Customer Reviews

Dusty!: Queen of the Postmods

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

What is the meaning of Dusty Springfield's success? This book seeks to explain it. It is wonderful. Her name was Mary O'Brien. Her sixty years of existence are associated with the music of the sixties. She had a role in creating and defining British soul. The book studies the music and the career of Dusty Springfield. She was a cultural icon of the 1960's. There was a late 1980's revival.

The author's fifth grade teacher dressed like Dusty Springfield, although she didn't realize it at the time. There was a ready audience for American soul among the British mods. Dusty Springfield died in 1999. She was a model of self-transformation emerging from the folk group, the Springfields. Her look was a form of drag. She was camp, a lie that tells the truth.

Dusty's favorite performer was Tina Turner. She was the actual producer of her own records. She was a fan of Spector's 'wall of sound'. Black American music invented the back beat. Soul in Britain was a new genre. Madeline Bell, a singer for Alex Bradford's BLACK NATIVITY, and Dusty influenced each other. (DUSTY IN MEMPHIS was a case of fissure. The album was produced in a manner contrary to Dusty's usual practice.)

Through soul and melodrama, the pop aria was developed, a Dusty Springfield speciality. Dusty had a soul voice and a melodramatic body. Her gestures are compared to melodramatic poses in the book by means of photographs detailing the similarities. Physical gestures doubled her voice's impact.

In the early 1970's Dusty moved to California. There she had less contact with British and Italian composers. U.S. managers and producers did not view Dusty's virtuosity in multiple genres as a positive attribute. British fans grasped the singer's emotional range.

One appendix lists record releases and events. Another has a list of significant people. Finally, notes, index, and bibliography complete this excellent book.

"Dusty was the leader of a gang we wanted to be part of." This quotation from Dusty Springfield's long-time friend and backup singer Simon Bell from page 102 of "Dusty!: Queen of the Postmods" seems to sum up quite nicely how British teenagers viewed their feisty heroine during the peak of her popularity in the mid 1960's. While I was certainly aware that Dusty Springfield was an extremely important figure on the pop music scene on both sides of the pond in those halcyon days I really had no idea just how influential she really was in Britain during this period. Author Annie J. Randall does a spendid job of transporting her readers back to this highly fertile period in the history of rock and roll. In addition to being an exceptionally entertaining read I was astounded by how much new information I discovered in this book. What a great find!

Now I must confess that over the past few days my reading of "Dusty!" has evolved into a multi-media study of this beloved artist. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this book is Annie J. Randall's discussion of Dusty Springfields's complex musical roots which Randall essentially boils down to a synthesis of American soul and European melodrama. According to Randall, it was Dusty who was primarily responsible for the genre that would come to be known as the 1960's Pop Aria as best exemplified by her 1966 worldwide hit "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me". Equally engaging is the author's inclusion of a series of side-by-side photos comparing Dusty's live performances with an 1882 acting treatise. The similarities are remarkable! Now at a certain point in Chapter 3 the author suggests that if possible her readers listen to a number of Dusty's songs as she points out certain charactoristics of each tune. That is when I pulled out my highly prized copy of the 1994 CD release "Goin' Back: The Very Best of Dusty Springfield." Doing this certainly made the points being made much easier to understand.

Earlier in this review I made mention of the fact that my reading of "Dusty!" would ultimately evolve into a three day multi-media study. Although I have been studying the history of popular music for more years than I care to remember I had never really heard too much about Dusty Springfield's pivotal role in introducing England to the Motown Sound. That story is quite compelling and you will find it covered in significant detail in the book. The "Ready, Steady, Go! special known simply as the "Sound of Motown" was aired in Britain on April 28, 1965. Hosted by Dusty Springfield this incredible show featured Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas and Motown's legendary house band Earl Van Dyke and the Funk Brothers. I had never even heard of this show but Annie J. Randall boldy suggests that in England this program was roughly the equivalent of the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. This statement really piqued my curiosity and I spent a solid hour watching the original broadcast on YouTube. What a historic hour of television!

Much of the rest of "Dusty!: Queen of the Postmods" is devoted to Dusty's rather complicated personal life. Annie Randall spends a considerable amount of time discussing her close personal and professional relationship with the American singer Madeline Bell as well as the aforementioned Simon Bell (no relation to Madeline) and her long time companion singer/painter Norma Tanega. After recording her highly acclaimed but commercially disappointing album "Dusty In Memphis" in 1968 Dusty's career seemed to hit the skids. She moved to California in the 1970s and would record sporadically but no one seemed to care. Dusty Springfield finally returned to the pop charts in her 1987 collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" But her legendary voice was just a shell of itself, ravaged by time and alcohol and cigarettes. We lost Dusty Springfield to breast cancer in 1999. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later that same year. I was really quite pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed reading "Dusty!: Queen of the Postmods". This is an extremely well written book that will leave you wanting to know even more about this most fascinating individual. Highly recommended!

Finally, an un-sensationalist look into the life and music of Dusty Springfield.

Which was the real Dusty? The `White Queen of Soul'; the Britpop diva; the over-the-top camp performer with the beehive hairdo, overdone mascara and melodramatic hand gestures; the studio perfectionist who didn't like to work alongside musicians while recording and who took outrageous numbers of tries before being satisfied with a recording of her vocals on a track; the lesbian who never outright denied her sexual persuasion but who was cautious about admitting it?

All of these sides of Dusty are examined in Randall's thoughtful book. Also looked at are aspects of the singer's life some may not have heard about before, such as the time she took a defiant stance against the government of South Africa when they wanted her to sign a statement saying she would not perform to mixed race audiences while touring in their country. And we get a glimpse of the mentally unbalanced side of Dusty - she was bipolar and possibly suffered from a kind of multiple personality disorder, `Dusty' maybe being a character that exploded out of the more staid psyche of Mary O'Brien, a middle class English lass and one-time convent girl.

Randall is a professor of Musicology at an American university, and while most of her book is something that can be read and appreciated by lay people, she slips into dull academic speak in the section where she deconstructs the `establishing shots' in the openings of some of Dusty's `pop arias.' It's hard to imagine who will gain any insight or appreciation of Dusty's music by knowing how many seconds into a certain song we are given a clue about its ultimate emotional intent.

However, that same chapter contains the most entertaining part of the book, where Randall makes a connection between the varied and always dramatic hand gestures Dusty used while singing with the similar motions employed by 19th century opera singers and actors. The photo figures which compare some of Dusty's moves with those of actress Sarah Berhnardt's are both hilarious and convincing.

It would be great to read a book on Dusty's music by someone with less of a scholarly leaning. But as a serious exploration of the complicated character of one of the great pop and soul singers to have ever held a mic, this is quite effective.

I've loved Dusty Springfield's music for over forty years. I was at sea when she passed away, so I missed knowing about it for a couple three years. I was saddened when I found out. She was a great talent. Born Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, Dusty started singing way back in 1963 and I still remember when I was out at my Dad's record shop on Hollywood Boulevard listening to "I Only Want to Be With You."

I remember when "Dusty in Memphis" came out, thought it was one of the best records ever recorded. I still listen to her stuff, but I never knew much about her life. I'm really into music, have a couple big hard drives full of it, listen to all day, twenty-four/seven, but I've never cared to delve into the lives of the people who create it. Oh, you can't get away from some of it, it's in the tabloids you see in the stores and they make movies about music greats and I've seen some of them, the one about Johnny Cash and the one about Ray Charles, too. I enjoyed them both.

So when I got this book I wasn't all that eager to read it. But once I started, I got right into it. There's a plethora of info about Dusty Springfield here I never knew. For example I really thought her real name was Dusty. The book was easy for me read, because I was already knew her music cold. If you like Dusty Springfield, this is a book for you. And even if you don't, there's a lot of stuff in this short book about what went on in the early 60s from a different point of view. I'm glad I read this book, glad I own it.

If you are looking for a biography Of Dusty that's for the general audience interested in her and her music, you would probably be better served checking out "Dancing with Demons" by Penny Valentine or "The Complete Dusty Springfield" by Paul Howes or Sharon Davis's "A Girl Called Dusty."

