Dusty Springfield Biography
Summary
"Dusty Springfield" OBE (April 16, 1939–March 2, 1999) was a popular British singer whose career spanned four decades. She achieved her most notable success during the 1960s, with a successful comeback in the late 1980s.
Biography
Early life and group career
"Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien" (born April 16, 1939, in West Hampstead, London, England) was brought up in the west London borough of Ealing. She was of Irish heritage. The name 'Dusty' was given to her when she was a child, probably as she had been a tomboy in her early years. As a child, she was a fan of American Jazz and the music of Peggy Lee. At age 11, she went into a local record shop in Ealing and made her first record, an amateur imitation of Peggy Lee singing the Irving Berlin song 'When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabam'.
Mary O'Brien's first professional musical experience came in 1958, when she joined the British vocal group the Lana Sisters and recorded a number of singles with them over the following two years. In 1960 she left the Lana Sisters and formed the pop-folk trio the Springfields with brother Dion O'Brien and Tim Feild (the two of whom had been working together as the Kensington Squares). According to Tim Feild, the new trio chose 'the Springfields' as their name while practising in a field in Somerset in the spring of that year. So Mary became Dusty Springfield, while brother Dion took the name Tom Springfield.
The first recording contract the Springfields signed was offered to them by producer Johnny Franz at Philips Records in London. With early singles including 'Breakaway' and 'Bambino', and numerous television appearances, the trio soon became very popular in the UK. After Tim Feild left the group, he was replaced by Mike Hurst, and the Springfields became even more successful. Their biggest hit, the Tom Springfield composition 'Island of Dreams', was released towards the end of 1962, rose to the Top 5 and stayed in the charts for six months. Earlier in 1962 the Springfields had scored a Top 20 hit in the United States with their single 'Silver Threads and Golden Needles'. Pre-Beatles, this was quite an achievement for a British act.
In late 1962, intent on making an authentic American album, the Springfields travelled to Nashville, Tennessee, to record "Folk Songs from the Hills". It was during a stopover in New York City that Dusty Springfield, already a fan of black vocal groups such as the Shirelles, first heard 'Tell Him' by the Exciters and immediately became smitten and inspired by its sound. This was a key moment for Springfield. She felt at once that her own future was now clearly signposted. It was no longer in the direction of the folk- and country-influenced sounds of the Springfields but towards a form of pop music more rooted in rhythm and blues. She felt, too, that she would have to assume a position of far greater control, especially in the recording studio. Her desire to move on, however, was prompted not only by personal ambition but also by a growing sense that pop music was about to change for ever. By early 1963 the Springfields had for two successive years been voted Britain's Top Vocal Group, but a trip around this time to Liverpool's Cavern Club, where the trio now witnessed the raw power of a live performance from the ascendant Beatles, told them their days were numbered. So even though the Springfields were at the height of their fame - the spring of 1963 bringing them another UK Top-5 hit with 'Say I Won't Be There' - they each agreed that the time had come for them to think about going their separate ways. They played their last gig in October 1963.
Tom Springfield and Mike Hurst both largely gave up performing but remained in the music business. As primary songwriter, and record producer, for the UK-based Australian pop-folk band the Seekers, Tom Springfield scored major hits in the UK, the United States and Australia. Hurst, too, achieved success as a producer and worked in that capacity with Cat Stevens, Manfred Mann, the Move, the Spencer Davis Group, Showaddywaddy, the Four Tops and others.
Solo success
Dusty Springfield's first single, 'I Only Want to Be with You', was released in November 1963, just three weeks after the Springfields had disbanded, and was a big success, rising to number 4 in the British charts. In the States it was a 'sure shot' on WMCA in New York, even before the station had started playing the Beatles, and went on to become a Top 10 hit locally in New York, while reaching number 12 nationally. It was followed in 1964 by a string of successful singles, including 'Stay Awhile', 'All Cried Out' and 'Losing You'.
