Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield was born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien on 16 April 1939 in West Hampstead, England. Springfield’s elder brother, Dionysius Patrick O’Brien (2 July 1934 – 27 July 2022) was later known as Tom Springfield. Her father grew up in British India and worked as a tax accountant and consultant. Her mother came from an Irish family originally from Tralee, County Kerry.

She was given the nickname “Dusty” because she played football with boys in the street; she was described as being a tomboy.

At age 12 she recorded herself performing the Irving Berlin song “When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabama” at a record shop in Ealing.

After leaving school, Springfield sang with Tom, her brother, in local folk clubs and at holiday camps.

Dusty was a member of the girl group The Lana Sisters from 1958 to 1960.

In 1960, she formed a folk-pop trio, The Springfields, with Tom and Reshad Feild the latter of whom Mike Hurst replaced in 1962. The trio chose their name while rehearsing in a field in Somerset in the springtime and took the stage names Dusty, Tom, and Tim Springfield. The group travelled to Nashville to record Folk Songs from the Hills.

The band was voted the Top British Vocal Group in a New Musical Express poll in 1961 and 1962, although their two biggest hits were in 1963: “Island of Dreams” and “Say I Won’t Be There”, both peaking at number five within five weeks of each other. The group appeared on the ITV music series Ready Steady Go!, which Springfield often presented in the earlier days of its run.

Dusty released her first solo single, “I Only Want to Be with You”, in November 1963. The record was produced by Johnny Franz in a manner similar to Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound”. In January 1964, the single peaked at no. 4 on the UK charts during a lengthy (for the time) 18-week run.

In December 1963, New York disc jockey “Dandy” Dan Daniel of WMCA nominated “I Only Want to Be with You” as a “Sure Shot” pick of records not yet charted, preceding Beatlemania. The single debuted on Billboard’s Hot 100 a week after the debut of the Beatles’ first hit “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and in the same week as the debut of “She Loves You”, positioning Springfield at the forefront of the British Invasion.

The BBC’s 1964–2006 weekly chart-based music programme Top of the Pops debuted on 1 January 1964, with “I Only Want to Be with You” as the show’s opening track.

In 1965, Springfield reached the UK Top 40 with three hit singles: “Your Hurtin’ Kinda Love”, “In the Middle of Nowhere” and the Gerry Goffin/Carole King penned “Some of Your Lovin'”.

Springfield hosted a special Motown edition of the British TV music series Ready Steady Go! in April 1965, featuring the first national TV performances of Motown artists. The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Miracles and Martha and the Vandellas all appeared on the special.

“You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” released in 1966 proved to be her most successful single, reaching number one on the UK Singles Chart and number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Elvis Presley recorded another cover version in 1970 which was a hit in both the US and the UK.

In 1967, Springfield was nominated for the Best Contemporary (R&R) Solo Vocal Performance – Male or Female award at the 9th Annual Grammy Awards, losing to Paul McCartney for “Eleanor Rigby”.

Of the female singers of the British Invasion, Springfield made one of the biggest impressions on the US market, scoring 18 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 from 1964 to 1970 including six in the top 20.

John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin is credited as musical arranger & orchestra conductor and bass on Dusty’s fourth studio album Definitely.

Springfield was the presenter or host of several TV musical series including Dusty (1966–67), It Must Be Dusty (1968) and Decidedly Dusty (1969). Dusty performed with The Jimi Hendrix Experience on one episode of It Must Be Dusty which saw Jimi and Dusty performing a duet of “Mockingbird,” the soul number made famous by Inez & Charlie Foxx in 1963.

“What Have I Done to Deserve This?” (1987) marked British duo’s Pet Shop Boys’ first major collaboration with another recording artist. EMI Records did not want the duo to work with Springfield, instead suggesting Barbra Streisand or Tina Turner, however, the duo’s singer Neil Tennant was insistent on having Springfield record the song. A commercial success in both the United Kingdom and North America, the song helped revive Springfield’s career and led to a resurgence of interest in her music.

American filmmaker and actor Quentin Tarantino caused a revival of interest in her music in 1994 by including “Son of a Preacher Man” on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, which sold over three million copies.

During her lifetime Dusty Springfield released twenty-one studio albums, one live album and sixty-nine singles.

In January 1994, while recording her album, A Very Fine Love, in Nashville, Springfield began to feel ill. When she returned to England a few months later, her physicians diagnosed her with breast cancer. She received months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, and the cancer was found to be in remission. In 1995, in apparent good health, she set about to promote the album, which was released that year. By mid-1996, the cancer had returned, and despite vigorous treatments, Springfield died on 2 March 1999, aged 59, in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

Dusty Springfield was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two weeks after her death. Her friend Elton John helped induct her into the Hall of Fame declaring, “I’m biased but I just think she was the greatest white singer there ever has been… every song she sang, she claimed as her own”.