The Magic of Dusty Springfield
Universal****
Many female singers from the 1960s onwards have tried in vain to emulate the style – singing and otherwise – of Dusty Springfield (1939-1999).
The daughter of a woman from Co Kerry, Springfield (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien) began her career in her brother’s group The Springfields. But their folk-pop parameters weren’t wide enough for Dusty, and before you could close your eyes and count to 10, she was storming up the UK charts with a succession of songs that filtered classic soul, pop, rhythm’n’blues, and covers by the likes of mastercraft writers Phil Spector, Randy Newman and Burt Bacharach.
Springfield's decade was the 1960s, a golden period that included not just a string of hit records but also her classic album, Dusty in Memphis, which copper-fastened her reputation as not only the most distinctive of contemporary female pop singers (Lulu, Sandie Shaw and Cilla Black seemed creatively weak in comparison), but as the woman who effectively created white soul.
This four-disc box set might not cram every single hit tune you’d want to hear (you’d need a few Best Of compilations for that), but it leapfrogs over other packages with its range and breadth of material from less known areas of Springfield’s life.
Disc 1 contains the hits and, from the demo version of I Only Want to Be With Youto her gracious swan songs with Pet Shop Boys, it's essential. Disc 2: Rarities features an array of tunes that don't always hit the spot. Disc 3: Stage and Screen features several superb tunes (including The Look of Lovefrom the spoof Bond movie Casino Royale, and Nothing Has Been Provedfrom Scandal).
Best of all is the fourth disc, a DVD containing songs from Dusty's 1960s BBC television shows, and guest spots on the likes of The Morecombe & Wise Show.
So – a raft of mostly classy 1960s pop music from a panda- eyed, second-generation Irish singer whose ashes were scattered to the winds from the Cliffs of Moher.
Download tracks: Goin' Back, I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten, Wishin' Hopin', Son of a Preacher Man, I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself
