Customer Reviews

From Dusty With Love

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If this is the very first time you've heard FROM DUSTY WITH LOVE (A BRAND NEW ME in the US), hold on to your hat...cause it grows on you..like a bad fungus! When I first heard this album I thought it was rather bland actually (and my Amazon.com review under the US Rhino Release "A Brand New Me" reflects that) but now it's one of my favorites.

Like a good wine, you really can't appreciate all the complexities of this album until you've gotten used to it and know what to look/listen for.

Dusty's vocal work on this album is perhaps her best ever, perhaps even better than DUSTY IN MEMPHIS (sacrilege!). The intensity of "Lost", the sheer longing in "Never Love Again" (especially the opener), the funk/soul of "Let's
Talk It Over" (and the expert use of amazing vocal riffs towards the end) the tenderness of "Let's Get Together Soon" (the "wrong or right, day and night, I miss you, and all my heart seems to do" section gets me where I live every single time!), this is Dusty at her laid-back soulful best.

Vocally she was at her peak and it shows. The 3 bonus tracks are wonderful, especially the alternate takes of "The Richest Girl Alive" and "Summer Love"..(2 tracks cut from the original pressing but then released on the compilation LOVE SONGS last year). Vocally, these takes sound better,but the tempo in the arrangements is a bit dirge-like.

Less formal than DUSTY IN MEMPHIS, less eclectic than her other work, this album really is a work of art that I usually don't
recommend to Dusty beginners,it has to grow on you,and it will. Believe me, it will.

Like Dusty once sang..."If you only give me time..."

From Dusty....With Love is the ground-breaking Philly-Soul masterpiece that is one of the very finest to come from the Gamble & Huff classic period that really got started with this awesome release and Gamble & Huff made the right selection by starting off their superb vocal lp productions with the masterful Dusty Springfield who remains to this day at the top of the heap of the all time greatest blue-eyed soul singers...this stunning collection of great originals with smoldering and magnificent vocal performances is the ultimate!!!
Dusty goes deep inside of each song in a way that is unsurpassed and never was this peerless singer finer...opening with a hot cooking bass, "Lost" would have easily gone to #1 if programmed and promoted so that people could hear this engrossing classic...after a few listens all of these great songs grab the listener in a way that is rare...such amazing greatness and the interplay between Dusty and the musicians is totally awesome but again commercial radio programmers missed the boat and The Grammy Award foundation must have been tired and zoned out!!! "Bad Case Of The Blues" is a velvety smooth vocal that becomes a soulful classic while the bluesy and hypnotic athem "Never Love Again" aches with longing and yearning of lost love with a vocal so completely magnificent that it demands repeated listens...it is that moving and riveting! Standouts abound in this incomparable collection with "Let Me In Your Way" being very smooth and unique while the inviting "Let's Get Together Soon" is soulfully infectious. "A Brand New Me" was a hit featuring a stellar Dusty vocal supported by a great rhythm track and throughout this brilliantly arranged collection are great musicians at their peak and tremendous background vocals! "Joe" is hauntingly beautiful with a smoldering vocal full of pathos and drama then "Silly, Silly Fool" is bright and breezy hit single with a cooking rhythm track that should have been a much bigger hit..."The Star Of The Show" is a smooth silk & soul elegant winner and the closing stirring and riveting classic "Let's Talk It Over" features Dusty at her soulful best in a collection that shows that Dusty deserved far greater success with this collection as it doesn't get any better than this...bonus tracks flow well with the original album and feature Dusty at her peak. Dusty you are truly missed and thank you for all of the wonderous gems that you left for us to savor and enjoy!!!

Tucked away, almost hidden, behind the shining lights of 'Dusty In Memphis' is Dusty Springfield's sixth album, 'From Dusty....With Love', perfectly packaged and labelled it feels almost like a special present from the lady herself, and in many ways it is. This is the second album of what was supposed to have been a three album deal in the U.S (third unreleased), we've already had the sound of Memphis, and next up is the wonderful sound of Philadelphia with a great deal of help from the talented songwriters Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, who, as we now know, went on to become much bigger in the seventies. Nearly all the songs on this album are written by the two of them, sometimes accompanied by Butler/Chambers, and where Huff does not feature in the credits, it is always Gamble with someone else, and boy, what a team!
From the moment the sizzling strings of the opening track "Lost" kicks in, you know, absolutely just KNOW, you're in for a real treat. As with much of the album Dusty weaves her way through a range of emotions; we have the regret of "Bad Case Of The Blues", the broken heart of "Never Love Again", and in "Silly, Silly Fool" she never stops berating herself for her mistakes, we have the soft pleading of "Joe" where Dusty asks;'does anybody know, where i can get in touch with Joe?' which makes you feel as though you would happily like to dedicate an entire day, or three, in helping her find him. One track that i'm sure will be familiar to many fans is the hugely evocative and stirring "I Wanna Be A Free Girl", with it's sensationally yearning lyrics and delivery, this is a true show stopper.
It's not all heartbreak though; "The Star Of My Show" and "Richest Girl Alive" show an emphatically positive side, while "A Brand New Me" with it's soft and sparkly start then the erupting chorus will surely blow you clean away. Dusty caresses us through "Let Me Get In Your Way" and "Let's Get Together Soon", hopefully, it's fairly safe to say that she must have done the Gamble/Huff songwriting team proud.
The first time i played this album was on the car stereo in a traffic jam lasting over forty minutes and, as it clocks up at just under 34 minutes on the stereo counter, i didn't mind a bit, it was sorely tempting to turn around and do the whole journey again.
On the whole this is a cute and catchy little album, and i for one, just can't stop playing it....now, where are those car keys?

For those of you who have heard that Dusty's best album ever is 'Dusty in Memphis'... that's total ludicress as far as I'm concerned. This is the real overlooked gem!

I used to find myself liking Springfield's Memphis album, but upon hearing this album - which I won from an ebay action - all I can say is... WOW! I don't keep shuffling tracks around to listen to the best, because they all are just absolutely perfect. However that doesn't mean that I don't have my favourites.

1. Lost - Starts out with a sound like 'Son-of-a-Preacher Man' did, but turns into a very beautiful soul ballad; filled with plenty of guitars and rhythm section.

2. Never Love Again - I actually bought this album based on this song. It is the most touching song on this CD. Just sad. A woman saying she'll never love again, because her lover is gone.

3. A Brand New Me - This song was the reason that the US release of the album was titled the same name. Matter of fact, in the liner notes, it says 'the album was so good... they named it twice.' And believe-you-me... this song is just wonderful. I love the fact how the song describes a woman has become a whole new because of adorn affection from her man.

4. Joe - Now, if you want a good melodrama, then this is the song for you. Basically, a man disappears into thin air, and his girlfriend is searching for him, despite the fact that he toyed with her emotions and screwed her over. Uh... ladies and gentlemen, love is blind.

5. Silly, Silly Fool - Okay... now if you've ever read the liner notes to Dusty's 1997 US 3-CD anthology, a famous Billboard chart executive commented that he was suprised this song was not No.1 for 5 weeks in a row. He is, and always will be, totally right! This song only managed a low No.76. Outrageous! It's so fun to listen to too!

6. The Richest Girl Alive - I love this song! However, the version I heard was the one recorded in April, 1970, that was issued on Dusty's 'Love Songs' CD. This version, however, is her February demo version, from the same year. Still a good song.