Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Although she died more than a quarter century ago and her songs – not even her best pop hits of the early-mid Sixties – seldom get radio play these days, most people with an interest in music would have (or know that should have) a Greatest Hits and her 1968 Dusty in Memphis albums in their collection.
She came from folk with the Springfields (her voice utterly distinctive on their single Island of Dreams), moved into pop with a string of hits, notably I Only Want to be With You, Stay Awhile, Wishin' and Hopin', Little By Little, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me and Goin' Back.
As a lover of black American soul and great promoter of it through her television show she delivered the seminal Dusty in Memphis.
After that many seemed to lose touch with her (we picked up on the follow-up to Memphis, From Dusty With Love) until her brief revival courtesy of the Pet Shop Boys in the late Eighties.
This album recorded in New York in 1974 was intended to be released after her Cameo album, but because it had been a commercial flop and she was riddled with self-doubt it was shelved.
Over the years the songs trickled out on a couple of compilations but now here its as originally intended.
And it's terrific.
Some might say it is a bit swamped by lush arrangements in places but there are spectacular songs here, among the best is her aching interpretation of Janis Ian's In the Winter (a heartbreaking account of a lonely woman meeting an old flame) and Barry Manilow's I Am Your Child where Springfield reaches into that fragility at her core.
She could certainly pick songs and the writers here include Mann and Weil (Make the Man Love Me), Chi Coltrane (Turn Me Around) and Melissa Manchester with Carole Bayer Sager (the weepy Home to Myself).
Sadness and a solitary soul (check Exclusively For Me) was a fine default position for Springfield but here she also reaches back to the classic soul she loved with her version of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Every Day).
It's too much to expect that a new generation or even old fans will discover this fine Dusty album which is, admittedly not up there alongside Dusty in Memphis.
But it's pure Dusty and she was wrong to have doubts about it.
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You can hear this album at Spotify here
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