Search - Dusty Springfield :: Dusty Springfield Story

A Beautiful Portrait (with some pixels missing)

Mark D. Prouse | Riverdale (Bronx), NY | 09/06/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Imagine, if you will, a beautiful, digital portrait of a striking, blonde woman, marred by clumps of missing pixels here and there...



There was no reason for me to buy this collection, other than the handsome package, as I have pretty much every official recording Dusty made in my collection already (and then some, if you count live recordings offered through her fan club, kept afloat through THE DUSTY SPRINGFIELD BULLETIN). I suppose I'm just a confirmed Dusty Fanatic, as there are plenty of things wrong with this particular offering, and I snatched it up anyway!



With such a small lifetime catalog (fewer than 300 officially released, studio-recorded songs), and a sizeable and loyal (if scattered) worldwide following, I guess it was inevitable that these songs would be endlessly recycled. The question is, why bother with the umpteenth chronologically ordered anthology, especially since entire albums have gone unrepresented here? There are NO selections from A BRAND NEW ME, CAMEO, IT BEGINS AGAIN, LIVING WITHOUT YOUR LOVE or WHITE HEAT. This makes the title of this compilation, THE DUSTY SPRINGFIELD STORY, laughably inappropriate, and the choice to order the songs in strictly chronological order truly hair-brained! Imagine a biographical book being published with a third of its chapters left out! The chapters that did make it onto the shelf are, of course, full of life and charm. This is, after all, Dusty, one of the truly great pop singers of all time. But one song, "Wishin' And Hopin'," included on EVERY bloody Dusty Springfield collection, has always been among my least favorite of her songs (I prefer the German and Italian versions she recorded, so I don't have to hear the insipid, pre-feminist words; I don't speak either language). Everything else here is near-perfection, though, if one chooses to ignore the annoying fact that, at running times of approximately 54 and 68 minutes respectively, there was plenty of time left over to fill in the gaping holes. A nicely presented, book-styled package, which includes several beautiful photos, also includes a sparsely filled-in timeline underneath the somewhat skimpy biographical notes. Among the items mentioned is CAMEO, and I quote, "April 1973: CAMEO album released and regarded a career low point." By whom, exactly? I'm among the many fans who love that album, with its fantastic versions of "Easy Evil" and Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" reason enough to own it!



My fix would be a revised edition, with one song each from the snubbed albums: the title tune from A BRAND NEW ME, CAMEO's "Tupelo Honey," "Checkmate," a blazing Nona Hendryx number from IT BEGINS AGAIN, "You Can Do It," a slow-burning, funky track from LIVING WITHOUT YOUR LOVE, and Sting's "I Don't Think We Could Ever Be Friends," from WHITE HEAT. There might be enough room left over to throw in a few underexposed nuggets, like "It's Over," a sublime bonus track from the CD reissue of THE LOOK OF LOVE, "Time After Time," a performance to rival Frank Sinatra's version, a rare item that finally saw the light of day as a bonus track on the CD version of WHERE AM I GOING, or "Welcome Home," my very favorite Dusty recording, also from THE LOOK OF LOVE. And to right a definite wrong, I would mention the name of Dusty's duet partner on "As Long As We've Got Each Other;" B. J. Thomas' name appears nowhere in this entire package!



On the upside, Dusty's own "Once Upon A Time" and "Something Special" are included here (she hardly ever wrote material other than these two early, solo efforts), and a lovely, rarely heard track, "If It Hadn't Been For You" shows up near the end of Disc 1. Disc 2 finishes with the grand "Roll Away," which hasn't made it onto many other D. S. compilations. This cut, from Dusty's swan song CD, A VERY FINE LOVE, is among her most breathtaking recordings, and I thought, upon its release, that it would be a huge hit (there was a video made, but I don't know who saw it; I sure didn't, other than a snippet included long after the fact in the FULL CIRCLE DVD).



This release missed some opportunities; more thought should have gone into the selection and sequencing process. It is too short. Other than those things I mentioned above, it is still Dusty, and if you are someone who has just recently come under her spell, there is much here to recommend it as a place to begin.

"

I Agree With The Previous Review

James Fenos | Columbus, OH United States | 04/30/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I was eyeing this product for a long while and to my delight I found this at Best Buy for $19.00. Happy that I found a Dusty Springfield release at Best Buy at all I quickly grabbed this, paid for it, left, got in my car and read the track listings at red lights on my way home. As I got closer to my home I realized the "story" is a bit limited, in fact really limited, to Dusty's Universal recordings, we fans who know her chronology by heart know what album's are not represented. The "informative" liner notes state "Cameo" marks a low point in Dusty's career. Was the person writing the liner notes listening to the same "Cameo" as we?? Slanted as this collection may be the mastering is superb but it's really too brief. For a more comprehensive two disc set may I suggest the import version of "Gold"?"