Dusty Springfield – ‘A Girl Called Dusty’
Few singers have enjoyed the same lasting popularity or impact as the peroxide blonde revolutionary Dusty Springfield. From her humble beginnings in West Hampstead, Springfield – born Mary O’Brien – soon became a globally recognised figure of pop, iconic of the swinging sixties era. Of course, the world had first witnessed Springfield’s unique tones through the bands The Springfields and The Lana Sisters, but it was with the release of A Girl Called Dusty in 1964 that audiences were first exposed to the sheer power of Springfield’s voice as a solo artist.
On the fact of the album is a fairly standard mid-1960s collection of pop songs. If you scratch beneath the surface, however, A Girl Called Dusty represents so much more than that. Not only does it provide a stunning introduction to the voice of Dusty Springfield, it also encapsulates the broad range of styles and genres the singer can adapt herself to.
Springfield was often criticised around the release of this album for taking on styles of soul and Motown, given her position as a white woman from England. However, Springfield makes every single song her own, sprinkling in her own identity and distinctive performance. Furthermore, this record was instrumental in exposing UK audiences to the American styles of soul and Motown that would have perhaps gone otherwise ignored were it not for artists like Dusty Springfield.
This brings us to the elephant in the room: Dusty Springfield did not write any of the tracks featured on this album. The likes of Burt Bacharach and Hal David provided the bulk of raw material, but can an album be truly great if it does not come from the songwriter themselves? Yes, absolutely. She might not have written the songs herself, but I would defy anybody to listen to this album and suggest that she does not mean every single word that she sings. After all, Billie Holiday is considered among the greatest vocalists of all time, even though she did not write all her own material; it is all about the emotion these artists imbue the songs with through performance.
It is also worth remembering the period in pop history in which this album was constructed. The idea of ‘concept albums’ had yet to gain popularity, so virtually every pop album was merely a collection of tracks that the record label thought had hit potential. A Girl Called Dusty is not immune from that construction, however it does have a sense of flow and narrative not afforded to many of the singer’s contemporaries. It feels like so much more than an album, acting almost as a rallying cry for the singer, refusing to ever be restricted to the sidelines again.
The infectious voice of Dusty Springfield acts as the audience’s guide through these seemingly disparate songs and styles. Among them, a definitive highlight is ‘You Don’t Own Me’, a song which would go on to represent the personal manifesto of the vocalist herself. Throughout her career, Springfield outright refused to conform to expectations of her as a female pop singer, blazing her own path and doing so brilliantly.
Ultimately, A Girl Called Dusty is a perfect pop album. Capturing a range of themes ranging from melancholy and heartbreak to dancing and optimism, the record provides a moment for every mood, without ever feeling disjointed or dragging. As far as debut solo albums go, they don’t come much greater than that of Dusty Springfield – take notes, Lou Reed.