Homage to Dusty Springfield «My sexuality has never been a problem to me but I think it has been for other people.» by Philipp Schmidt
up already in 1963, when Dusty left the band in order to work more independently as an artist. The singer began her career as a soloist in 1963 with her first single I ONLY WANT TO BE WITH YOU, a number 4 hit in the British charts, and started off rather dramatically when she refused to perform in front of an “ethnically separated audience” in South Africa in December 1964. Upon her own request, Dusty’s recording contract was one of the first to explicitly exclude performances in front of a segregated audience. After a concert held nearby Cape Town, the South African government cancelled her tour, expelled her from the country and under military supervision took her to the airport. And there, while she was getting onto the plane, coloured people saluted her as a sign of respect for her actions and as a protest against the government. In the mid-1960s she hosted the weekly music and talk show Dusty on the BBC and was publishing further songs and albums. Especially DUSTY IN MEMPHIS (1969) was highly praised by the critics and included the song SON OF A PREACHER MAN (1968). However, commercial success in the late 1960s and 1970s failed. At the same time, problems in her private life started. It is said that during the 1970s and early 80s the singer consumed large amounts of drugs and alcohol and she was repeatedly hospitalized due to dangerous self-inflicted injuries. Moreover, her relationship with the singer Norma Tanega, which was speculated to have been not only purely platonic, ended.
Dusty Springfield was one of the most outstanding and most successful women in the music business. With hits like I ONLY WANT TO BE WITH YOU (1963) and YOU DON’T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME (1966), she became famous worldwide within the course of 40 years in which she was performing on stages in the whole world. With her peroxide blonde hair and lots of make-up, the British singer who dressed in long evening dresses became a symbol of the so-called Swinging Sixties and was given nicknames like The White Queen of Soul or The Face of Blue-Eyed Soul. However, this is only one side of a woman who used her popularity to fight against apartheid and rarely talked about her private life, with the latter being a reason for the yellow press to speculate about it even more. This woman, who made only suggestive comments about her life beyond the stage and who covered her true face behind mascara and make-up, remained a mystery for most people. Even journalists and her biographers say that she had two personalities: Dusty Springfield, the glamorous singer, and Mary O’Brien, the shy daughter of an Irish woman and a Brit born in India, who achieved worldwide fame. “You see, I was a bit of a tomboy, and my friends thought that Dusty was an appropriate nickname for a girl who liked to play football in the streets with the boys.” The girl, who liked playing football in the dirt with the boys from the neighbourhood and therefore was nicknamed Dusty, was born on April 16th 1939 in North London. Inspired by the musical talent of her family, she became a member of the band The Lana Sisters in 1958, and in 1960 she founded the band The Springfields together with her older brother Dionysius, who called himself Tom from then on, and musician Tim Feild. Mary O’Brien now became known to the public as Dusty Springfield, the singer with the husky voice. The trio was quite successful in Great Britain and the USA with their country folk hits ISLAND OF DREAMS (1962) and GOLDEN THREADS AND SILVER NEEDLES (1962), however, they broke www.cine-plus.de
“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.” It is said that during the following years the singer – who is said to have had her longest relationship with a male with her tomcat Nicholas – had several love affairs with both men and women, among them the rock singer Carole Pope. In 1979, Dusty, who had been talking indirectly about being attracted to both men and women in an interview nine
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