Two By Dusty Springfield

By , April 8, 2014 12:50 pm

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Miss Dusty Springfield

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Listen/Download Dusty Springfield – Live It Up

Listen/Download Dusty Springfield – Go Ahead On

Greetings all

I have something exceptionally groovy for you today.

A while back,my friend Gail Smith, proprietress of the most excellent ‘Work Your Soul’ podcast (go ahead and take a minute to subscribe, if you haven’t already) turned me on to the record you see before you today.

Dusty Springfield is thought of today as one of the premiere ‘blue-eyed’ soul singers of the classic era.

This is something that I grappled with quite a bit over the years.

The concept of ‘blue-eyed soul’ i.e. soul music made by white singers, is a very flexible one, often expanded to include one-off ‘soul’ records recorded by decidedly non-soul performers.

I have come to the point where I feel that the term ought to be disposed of, since there was a lot of ‘bleed’ if you will from both sides of the racial divide, with black, soul-identified singers recording pop music and a fair amount of white singers spending a lot of their time making excellent, soulful music.

Monday’s selection was by the mighty Ray Charles, one of the most stylistically flexible performers ever, who basically made whatever kind of music he felt like, each record succeeding by virtue of its excellence, categories be damned.

Dusty Springfield’s reputation as a soul singer is usually tied to her late-60s recordings, especially the 1969 ‘Dusty In Memphis’ LP which included her most enduring hit ‘Son of a Preacher Man’.

Oddly enough – and I was stunned by this – Dusty Springfield never hit the Billboard R&B charts!

A look at her chart success reveals that here in the US, until ‘Son Of a Preacher Man’, her hits were almost exclusively pop songs and big ballads.

My surprise had a lot to do with my perception of Springfield, and had me raising an eyebrow every time someone called her a ‘soul singer’ (many of these commenters never having heard of singers like Linda Lyndell, Lydia Pense, Bonnie Bramlett or Chris Clark)

It was only fairly recently – thanks to some direction by Gail – that I dug deeper into the Springfield canon and discovered a very prominent vein of R&B and soul material.

The first track I bring you today appeared on Springfield’s first US LP, 1964’s ‘Dusty’.

Though the bulk of the LP’s tracks (including excellent versions of ‘Can I Get a Witness’ and ‘Do Re Me (Forget About the Do and Think About Me)’) was recorded in the UK with Ivor Raymonde, it also includes material from a session recorded in New York.

What is especially interesting about this session – other than the fact that it produced the excellent ‘Live It Up’ – was that it was produced by Shelby Singleton and arranged by Ray Stevens.

While both of these guys were doing heavy work in the 60s, they were doing most of it in Nashville, and I don’t know what the impetus was for bringing them to New York to record with Springfield.

‘Live It Up’ is a stomper, with a blazing vocal by Springfield and some great, gospel-inflected backing vocals. The tune was released as a single but only had some small amount of regional chart success.

The second track I bring you today is an especially tasty one.

‘Go Ahead On’ was the B-side of a UK-only 45 (the A-side, ‘All I See Is You’ was a UK Top 10 hit in September of 1966). It was co-written by Springfield and none other than the great US-born but UK-based singer Madeline Bell! Bell, along with Kiki Dee, had spent time working as a backing vocalist for Springfield.

‘Go Ahead On’ is a record that – had it been released in the US – might have changed the direction of Dusty Springfield’s career a few years earlier. It is without any question a ‘soul’ record, with a Chicago/Curtis Mayfield edge to it and an outstanding lead vocal.

Aside from her biggest pop hits, her discography is filled with R&B/soul covers, including tunes by Lee Dorsey, Marvin Gaye, Margie Hendricks, the Sand Pebbles, Laura Lee, Garnet Mimms and Mitty Collier among others.

If – like me – you had your reservations about Dusty Springfield, especially in regard to her soulful side, the time is ripe for reappraisal.

I hope you dig the tunes, and I’ll see you on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

One Response to “Two By Dusty Springfield”

  1. Randy says:

    Wow, “Go Head On” does sound like a record that could have been made by The Impressions in the mid 60’s.

    I have to admit, I never sat down and listen to any of Dusty’s music before. This is a real cool track.

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