Dusty Springfield Songs Live on in the Memory
On 14th November 2006 Dusty Springfield became the first British female solo artist to be inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. In March 1999 she was honoured with the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) and this was followed by her induction into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April of the same year. Three major honours to an outstanding talent who’s career spanned four decades. Dusty Springfield songs live on in people’s memories.
Born Mary Isabel Catherine O’Brien on 16th April 1939 in Hampstead, London, Dusty was exposed from a very early age to the eclectic musical tastes of her father: jazz, rhythm and blues, the classics and show tunes were all absorbed by the young Mary. In later years Dusty would say that as a youngster she developed a crush on the voice of Peggy Lee who became a major influence in those early years, as did the likes of Jelly Roll Morton, Ella Fitzgerald and indeed her own elder brother Dion (later Tom Springfield).
It has been suggested that an unhappy family background, combined with the strictures of an Irish Catholic upbringing, contributed in no small part to an underlying sense of insecurity that Dusty seemed to have experienced throughout significant parts of her life. There is an argument to say that such insecurity found expression in the way she perceived her own image, the lack of confidence in her singing abilities and an almost obsessive longing to achieve absolute perfection in her work. She also displayed an inherent shyness. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that these very traits of hers acted as the catalyst, enabling Mary O’Brien to develop into the persona who achieved international stardom as Dusty Springfield.
