Dusty Springfield: Ealing’s Iconic Soulful Voice and Her Journey Through Music

Brought to you by:

Sam Habeeb

"Shadow MP Campaigner of Ealing North"

Dusty Springfield: Ealing's Iconic Soulful Voice and Her Journey Through Music
Credit: This Day In Music

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien OBE (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999) was an English and Irish singer, commonly known by her stage name Dusty Springfield. She was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, pop, and dramatic ballads with French chanson, country, and jazz in her repertoire. During her 1960s peak, she ranked among the most successful British female performers on both sides of the Atlantic with her distinctive mezzo-soprano voice. Her image—peroxide-blonde bouffant/beehive hairstyles, heavy make-up (black eyeliner, eye shadow, and evening dresses), and stylized, gestural performances all made her the icon of the Swinging Sixties.

Career

Born in London’s West Hampstead to parents who loved their music, she learned to sing at home. In 1958, she first joined a professional group, namely the Lana Sisters. A full two years later, again with her brother Dion O’Brien (“Tom Springfield”) and Tim Field, she formed the folk-pop vocal trio the Springfields. Two of their five 1961–63 Top 40 UK “hits—”Island of Dreams” and “Say I Won’t Be There”—peaked at No. 5 on the charts, both in the spring of 1963. They also had success in the United States in 1962 with their cover of Silver Threads and Golden Needles.”.

Her solo career started late in 1963 with the bright pop single “I Only Want to Be with You”—a UK No. 4 hit and the first of her six transatlantic Top 40 hits in the 1960s, along with “Stay Awhile” (1964), “All I See Is You” (1966), “I’ll Try Anything” (1967), and two releases that are now considered her signature songs: “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” (1966 UK No. 1/US No. 4) and “Son of a Preacher Man” (1968/69 UK No. 9/US No. 10). The latter is on the 1968 pop and soul album Dusty in Memphis, one of the defining works by Springfield. The US Library of Congress added the album to its National Recording Registry in March 2020. That registry preserves audio recordings considered “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Was Dusty Springfield a heavy smoker?

She smoked two to three packs a day and drank too much, and with time the excesses caught up with her. In later life, her singles career went into eclipse, but she continued to tour and make records for other Elton John sets and the albums for Anne Murray. What’s Dusty Springfield’s biggest hit?

I only write for the money—oh, mercenary creature!” The highest-charting of Springfield’s 1964 releases were both Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs: “Wishin’ and Hopin'”—a US no. 6 hit which featured on A Girl Called Dusty—and “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself”, which in July peaked at no.

Why did Dusty Springfield stop singing?

Springfield was diagnosed with breast cancer while recording what would become her final album, 1995’s A Very Fine Love, and died of the disease in March 1999 at the age of 59.

How did Dusty Springfield offend Princess Margaret?

She had cracked a joke about the number of gay people at the concert, saying she was glad royalty wasn’t confined to the box, but Princess Margaret took it as a personal insult. Mortified, Dusty was then sent a typewritten message from the princess, which she was made to sign and return.

Who inherited Dusty Springfield’s money?

Instead, Trouble was cremated, and her remaining money went to the Helmsley Charitable Trust. Nicholas: When British singer Dusty Springfield died in 1999, she instructed that her money be used to care for her 13-year-old ragdoll cat.

What happened to Dusty Springfield’s cat?

Dusty Springfield’s will, made after she died in 1999, bequeathed a testament to her affection for her beloved pet cat. The British late singer, who also had an unrelenting passion for animal rights, stated that her 13-year-old pedigree feline, Nicholas, should be fed baby food, especially imported to Britain from the United States.

Did Dusty Springfield have bad eyesight?

Dusty does refer to her bad eyesight in one of the clips, and possibly Dusty wrote on her hands and arms as she learned her songs, but I did not think she used her arms for reference during her performance. To me, she was perfect.

Musical style

Influenced by US pop music, Dusty Springfield created a distinctive blue-eyed soul sound. BBC News noted her soulful voice, at once strident and vulnerable, set her apart from her contemporaries. She was equally at home singing Broadway standards, blues, country, or even techno-pop.”. Allmusic’s Jason Ankeny described here:

The greatest white soul singer of her generation, a performer of remarkable emotional resonance whose body of work spans the decades and their attendant musical transformations with consistency and purity unmatched by any of her contemporaries; though a camp icon of glamorous excess in her towering beehive hairdo and panda-eye black mascara, the sultry intimacy and heartbreaking urgency of her voice transcended image and fashion, embracing everything from lushly orchestrated pop to gritty R&B to disco with unparalleled sophistication and depth.

Personal life

Springfield’s parents, Catherine and Gerard, resided in Hove, East Sussex, from 1962. Catherine died in a nursing home there in 1974 of lung cancer. In 1979, Gerard died of a heart attack in Rottingdean, East Sussex.

Discography

Here are some details of her career:

  • A Girl Called Dusty (1964)
  • Stay Awhile/I Only Want to Be with You (1964)
  • Dusty (Dusty Springfield album) (1964)
  • You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (album) (1966)
  • Where am I going? (1967)
  • The Look of Love (album) (1967)
  • Dusty… Definitely (1968)
  • Dusty in Memphis (1969)
  • A Brand New Me (1970)
  • See All Her Faces (1972)
  • Cameo (1973)
  • It Begins Again (1978)
  • Living Without Your Love (1979)
  • White Heat (1982)
  • Reputation (1990)
  • A Very Fine Love (1995)
  • Faithful (2015, recorded in 1971)
  • Longing (Dusty Springfield album) (Unreleased, recorded in 1974)

What was the cause of Dusty Springfield’s death?

Dusty Springfield, the smoky-voiced English torch singer whose interpretations of pop ballads were suffused with a heartbroken wistfulness, died on Tuesday at her home in Henley-on-Thames, near Oxford, west of London. She was 59. The cause was breast cancer, said her agent, Paul Fenn.

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Brought to you by:

Sam Habeeb

"Shadow MP Campaigner of Ealing North"

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