Album: Dusty In Memphis
Like much of my generation, I first came across Dusty from hearing Son Of A Preacher Man on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. First listens to this album did little to convince me there was anything of the same quality, but over the years I've come to appreciate Dusty In Memphis more and more. On side 1, lush sounding opener Just A Little Lovin' and closer Breakfast In Bed are sung beautifully and are full of overtly sexual references; perhaps this directness was one factor in the album's poor sales, a prudish American audience not ready for female displays of sexual confidence. On side 2, I'm not hugely keen on her version of Windmills Of Your Mind (nobody beats the Jacques Brel-like interpretation of Noel Harrison), but the two final Goffin & King tracks, No Easy Way Down (a "chin up" song of encouragement from parent to child) and I Can't Make It Alone are both magnificent. This really is one of the ultimate Sunday morning records.
Artist: Dusty Springfield
Born: West Hampstead, London
Released: March 1969
Genre: Soul
Influenced: Pretenders, Neko Case, Amy Winehouse
London was not only home to some of the best bands of the Sixties, but it also produced two of the best female singers of the era, Sandy Denny and Dusty Springfield. Dusty was heavily influenced by the early 60s soul sound, notably hearing Dionne Warwick's Don't Make Me Over while touring in the US with The Springfields in 1963 and deciding to leave the group to go solo. She became a pop superstar. By the end of the decade, soul did not command the same audiences as in its Sam Cooke and Otis Redding heyday, and had become more insular as a genre; going deeper and also splintering into psychedelia (Sly & The Family Stone, The Temptations) and funk (Isaac Hayes). New label Atlantic pulled out all the stops to make Dusty In Memphis a success, putting together a team of their best session musicians in Nashville, and they would have been encouraged by the success of single, Son Of A Preacher Man, released just after the album was recorded in September '68. Though the song was a Top 10 hit on both sides of the Atlantic, the album sold poorly when released first in the US in January '69 and later in the UK in March. As with many cases of albums growing in stature over the years (see the Zombies and Odessey & Oracle), the initial lack of commercial success brought Dusty's career to a premature end.
London was not only home to some of the best bands of the Sixties, but it also produced two of the best female singers of the era, Sandy Denny and Dusty Springfield. Dusty was heavily influenced by the early 60s soul sound, notably hearing Dionne Warwick's Don't Make Me Over while touring in the US with The Springfields in 1963 and deciding to leave the group to go solo. She became a pop superstar. By the end of the decade, soul did not command the same audiences as in its Sam Cooke and Otis Redding heyday, and had become more insular as a genre; going deeper and also splintering into psychedelia (Sly & The Family Stone, The Temptations) and funk (Isaac Hayes). New label Atlantic pulled out all the stops to make Dusty In Memphis a success, putting together a team of their best session musicians in Nashville, and they would have been encouraged by the success of single, Son Of A Preacher Man, released just after the album was recorded in September '68. Though the song was a Top 10 hit on both sides of the Atlantic, the album sold poorly when released first in the US in January '69 and later in the UK in March. As with many cases of albums growing in stature over the years (see the Zombies and Odessey & Oracle), the initial lack of commercial success brought Dusty's career to a premature end.
Like much of my generation, I first came across Dusty from hearing Son Of A Preacher Man on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. First listens to this album did little to convince me there was anything of the same quality, but over the years I've come to appreciate Dusty In Memphis more and more. On side 1, lush sounding opener Just A Little Lovin' and closer Breakfast In Bed are sung beautifully and are full of overtly sexual references; perhaps this directness was one factor in the album's poor sales, a prudish American audience not ready for female displays of sexual confidence. On side 2, I'm not hugely keen on her version of Windmills Of Your Mind (nobody beats the Jacques Brel-like interpretation of Noel Harrison), but the two final Goffin & King tracks, No Easy Way Down (a "chin up" song of encouragement from parent to child) and I Can't Make It Alone are both magnificent. This really is one of the ultimate Sunday morning records.
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