Time for an appreciation of Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien, or should I say Dusty Springfield (1939–99).

Part of a 60s’ generation of great British female singers like Lulu, Sandie Shaw, Cilla Black, and Petula Clark, Dusty was inspired by the Motown sound at a time when we keep hearing about all the British men who popularised blues and soul.

Among many YouTube playlists of Dusty songs, her You Tube topic is definitive. You don’t own me (1964) features in this list of feminist songs:

And here’s a fantastic live version of You don’t have to say you love me, which she first recorded in 1966:

Even her first hit I only want to be with you (1963) * is fabulous (not least for the major 7th leap at “Oh can’t you see“!):

Her passion for soul culminated in Dusty in Memphis (1969):

—including her version of Michel Legrand’s gorgeous The windmills of your mind.

The success of Pulp fiction (1994), with its scene featuring her song Son of a preacher man from that album, came wa-ay too late for her:

By then Dusty had belatedly became a gay icon; this doesn’t always involve being gay, but she really was—as she boldly hinted in 1970 before her career went on a downward spiral:

A lot of people say that I’m bent, and I’ve heard it so many times that I’ve almost learned to accept it. I know I’m perfectly capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more, people feel that way and I don’t see why I shouldn’t.

According to the mores of the day, as her biographer Karen Bartlett commented, “being gay was either a pitiable affliction or an actual mental illness”. Nor did men have a monopoly on self-destruction: Dusty handled all this with pills, coke, and vodka, leading to a sojourn in Bellevue, following illustrious alumni like Leadbelly, Bird and Mingus.

As a former partner observed, Dusty

wanted to be straight and she wanted to be a good Catholic and she wanted to be black.

I had no idea about any of this at the time! Gimme a break, I was getting into Sibelius, Shostakovitch, and Zen—weirdo.

Classic diligence from wiki: “not to be confused with Only wanna be with you“.