Springfield remarked that she had become a fan of composer Burt Bacharach in 1962, when she had been deeply impressed by Dionne Warwick's recording of 'Don't Make Me Over', a song written by Bacharach and his lyricist partner Hal David. Springfield herself was to record a number of their compositions, including another two 1964 releases: 'Wishin' and Hopin'', a Top 10 hit for her in the States, and 'I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself', which reached number 3 in Britain. She was later chosen to record the original version of 'The Look of Love', another notable Bacharach-David composition, for the 1967 spoof Bond movie "Casino Royale". 'The Look of Love' was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song of 1967. That year, Springfield's recording of the song was a Top 10 radio hit on stations like KGB in San Diego and KHJ in Los Angeles, but in 1968 a cover version by Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66 became a bigger hit and reached the national Top 10. The song appears, however, to have remained more closely associated with Springfield, whose interpretation is widely regarded as definitive.
By the mid-1960s, Springfield was one of the biggest solo artists of her day. Other hit singles included the 1965 releases 'Your Hurtin' Kinda Love', 'In the Middle of Nowhere' and 'Some of Your Lovin". Her greatest hit, 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me', was released in 1966. It reached number 4 in the US charts, while in Britain it went the full distance to number 1 (and was the only one of her records to do so). Springfield first heard this song when it was performed in its original Italian at the San Remo Music Festival in 1965. She moved quickly to get hold of an acetate demo, but it took another twelve months for the English lyrics to materialise. These, in the end, came from her friend and future manager Vicki Wickham, who wrote them with Simon Napier-Bell, reportedly in the back of a cab the night before Springfield was due to record the song.
Early in her career, Springfield created a controversy when she refused to play in front of a segregated crowd in South Africa. She had a clause written into her contract that specifically stated she would perform only before mixed audiences. She performed two concerts thus, and was promptly asked by the South African government to leave the country. She stated that she didn't intend her insistence on the clause to be any sort of social statement, but rather that she felt anyone should be able to listen to her music.
Springfield was often a featured artist, and also, the first guest on the British television music show "Ready Steady Go!", produced by Vicki Wickham, who would later become her manager. Because of her great, almost obsessive, enthusiasm for Motown music, Springfield was selected in 1965 to host "The Sound Of Motown", a "Ready Steady Go!" special that introduced Motown and American soul music to British audiences. In the 1994 video biography, "Dusty - Full Circle", several of the musicians who participated, most notably Martha Reeves, one of Springfield's favourite singers, credited the media exposure, and Springfield's advocacy of the music, with helping them to break into the British pop charts. Similarly, Dusty would later suggest to the heads of Atlantic Records that they should sign the newly-formed Led Zeppelin in the wake of the Yardbirds dissolution (and the remaining members' contractual freedom from Columbia Records). The signing of Led Zeppelin is considered one of the great A&R coups that would distinguish Atlantic. Both incidents testify to Springfield's forward-thinking music business savvy.
Springfield's successful recording and performing career led to her being given four UK television series of her own: "Dusty" (BBC, 1966 and 1967), "It Must Be Dusty" (ITV, 1968) and "Decidedly Dusty" (BBC, 1969). Her shows featured many leading stars of the day as guests. One of the most memorable was the now legendary rock guitarist and singer Jimi Hendrix, who appeared on one of the 1968 shows and duetted with Springfield on the song 'Mockingbird'. The master videotape of this appearance was later erased, although a brief fragment of Hendrix's performance on the show, filmed directly off the television screen by a fan, has survived.
Like many other solo singers who did not write their own songs, Springfield's recording career was dependent on the quality of the material she could obtain, and by the end of the decade, top-notch material was becoming harder to find. Carole King, whose songs had provided Springfield with a number of album tracks as well as two of her biggest UK hit singles, 'Some of Your Lovin" (1965) and 'Goin' Back' (1966), was embarking on a singing career of her own, while the chart-busting Bacharach-David partnership was foundering. Springfield's status in the music industry was further complicated by the gradual fracturing in the late 1960s of the formerly homogeneous pop market into many distinct musical genres. Her music was coming to be seen as 'unhip' at a time when hipness was necessary for musical success. In addition, her performing career was becoming bogged down on the UK touring circuit, which at that time largely consisted of Working Men's clubs and the hotel and cabaret circuit.
