Queer Places:
38 Aubrey Walk, Kensington, London W8, Regno Unito
85 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6QS, Regno Unito
113 Baker St, Marylebone, London W1U 6RP, Regno Unito
Little Hill, Harpsden Bottom, Harpsden, Henley-on-Thames RG9 4HR, Regno Unito
St Mary the Virgin, Hart St, Henley-on-Thames RG9 2AU, Regno Unito
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien,
OBE[1]
(16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), professionally known as Dusty Springfield,
was an English
pop
singer and
record producer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s.
With her distinctive sensual
mezzo-soprano sound, she was an important
blue-eyed soul singer and at her peak was one of the most successful
British female performers, with six top 20 singles on the US
Billboard Hot 100 and sixteen on the
UK Singles Chart from 1963 to 1989.[2]
She is a member of the
US Rock and Roll and
UK Music Halls of Fame. International polls have named Springfield among
the best female rock artists of all time. Her image, supported by a
peroxide blonde bouffant
hairstyle,
evening gowns, and heavy make-up, as well as her flamboyant performances
made her an icon of the
Swinging Sixties.[3]
Born in
West Hampstead to a family that enjoyed music, Springfield learned to sing
at home. In 1958 she joined her first professional group,
The Lana Sisters, and two years later formed a pop-folk vocal trio,
The Springfields, with her brother
Tom Springfield and Tim Field. They became the UK's top selling act. Her
solo career began in 1963 with the upbeat pop hit, "I
Only Want to Be with You". Among the hits that followed were "Wishin'
and Hopin' " (1964), "I
Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" (1964), "You
Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (1966), and "Son
of a Preacher Man" (1968).
As a fan of US
soul
music, she brought many little-known soul singers to the attention of a wider
UK record-buying audience by hosting the first national TV performance of many
top-selling
Motown artists beginning in 1965.[3]
Partly owing to these efforts, a year later she eventually became the
best-selling female singer in the world and topped a number of popularity
polls, including
Melody Maker's
Best International Vocalist. Although she was never considered a
Northern Soul artist in her own right, her efforts contributed a great
deal to the formation of the genre as a result.[4]
She was the first UK singer to top the
New Musical Express
readers' poll for Female Singer.
To boost her credibility as a soul artist, Springfield went to
Memphis, Tennessee, to record
Dusty in Memphis, an album of pop and
soul
music with the
Atlantic Records main production team. Released in 1969, it has been
ranked among the greatest albums of all time by the US magazine
Rolling Stone and in polls by
VH1 artists,
New Musical Express readers, and
Channel 4
viewers.[5]
The album was also awarded a spot in the
Grammy Hall of Fame. Despite its current recognition, the album did not
sell well and after its release, Springfield experienced a career slump for
several years. However, in collaboration with
Pet Shop Boys, she returned to the Top 10 of the UK and US charts in 1987
with "What
Have I Done to Deserve This?" Two years later, she had two other UK hits
on her own with "Nothing
Has Been Proved" and "In
Private." Subsequently, in the mid-1990s, owing to the inclusion of "Son
of a Preacher Man" on the
Pulp Fiction soundtrack, interest in her early output was revived.
Springfield's parents, Catherine and Gerard, lived in
Hove,
East
Sussex from 1962. Catherine died in a nursing home there in 1976 of
lung
cancer.[139]
In 1979, Gerard died of a
heart attack in
Rottingdean, East Sussex.[139]
Some of Springfield's biographers and journalists have speculated that she
had two personalities: shy, quiet, Mary O'Brien, and the public face she had
created as Dusty Springfield. An editorial review at
Publishers Weekly of Valentine and Wickham's 2001 biography,
Dancing with Demons, finds that "the confidence [Springfield] exuded on
vinyl was a facade masking severe insecurities, addictions to drink and drugs,
bouts of self-harm and fear of losing her career if exposed as a
lesbian".[140]
Simon Bell, one of Springfield's session singers, disputed the twin
personality description: "It's very easy to decide there are two people, Mary
and Dusty, but they were the one person. Dusty was most definitely Dusty right
to the end."[141]
In her early career, much of her odd behaviour was seen as more or less in
fun—described as a "wicked" sense of humour—including her
food
fights and hurling crockery down stairs. Springfield had a great love for
animals, particularly cats, and became an advocate for
animal protection groups. She enjoyed reading maps and would intentionally
get lost to navigate her way out.[13]
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Springfield's
alcoholism and
drug addiction affected her musical career.[105]
She was hospitalised several times for
self-harm
by cutting herself, and was diagnosed with
bipolar disorder.[19][142]
Springfield was never reported to be in a heterosexual relationship and
this meant that the issue of her sexual orientation was raised frequently
during her life.[143]
From mid-1966 to the early 1970s Springfield lived in a domestic partnership
with fellow singer
Norma Tanega. In September 1970, Springfield told
Ray
Connolly of the
Evening Standard:
Many other 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. More and more people feel that way
and I don't see why I shouldn't.[143][144]
By the standards of 1970, that was a bold statement.[143]
Three years later, she explained to Chris Van Ness of the
Los Angeles Free Press:
I mean, people say that I'm gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. I'm
not anything. I'm just ... People are people ... I basically want to be
straight ... I go from men to women; I don't give a shit. The
catchphrase is: I can't love a man. Now, that's my hang-up. To love, to
go to bed, fantastic; but to love a man is my prime ambition ... They
frighten me.[13]
In the 1970s and 1980s, Springfield became involved in several romantic
relationships with women in Canada and the US that were not kept secret from
the gay and lesbian community. From late 1972 to 1978, Springfield had an "off
and on" domestic relationship with Faye Harris, a US photojournalist.[145]
In 1981 she had a six-month love affair with singer-musician
Carole
Pope of the rock band
Rough Trade.[19]
During periods of psychological and professional instability, Springfield's
involvement in some intimate relationships, influenced by addiction, resulted
in episodes of personal injury.
In 1982 Springfield met an American actress
Teda Bracci at an
Alcoholics Anonymous meeting; the pair moved in together in April 1983,
and seven months later, they exchanged vows at a wedding ceremony which was
not legally recognised under California law.[146]
The pair had a "tempestuous" relationship which led to an altercation with
both Springfield and Bracci hospitalised; Springfield had been smashed in the
mouth by Bracci wielding a saucepan and had teeth knocked out, requiring
plastic surgery.[91][146]
The pair had separated within two years.[146]
In January 1994, while recording her penultimate album, A Very Fine Love,
in
Nashville, Tennessee, Springfield felt ill. When she returned to England a
few months later, her physicians diagnosed her with
breast cancer.[99]
She received months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, and the cancer
was in remission.[100]
In 1995, in apparent good health, Springfield set about promoting the album,
which was released that year.[101]
By mid-1996, the cancer had returned, and in spite of vigorous treatments, she
died in
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire on 2 March 1999.
Her induction into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had been scheduled 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."[102][103]
Springfield's funeral service was attended by hundreds of fans and people
from the music business, including
Elvis Costello,
Lulu, and
Pet Shop Boys. It was a Catholic funeral, which took place at the ancient
parish church of St. Mary the Virgin in Henley-on-Thames, where Springfield
had lived during her last years. A marker dedicated to her memory was placed
in the church graveyard.[104]
Springfield was cremated and some of her ashes were buried at Henley, while
the rest were scattered by her brother,
Tom Springfield, at the
Cliffs of Moher in Ireland.
My published books:
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