Britain's greatest pop diva, Dusty Springfield was known during her lifetime as The White Lady Of Soul, an accolade accorded to no other singer. Her work spans the decades with a consistency and purity unmatched by any of her contemporaries. Though an icon of glamorous excess with her towering beehive hairdo and panda-eye black mascara, the sultry intimacy of Springfield's voice transcended image and fashion.

Mary O'Brien was born in London to Irish parents on April 16, 1939.  After completing her schooling she joined The Lana Sisters, a pop vocal trio. In 1960, she teamed up with her brother Dion and his friend Tim Feild to form the folk trio The Springfields at which point she adopted the stage name Dusty Springfield. Following a series of hits including Breakaway and Say I Won't Be There the group was soon the UK's best-selling act.

After the Springfields entered the US Top 20 in 1962 with Silver Threads And Golden Needles the group crossed the ocean to record in Nashville, where exposure to the emerging American girl-group and Motown sounds had such an impact on Dusty that in 1963 she left The Springfields at the peak of their fame to pursue a solo career.

Her first single, I Only Want To Be With You quickly reached the British Top Five and also fell just shy of the Top Ten in the US. Her biggest American Top Ten hit, Wishin' and Hopin', was the first in a series of Springfield smashes from the pen of songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David. She would subsequently record other Bacharach/David classics including Anyone Who Had A Heart and I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself.

By the end of 1964 Springfield was arguably the biggest solo act in British pop, winning the first of four consecutive Best Female Vocalist honors in the NME. In that same year she also created a political furor after she was deported from South Africa for refusing to play in front of racially segregrated audiences.

Dusty used to campaign to get the little known American soul singers a better audience in the UK. In 1965 she hosted the television special The Sound Of Motown, a show widely credited with introducing the Sound of Young America to their British counterparts, and continued producing smashes like Losing You and In The Middle Of Nowhere.  In 1966, she scored her biggest international hit with the ballad You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, which topped the UK charts and reached the Top Five in the US.

By 1968, however, Springfield's commercial fortunes were on the decline. She signed to the American label Atlantic, travelling to Memphis to record what would become known as her masterpiece: Dusty In Memphis was released in early 1969 and remains her most famous and critically acclaimed album. Although the classic single Son Of A Preacher Man reached the Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic, the album itself did not sell too well. In 1972 Springfield relocated from London to New York City, eventually settling in Los Angeles where she recorded 1973's Cameo, another critical success which like its predecessors made virtually no impact on the charts.

Springfield spent the mid-1970s outside of music battling substance abuse problems. She finally resurfaced in 1978 with It Begins Again..., followed a year later by Living Without Your Love. Both attracted little notice. Apart from a handful of soundtrack contributions, Springfield was silent until returning to London in 1982 to record White Heat, an album firmly grounded in the prevailing synth-pop sound of its times. Again, despite good critical notices, a comeback failed to materialize. She would release just a handful of singles over the next few years, including the 1987 duet with Richard Carpenter, Something In Your Eyes.

Upon returning to California in 1987, Springfield was contacted to collaborate with the Pet Shop Boys on a duet titled What Have I Done To Deserve This? The single was a global blockbuster and it introduced her to a new generation of listeners. The Pet Shop Boys also agreed to produce some of tracks for 1990's Reputation, which became Springfield's best-selling new album since her Sixties-era peak. The follow-up, 1995's country-influenced A Very Fine Love, was recorded in Nashville. During sessions for the album, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and after months of radiation therapy the illness was believed to be in remission. By the summer of 1996, however, the cancer had returned.

In the meantime she had returned home to the UK and on March 2, 1999, Dusty Springfield died at the age of 59. That year her huge contribution to the world of music was finally recognised officially in her own country and she was honoured with an OBE by Queen Elizabeth. Ten days after her death she was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at a posthumous ceremony in New York.

 

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