“My sexuality has never been a problem to me but I think it has been for other people.”
TRQ: Dusty Springfield, Born April 16, 1939
Pop singer and record producer Dusty Springfield, whose solo hits include “I Only Want to Be with You” (1963) and “Son of a Preacher Man” (1969), was born in London, England. After her turbulent childhood in Hampstead, Springfield joined the girl group The Lana Sisters and then formed The Springfields, a British folk music trio, with Tim Feild and her brother Tom Springfield.
Interested in a wide range of music from a young age, from Irving Berlin and George Gershwin to Duke Ellington and Peggy Lee, Springfield travelled with the trio to Nashville to record the album Fold Songs from the Hills for an authentic American sound, which consequently influenced her musical style towards rhythm and blues and soul pop. The Springfields were voted “Top British Vocal Group” in both 1961 and 1962 by NME.
However, once Springfield went solo in 1963, with her bleached bouffant hairstyle, heavy mascara, and fragile vocal delivery, she became a face and voice of the London Swinging Sixties movement. Devoted as ever to her love of soul music, in 1966 she began hosting Dusty, a television show promoting the Motown sounds and artists like The Supremes and The Temptations to British audiences. She also recorded “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” that same year, which proved to be another career high point.
However, once Carole King began her solo career in 1968, she no longer supplied songs to Springfield with the same consistency. Additionally, Springfield’s commitment to blues and soul, and her television work with artists such as Stevie Wonder and Jimi Hendrix, strained her relationship with Burt Bacharach to the point where she was faced with changing her sound.
Consequently, she travelled to Memphis to record Dusty in Memphis in 1969, after signing with Atlantic Records, which included the hit originally meant for Aretha Franklin, “Son of a Preacher Man.” This album is considered to be her best. Rolling Stone, VH1, NME and Channel 4 have named Dusty in Memphis as one of the greatest albums of all time, and it was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, the album did not sell well, and Springfield’s career settled into a slump.
In her private life, Springfield had relationships with both men and women. In 1970, she insisted, “People say that I’m gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. I’m not anything.” Through the mid 1960’s to the early 1970’s, she was involved with singer Norma Tanega, who wrote several songs recorded by Springfield. She was also romantically linked to photojournalist Faye Harris and signer Carole Pope. In 1982, she married Teda Bracci in a ceremony not recognised legally. They lived together for two years.
Icon to gay, lesbian and straight audiences, Springfield’s career reignited with her collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys’ “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” in 1987, and the inclusion of “Son of a Preacher Man” on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack in 1994.
Springfield was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994. After battling illness for years, she died at home with Norman, her cat, in Oxfordshire on March 2, 1999. On that day Springfield had originally been scheduled to receive the Officer of the Order of the British Empire award at Buckingham Palace, but officials of Queen Elizabeth II presented the award to her early while she was hospitalised in January.
Two weeks after her death, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Elton John, for whom Springfield had sang backup. At the time he confessed, “I’m biased but I just think she was the greatest white singer there ever has been … every song she sang, she claimed as her own.” In 2006, Springfield was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. From 1963 to 1989, she had six top 20 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 and sixteen on the UK Singles Chart.
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