peel-narrated Radio 2 documentary Jerry Wexler: Soul Man first broadcast in 1999. Both songs had been co-produced by Wexler.
In his Disc & Music Echo February 1973 column, entitled "Peel on the polls", Peel laments the non-appearance of singers such as Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins in the 1972 readers' polls, noting the presence of what he perhaps considered less worthy female singers such as ".. Dusty, Lulu and Clodagh (Rogers)".
In his review of Dusty's new single 'Learn To Say Goodbye' in an August edition of Sounds, however, Peel praised the singer, and was surprised that her last single had failed to become a hit. He remarked that, "Dusty has a stunning voice.." and that he and The Pig alike, ".. wish she'd have a hit record again". The artist was evidently one that both Peel and his wife enjoyed, stating, "We're on your side, Dusty". 
Much later, in 1985, Dusty attempted a comeback, with a performance that, according to her biographer Lucy O'Brien (Dusty: The Classic Biography Revised and Updated, London 2019), wasn't well-received. O'Brien gives an extract from a review of the gig by Peel, in which he criticises her outfit rather than her singing, but no source is given for the quote (p.204). 
For their third Peel session in 1978 Elvis Costello & The Attractions recorded a cover version of another Springfield hit '(I Just) Don't Know What To Do With Myself', originally written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1962. Dusty allegedly brought the song back to the UK from an overnight trip to New York City in February 1964 where she had met up with Bacharach. 
Other songs recorded by her appeared in Peel playlists in other versions, for example Goffin and King's "Goin' Back", which she recorded a year before the Byrds released a version as a single from their 1968 LP Notorious Byrd Brothers. "Breakfast In Bed", a track from Dusty In Memphis, was a UK hit in 1972 in a reggae cover version by Lorna Bennett, and Peel played it in the 1986 Caribbean Celebration programme he co-hosted. Yet despite a widespread critical view that Dusty was the best of the British female pop singers of the 1960s, JP seemed to ignore her work.
==Sessions==
*none
==Other Shows Played==
*none
==See also==
*KMEN British Pop Top Ten
*Roy Harper 1968 1969
*Petula Clark
*Randy Newman
==External links==
*Wikipedia
*Discogs
*Officialcharts.com
Category:Artists