“You don’t own me”: The story of Dusty Springfield
Everybody thinks they know the story of Dusty Springfield, the chart-topping, soul-singing sister of West Hampstead. Among the many musical icons to arise from the swinging 1960s scene in London, Dusty found a name herself in pop music, driven by her incredible vocal talents and strong image. But alas, this was the 1960s, and a strong female figure within the music industry simply wouldn’t do, and so the powers that be sought to tear her down. Thankfully, these efforts would not succeed, and Springfield remains an iconic figure to this very day; she was a peroxide-blonde revolutionary.
The first step on Dusty’s path to musical greatness came in 1957, when she saw an advert for singers to join The Lana Sisters. Springfield, who was going by her birth name Mary O’Brien at the time, had been singing with her older brother, Dionysius, since leaving school and decided to take a leap of faith by responding to the advert. Her period with The Lana Sisters – who, incidentally, were not related to each other in any way – is often overlooked and, in fairness, none of the tracks the vocal group recorded are particularly worthy of note. For Dusty, though, the group offered her a taste of the decadent world of music – allowing her to experiment with her look, perfect her vocal techniques and tour across the country.
Although the band was fairly successful, the tides of the music world were changing; the rockabilly of the 1950s was on its way out, and the 1960s was here – a decade of cultural revolution. So, after three years with the fictional sisters, Dusty broke off from the band in 1960 to form The Springfields.
Harmonising within the pastoral surroundings of Somerset, Dusty, along with her brother, Dionysius, and friend Reshad Feild, the trio settled on the name The Springfields. In a proto-Ramones fashion, the three members took on stage names, so Mary became Dusty Springfield, Dionysius became Tom Springfield and Reshad – who, presumably, didn’t get the memo – became Tim Feild.
The band initially placed a focus on folk and country stylings, but after a trip to Nashville, the band – Dusty, in particular – became fascinated with the newfound influx of pop music. Pivoting to pop, The Springfields acted as a sort of springboard for Dusty Springfield’s career, bringing national attention to her signature tones. The band would be fairly successful in the UK, even achieving two number-one singles in ‘Island of Dreams’ and ‘Say I Won’t Be There’ but, just like The Lana Sisters, there was a feeling that something was missing. While Tom and Tim were undeniably talented, Dusty was the clear star, and she craved independence.
After years of biding her time in the background, Dusty was ready to become the star she was so clearly meant to be. Releasing her debut solo single, the Spector-esque ‘I Only Want to Be With You’ in 1964, Springfield quickly established herself as an iconic symbol of the swinging 1960s and began her reputation as a stalwart of the singles charts. Inarguably, ‘I Only Want to Be With You’ is an excellent pop song, but there is also a sense of ‘right place, right time’ when it comes to the release. Debuting in the US singles charts the same week as The Beatles early hit ‘She Loves You’, Dusty was able to capitalise on the blossoming British invasion, though she would soon eclipse many of the groups that characterised the scene.
If anybody had somehow missed the success of The Springfields, the all-encompassing victory of ‘I Only Want to Be With You’ was virtually unavoidable. Reaching number four in the UK charts, the single cemented itself within the nation’s cultural fabric, being the first song ever performed on the long-running music programme Top of the Pops. With her peroxide blonde beehive beamed into living rooms across the United Kingdom, Dusty became something of a cultural phenomenon. Quickly, though, Dusty was keen to confirm that she was not merely a pop singer. She was a distinguished and prolific artist ready to shake up the cultural landscape.
Soon after the release of her stunning debut album A Girl Called Dusty – which should go down as one of the finest debut albums of all time – Dusty set herself apart from the commercialism of the music industry. During a tour of South Africa, with The Echoes, Springfield took a defiant stance against the discrimination of apartheid. While many artists would criticise the horrific state of affairs in South Africa, few would act similarly. The vocalist outright refused to perform in any venues which were racially segregated, leading to the band quickly being deported from the country. Upon her speedy return to the UK, the singer was hailed for the revolutionary political stance she had taken, but in her mind, it was much simpler: if people want to listen to her music, they should be allowed to do so.
Dusty was always keen to champion the underrepresented and oppressed. After all, she had helped to introduce the vibrancy of soul music to the UK, at a time in which racist attitudes were rampant throughout the nation and, therefore, a great deal of suspicion over the soul genre. Springfield was regularly viewed in the same category as singers like Lulu or Cilla Black, who would cover tracks by Black artists to make them more palatable for racist audiences, but that is a pretty unfair comparison. Dusty was not covering tracks in a Pat Boone-esque instance of sanitisation. She was making the songs her own while simultaneously paying tribute to the original soul singers.
By the end of the 1960s, Dusty was on top of the world. With an impressive run of hit singles, including the number one ‘You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me’, and groundbreaking albums like Dusty in Memphis, Dusty was a certified pop sensation. On the other hand, she was a powerful female artist operating by her own rules, and that was threatening the male domination of the music industry at the time. So, in the great tradition of the British tabloid press, it was time to tear her down.
For some bizarre reason, Dusty’s sexuality was often the topic of conversation for interviewers, given the fact that the same questions were rarely asked of artists like The Beatles or The Who, even though they regularly employed much more sexual imagery than Dusty. This fascination was likely down to her being – shock horror – a woman. After a few years with no boyfriend appearing in the public eye, some publications began to toy with the idea that Springfiled was a lesbian, a fact which wouldn’t matter in the present day and shouldn’t have done back in the 1960s. In an attempt to set the record straight, she spoke to the Evening Standard in 1970. The article itself is a travesty, with the so-called-journalist focusing largely on the singer’s appearance and obsessing over her weight and sexuality, but it is notable for the quote that would destroy Dusty’s career: “I know that I’m as 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.”
These short few lines would be viewed as an admission of bisexuality by the singer, causing her career to take a steep nosedive and eventually leading to her retiring from public life entirely. Whether or not the quote could be considered as her ‘coming out’ is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things; the whole point was that it should not matter what her sexuality was. She was a singer. However, the interview did provide comfort to thousands of ostracised queer people across the world, proof of bisexual representation within the music industry. That industry, however, had turned its back on Dusty Springfield.
It was not until nearly a decade after that interview that the world would hear from Springfield again, as she returned to music with It Begins Again in 1978. During this period, Springfield was heavily influenced by the modern sounds of new wave and synthpop, making her one of the first 1960s icons to embrace the modernity of electronic music. Yet, it was largely ignored. Dusty released a few more albums and singles, but the world had moved on. There did not seem to be a place for her anymore. For years, that could have been the tragic finale of the career of Dusty Springfield but thankfully, Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant stepped in to save the day.
Inviting Dusty to sing on their track ‘What Have I Done to Deserve This’, Pet Shop Boys sparked a resurgence of interest in Dusty Springfield’s career. All of a sudden, people were dusting off their copies of A Girl Called Dusty and finally viewing the vocalist for the genius she so obviously was. While attitudes towards bisexuality were still pretty negative in the mid-1980s, there were a hell of a lot more liberal than what had gone before, and groups like Pet Shop Boys were flying the flag for LGBTQ+ voices in pop music.
Following the duet with Pet Shop Boys, Dusty went on to produce many more records well into her later life. Tragically, the gifted singer passed away in 1999 after a battle with breast cancer, but her legacy never slipped away. 25 years after her passing, her music is still hailed as some of the finest to arise from the pop scene of the 1960s, and she is remembered for her pioneering and defiant stances on racism, gender and sexuality. To sum up the complexities of Dusty Springfield in one word would be impossible, but the only word that gets remotely close to doing so is simply, ‘icon’.