By 1968, Springfield's name was appearing in the charts less frequently than before, although a notable success that year was the UK Top-5 hit 'I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten'. So hoping to reinvigorate her career and boost her credibility, she signed with Atlantic Records, home label of one of her soul music idols, Aretha Franklin, and began recording an album in Memphis, Tennessee, with ace producers Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd. The Memphis sessions, which took place at the American Studios, were a challenge for Wexler. He was not used to working with an artist who was in such habitual pursuit of perfection, and he was surprised, given Springfield's talent, by her apparent insecurity. Springfield later attributed her initial unease to a very real anxiety about being compared with the soul greats who had recorded in those same studios. In the end, the Memphis tracking sessions were completed without any major work being done on the vocals, almost all of which were recorded some weeks later in New York.
Despite the anxious moments during production, the album, "Dusty in Memphis", was released in 1969 to great critical acclaim. Now regarded as Springfield's "magnum opus", it has over the years appeared in several 'best of all time' lists, including those compiled by "Rolling Stone" magazine in the United States and "Q" magazine in Britain. "Dusty in Memphis" is probably best known for 'Son of a Preacher Man', which was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Surprisingly, though, the album itself was a commercial disappointment.
'Son of a Preacher Man' can be seen as encapsulating some of the ironies of Springfield's career and how she perceived herself in comparison with other artists. The song had originally been offered to, and turned down by, Aretha Franklin. When Franklin later relented and recorded it herself around 1970 as an album track, Springfield felt Franklin's version was superior and thereafter adopted some of Franklin's phrasing when performing the song live. Yet it was the original Springfield version of 'Son of a Preacher Man' that was to enjoy a significant revival in the 1990s: it was featured in a scene from Quentin Tarantino's film "Pulp Fiction" (1994), the soundtrack of which became a best seller.
The seventies and eighties
Springfield's second album for Atlantic Records, "A Brand New Me", was released in 1970 (and appeared in the UK on the Philips Records label with the title "From Dusty with Love"). Although it yielded the Top 25 single 'A Brand New Me', the album itself was as commercially unsuccessful as "Dusty in Memphis". It was one of the first works produced by Gamble and Huff productions, who would go on to great success in the R&B genre with their 'Philadelphia sound'. Gamble and Huff themselves wrote all the songs; however, production is anonymously credited to 'Staff'. A third album for the Atlantic label, produced by Jeff Barry, was abandoned because of unsuccessful single releases (including the intended title track '(I'll Be) Faithful'. The masters were later destroyed in a fire, but Barry reportedly kept copies of the intended final mixes, and most of the material was released on the 1999 American deluxe reissue of "Dusty in Memphis" on Rhino Records. Her next album, "See All Her Faces" (1972), was released only in Britain. With a mix of tracks recorded in England and the States between 1969 and 1971, "See All Her Faces" had none of the cohesion of her previous two albums. In 1972 Springfield signed a contract in the States with ABC Dunhill Records, and the resulting album, "Cameo", was released early in 1973 with a minimum of publicity. It remains the hardest to find of Springfield's official discography. The album's producers (Lambert & Potter) went on to make a string of hits with, among others, the Four Tops and Glen Campbell.
In 1974, Springfield began work in New York on a second ABC Dunhill album, which was given the working title "Elements" but scheduled for release as "Longing". Its producer was Brooks Arthur, who had been responsible for hit records by singer-songwriters such as Janis Ian. Arthur produced for the "Longing" album a version of Ian's 'In the Winter' that was to rank among Springfield's most critically acclaimed recordings, with Ian quoted as saying that after hearing Springfield's performance, she felt she could no longer 'do the piece justice'. The "Longing" sessions, however, were eventually abandoned due to Springfield's problematic personal life at the time, but much of the resulting material was later released (including, controversially, some tentative and incomplete vocals) on the 2001 compilation "Beautiful Soul".
Springfield put her career on hold during the mid-1970s, though she did sporadic work with fellow artists like Anne Murray and Elton John, providing background vocals on John's hit single 'The Bitch Is Back'. She continued to work on material for new albums throughout the late 1970s for the United Artists Records label, resulting in the albums "It Begins Again" (1978) and "Living Without Your Love" (1979). Both were critically lauded, but commercially unsuccessful; only "It Begins Again" charted on either side of the Atlantic, and only briefly made the British charts. During this time Springfield had very few charting singles and soon drifted from popular view.
She then endured a string of bad luck with record companies. In London she recorded two singles for her British label, Mercury Records (part of the Phonogram group). The first was the disco-influenced 'Baby Blue', which reached number 61 in Britain. The second, 'Your Love Still Brings Me to My Knees', was to be Springfield's final single for Phonogram, who after twenty years were appearing to lose interest in the singer. Returning to the States, Springfield signed a deal with Twentieth Century Fox Records, which resulted in the unsuccessful single 'It Goes Like It Goes' (a cover version of the song from the film "Norma Rae"). Next came the 1982 album "White Heat". Heavily influenced by the New Wave genre, this album was something of a departure for Springfield, who was uncharacteristically proud of the piece. Due, however, to corporate reorganisation, "White Heat" ended up on the Casablanca label and, despite some excellent reviews, was released only in the USA and Canada. (Casablanca, with no distribution outlet in the UK, had been hopeful of securing its UK release through Phonogram, but the British company declined, feeling that Springfield was no longer popular enough to warrant the expense of promotion.) It was not long after the record's release that another reshuffle saw the end of Casablanca Records, and "White Heat" was eventually absorbed into the Universal Music Group along with Springfield's Phonogram recordings. This, though, was no bad thing, as it meant that a good number of the singer's important works were now in the hands of one company. As such, future retrospectives could be released with a minimum of licensing and its associated 'negotiations' between labels
Springfield tried to revive her career again in 1985 by returning to the UK and signing to Peter Stringfellow's Hippodrome Records label, which resulted in a single called 'Sometimes Like Butterflies' and a disastrous appearance on Stringfellow's live television show. The song was released against Springfield's wishes with a practice vocal recorded while she had laryngitis. The singer left the label in response.
A return to popularity
Springfield's fortunes finally took an upward turn in 1987, when she accepted an invitation from the British pop duo Pet Shop Boys to sing with the duo's Neil Tennant on their single 'What Have I Done to Deserve This?' and appear in its promotional video. The record became a best seller around the world, rising to number 2 in both the British and the American charts and bringing Springfield firmly back into public view. The song subsequently appeared on the Pet Shop Boys' album "Actually", as well as on both of their greatest-hits collections. It was also included on the US compilation "The Dusty Springfield Anthology" (1997), which was the singer's first major retrospective in the States. Springfield and the duo performed the song at the 1988 BRIT Awards ceremony in London. Eleven years later, shortly after Springfield had died, the Pet Shop Boys staged a special version of 'What Have I Done to Deserve This?' as part of their "Nightlife" tour in 1999. This time, Neil Tennant sang with Springfield by means of a video projection that featured the late singer's performance from their original promotional video along with clips of her television appearances from the 1960s. Footage of this event was later released on the Pet Shop Boys DVD "Montage".
Also in 1987, Springfield sang lead vocals on the Richard Carpenter track 'Something in Your Eyes', which was recorded for Carpenter's album "Time" and released as a single, becoming a number-12 Adult Contemporary hit in the US. There was now a significant resurgence of interest in Springfield's music, and in 1988 a new compilation of her greatest hits, "The Silver Collection", became a best seller. Springfield was soon back in the studio with the Pet Shop Boys, who now produced her recording of their song 'Nothing Has Been Proved'. This had been commissioned for the soundtrack of the film "Scandal", based on the 1960s British political scandal known as the Profumo Affair. 'Nothing Has Been Proved', released as a single in early 1989, gave Springfield another Top 20 hit in the UK, as did its follow-up, the upbeat 'In Private', which was written and produced, again, by the Pet Shop Boys. Springfield capitalised on these achievements by recording the 1990 album "Reputation". This was another Top 20 success. The writing and production credits for half of the album, which included the two recent hit singles, went once more to the Pet Shop Boys, while the album's other producers included Dan Hartman.
Prior to recording the "Reputation" album, Springfield's success with 'What Have I Done to Derserve This?' and "The Silver Collection" had persuaded her that the time was right to leave California for good. So by 1988, along with her two cats, she had relocated to Europe. She lived briefly in Amsterdam, where there are no quarantine restrictions, and finally settled back home in England, initially in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.
In 1993 Springfield was invited to record a duet with her former 1960s professional rival and friend Cilla Black. This was 'Heart and Soul', from Black's "Through the Years" album, which was recorded for Sony Records. Springfield herself was subsequently offered a recording contract by Sony, for whom, in 1994, she made what was to be her final album, "A Very Fine Love". Although she recorded it in Nashville, Tennessee, Springfield was emphatic that "A Very Fine Love" was a pop, rather than a country, album. One or two of the songs, however, were written by well-known Nashville songwriters and produced with a typical country feel.
The last song Dusty Springfield ever recorded was the George and Ira Gershwin standard 'Someone to Watch over Me'. This recording was made in London in 1995 for an insurance company's television advertisement and was eventually made available commercially in 2000, when it was included on "Simply Dusty", the extensive anthology the singer had helped plan but would not live to see released.
Death
Before releasing her final album, "A Very Fine Love", in 1995, Springfield was diagnosed with breast cancer. While recording the album the previous year in Nashville she had felt unwell, but it was only when she returned home to England that she discovered the cause. She received treatment and, for a time, the cancer was in remission. In apparent good health again, Springfield set about promoting the album and gave a particularly memorable live performance of one of its tracks, 'Where Is a Woman to Go?', on the television music show "Later With Jools Holland" (BBC), backed by singers Alison Moyet and Sinéad O'Connor.
The cancer was detected again in the summer of 1996, and Springfield, after a spirited fight, was eventually defeated. She died, aged 59, on 2 March 1999, just ten days before her induction into the U.S. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The day she died was also the day she had been due to go to Buckingham Palace to receive her OBE medal. A short while earlier, however, officials at St James's Palace had given permission for the medal to be collected from them by Springfield's manager Vicki Wickham, who duly presented it to the singer in hospital, where they had been joined by a small party of Springfield's friends and relations.
The singer's funeral service, which attracted considerable media attention, was attended by hundreds of fans as well as such figures from the music business as Elvis Costello, Lulu and the Pet Shop Boys. It took place in Oxfordshire, at the ancient parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Henley-on-Thames, where Springfield had lived for the last few years of her life. A marker dedicated to her memory can now be found in the church's graveyard. Some of Springfield's ashes were buried at Henley, while the rest were scattered by her brother, Tom Springfield, at the Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland.
Career challenges and personal struggles
Springfield had been raised as a strict Catholic and, despite her reported reluctance to participate in confession and Mass, she kept her faith in a Higher Being to the end of her life. The conflict between her conservative religious faith and her life was one that affected her deeply. Springfield's biographers and several journalists have suggested she had two personas: shy, quiet Mary O'Brien, and the persona she created in Dusty Springfield.
In all aspects of her career, but especially in the studio, Springfield was a notorious perfectionist. Some labeled her as 'difficult'. Much of this can now be seen as a reaction from male colleagues who, in a very male-dominated industry, were wholly unused to women taking control in the studio. She often produced her songs, but could not take credit for doing so, as it was seen as bad form. Springfield's musical ear was very finely tuned and she was totally intolerant of anything less than perfection, which some session musicians did not appreciate. To add to the challenges, she did not read and write music as the session musicians did, making it even harder for her to communicate what she wanted. She was notorious for her agonisingly painstaking vocal sessions, during which she would often record short phrases or even single words or syllables, over and over again, to get the precise feeling and musical quality that she wanted. She was not alone in this practice: many of the Motown artists in the 1960s had wrecked the nerves of recording engineers by insistently punching in vocal phrases (a practice which overwrites the recorded vocal but in the 1960s could have ruined an entire recording if anything went wrong). Springfield's version of this technique was decidedly extreme by all accounts.
Springfield's biographers attribute much of her 'difficult' behaviour to her dysfunctional family background and her deep insecurity, which began in childhood. Her mother was prone to explosive rages and would often throw things to express anger - a trait which Springfield herself soon adopted. Her accountant father, conversely, was quiet and withdrawn, and it is evident that, at least in part, her mother's violent 'acting out' was an attempt to gain her husband's attention. Mary/Dusty's growing insecurity was heightened by her parents' blatant favouring of her older brother Dion (Tom).
In her early career much of her odd behaviour was carried out more or less in fun - like her famous food fights - and it was at the time dismissed as merely 'eccentric'. One story related in her biography tells how, when Springfield first performed in America, she was too nervous to meet the other performers on the bill, so she found a box full of crockery and hurled it down a flight of stairs in order to bring the other performers out of their dressing rooms.
But as the Springfield persona became more and more famous, she was indulged, pampered and spoiled, and plummeted into chronic drug and alcohol abuse. For much of the Seventies, living in Hollywood, Springfield alternately battled mental health and substance abuse issues. When her career imploded, she began to internalise her violent behaviour. The seriousness of her increasingly frequent acts of self-harm resulted in her being hospitalised on numerous occasions. Though she reportedly attempted suicide several times, it was later realized that she was battling with the mental health problem of cutting.
Sexuality
Throughout much of Springfield's career, her sexuality was a matter of speculation. In 1970, she disclosed that she was bisexual when she told Ray Connolly of the London "Evening Standard" during an interview that 'A lot of 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.' By 1970 standards, Springfield had made a very bold statement. The fact that she never married meant that the issue continued to be raised throughout her life from this point onwards, although she stated that she had enjoyed relationships with both men and women 'and liked it'.
There is some debate among friends and fans regarding this issue; Springfield was intensely private about her personal life, and after the 1970 interview, she seldom directly addressed the issue or made a definitive statement regarding her sexuality in the press and questions of a certain nature were prohibited in press interviews. However, Springfield occasionally made subtle references and openly appreciated her homosexual audience. For example, during a 1979 concert at Royal Albert Hall in London, her last large scale concert in the UK, Springfield noted the number of obviously homosexual men in the front rows, commenting that she was 'glad to see that the royalty isn't confined to the box', playing on the term 'queens', which is also used to refer to homosexual men. She still eventually received the OBE.
Several biographies about Springfield have touched on the issue of Springfield's sexual orientation. Lucy O'Brien's biography "Dusty" (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989) mentions the rumours in passing. Penny Valentine's 2000 book "Dancing with Demons", which included significant contributions by Springfield's friend and manager Vicki Wickham, identifies Springfield as a lesbian, indicating Springfield never had a relationship with a man, except when she had wanted to make a lover jealous. Singer-songwriter Carole Pope of the Canadian band Rough Trade stated, in her 2001 book "Anti-Diva", that she and Springfield had a relationship in Toronto when Springfield worked with her. (Pope wrote the song 'Soft Core', which appeared on Springfield's " White Heat" album).
Legacy
Springfield is widely regarded by many as one of the finest soul singers of all time, an accomplishment made even more notable by the fact that she was a 'blue-eyed soul' singer - a white singer who sang material in a way normally associated with African-American singers. It is also notable that she was held in high esteem by many black singers (such as Aretha Franklin and Martha Reeves) whom she, in turn, also emulated and idolised. Aside from her contemporaries, many other artists have cited her as an influence or have cited their love of her music, including Neil Tennant, Elvis Costello, Beth Orton, Annie Lennox and Elton John. The diversity of music - jazz, R&B, pop, rock, show tunes, country, electronica, and even rap (in her song 'Daydreaming') - and the authority with which she sang in those genres is often mentioned. Springfield was among few singers in the Rock Music genre known for their interpretive prowess. In her 2005 list for iTunes, Carole King accompanied her inclusion of 'Son of a Preacher Man' with the comment 'there is a hole in music where Dusty Springfield used to be', and elaborated that Springfield was indeed a unique and respected talent (and premised the statement authoritatively by citing Springfield's many recordings of Carole King songs).
Posthumous
Sprigfield's work has continued to draw attention after her death, and the critical acclaim for "Dusty in Memphis" has kept her in the spotlight.
In what was considered a very rare departure from royal protocol, Queen Elizabeth said she was 'saddened' to learn of Springfield's death.
In November 2006 Springfield was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame; 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me' was performed by singer Patti LaBelle and 'Son of a Preacher Man' was performed by Joss Stone.
In Australia, a hit musical based on Springfield's life, "Dusty The Original Pop Diva", premiered in January 2006 to wide acclaim and sold-out performances. The musical starring Tamsin Carroll as Springfield, won a 2006 Helpmann Award for Carroll as Best Female Actor in a Musical. Deni Hines plays Reno, an imaginary character who represents Springfield's bisexual relationships and the prejudice of the time.
Currently, there are several movie projects in the works based on Springfield's biographies. One project is slated to have Broadway actress Kristin Chenoweth portraying Springfield.
A British musical opened on February 23 2000 at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley. There was a reasonably successful nationwide tour but no West End transfer. The musical tells the story of Dusty's life through the memories and dreams of Carol, a fictional, middle-aged housewife and devoted fan. Dusty was played by Mari Wilson, Carol by Chrissie Cotterill and the Director was Bob Tomson.
Miscellaneous
Dusty Springfield had a great love for animals, particularly cats, and was an advocate for several humane groups.
In the late 1980s, for use over the main credits of US television's "Growing Pains", Springfield, with singer BJ Thomas, recorded the third version of 'As Long as We Got Each Other', the show's theme song. This version was used during the show's fourth season (1988-1989).
Springfield recorded the song 'Bits and Pieces', written by Dominic Frontiere and Norman Gimbel, for Richard Rush's Oscar-nominated film "The Stunt Man" (1980). Sections of 'Bits and Pieces' are used twice in the film, while the song's melody is echoed in parts of Frontiere's score.
UK jazz-pop duo Swing Out Sister have covered two songs associated with Dusty Springfield: 'The Windmills of Your Mind' (1989) and 'Am I The Same Girl?' (1992). They have also performed live the Springfield-associated song 'Where Am I Going?'
Springfield is mentioned as being a favorite singer of the fictional Dempsey sisters in the 2000 novel "Welcome to Temptation" by American romantic comedy writer Jennifer Crusie.
Springfield's theme song for U.S. television's "The Six Million Dollar Man" was used over the opening credits of the early episodes in 1974 but was dropped when the credits were subsequently replaced with those that became the staple for the series: 'Steve Austin ... astronaut.' http://youtube.com/watch?v=Je8Tp9TeB8I
A sample from 'Son of a Preacher Man' was used on Cypress Hill's cult-classic stoner-culture song 'Hits from the Bong' on their album " Black Sunday" (1993).
Future well-known music producer Terry Manning attended the recording sessions for "Dusty in Memphis" in 1968 as a writer/photographer for "New Musical Express", but also ended up assisting recording engineer Tom Dowd.
Two of Springfield's songs appeared on an episode of the US television series "Ally McBeal". The show's character Georgia Thomas has also referenced two of Springfield's songs.
Springfield is referenced in the stage play "A Mad World, My Masters" (1977) by British writer Barrie Keeffe and in the novels "Stripping Penguins Bare" (1991) and " The Wimbledon Poisoner" (1990) by respective British writers Michael Carson and Nigel Williams.
'I Only Want to Be with You' was used as the theme song for the US television sitcom "Arli$$" (HBO).
Springfield's 1968 song 'I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten' was used on the UK teen soap "Hollyoaks" in a September 2007 episode where John Paul McQueen and Craig Dean parted ways. (... more)
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Dusty Springfield.