If you are looking for an exploration of the sociological impact of Dusty's make-up and fashion and music that usually reads like a dissertation. If you are looking for a scholarly work, then this is for you.

If you are a casual fan or you are interested in "meeting" Dusty, you should probably avoid this...but if you are a big fan, and you have read the books mentioned in the first paragraph AND you still want more...then this is the book for you.

I am a big Dusty Springfield fan and books are rare about her. I liked the info in this book but because it is a doctoral thesis it is dry as dust. Terms like deconstuction, social, political, etc. get thrown about as if they explain alot. Dusty in context to her time is a great thesis because she was a lesbian who was successful in navigating the sexism etc in a closeted era. I would like to know her struggle personally with this and more juice in this era but there isn't much about her as a person. Just skims the surface but I know there was a very interesting, complex woman who was instrumental in the blend of gospel, soul and 60's drama diva sound. I would like to know more about "her" not so much the times. Oh well...But some good info here and there from the fans out there. Especially about the making of Dusty in Memphis, one of the greatest albums of all time. If you are a fan of Dusty, buy a cheap used copy of this book and all the annoyances of doctoral writing will not irritate so much. If you are a musicologist, you might like this writing as well!

This is a good though curious book. On the micro level it is quite excellent; on the macro level it raises several interesting questions. First and foremost, I wonder how large the audience is for a work such as this. The ideal reader would be both someone with a solid background in cultural studies and someone intimately acquainted with the music of Dusty Springfield, and most likely anyone intimately acquainted with her music would be a self-identified fan. I would qualify as someone fairly familiar with cultural studies, but while I enjoy many of the songs of Dusty Springfield, I would hardly be identified either by myself or by anyone else as a fan. I acknowledge that she is one of the great pop singers that Great Britain has produced, but her music does not speak to me in an especially powerful way and I identify with her very little or not at all. I recognize her importance and even brilliance, but her music does not have a deep emotional resonance for me as it does for many of her fans. On the other hand, of her passionate fans, how many are equipped to work their way through a book that is sometimes quite accessible to nonacademics, while at other times would be, I suspect, quite challenging for someone not in the academy. I suspect that many turning to it for a popular account of the music of Dusty Springfield will be disappointed.

If you are going to get everything out of this book that you can, you need a better collection of Dusty Springfield's music than I possess. I have three Dusty Springfield anthologies and one regular album -- The Hits Collection, The Best of Dusty Springfield, Goin' Back: The Very Best of Dustry Springfield, and Dusty in Memphis -- and I had only a healthy fraction of the songs that were discussed in the book. So, I was at a huge disadvantage in that I couldn't hear many of the songs discussed. I am not a big enough fan to lay out the money for the box set, Simply . . . Dusty, but I'm not certain that even that would give someone all the songs that they would need. I suspect that truly to appreciate this book, you would need very close to the entire discography. And if you are not familiar with Dusty Springfield as a visual performer, as I was not, Youtube is invaluable. There are luckily a huge number of her performances uploaded there. Many of them are unfortunately from TV shows where she lipsynched, but on many of them she actually sings.

Still, I learned a great deal about Dusty Springfield by reading this. It is not a biography, but it contains a comprehensive discussion of the nature of Dusty's music and vocal art. If you were only a casual fan before, as I was, you will come away from the book having a very solid understanding of precisely what it is that her staunchest fans value about her. I also benefitted by listening to her music more intently than I ever had before. Previously I had listened to each of my Dusty Springfield alubms several times each, but this was the first time that I had listened this intently to her. For nearly a week about the only thing I listened to on my iPod was Dusty Springfield songs. My lone complaint with the book's discussion of Dusty's vocal art is that it doesn't acknowledge some of her weaknesses. Though the author is very frank that the years were not kind to her voice due to the heavy use of drugs and alcohol, I don't think there is sufficient bluntness about the fact that by the late seventies her voice was not the amazing instrument that it was in the sixties. When you listen to her recordings from the sixties, you are astonished at what a versatile and astonishing voice that she had, a voice that was seemingly capable of anything. But the recordings from the late seventies on, however, seem strategies in compensating for things that she could no longer do vocally. Also, the recordings from the seventies, eighties, and nineties are really pretty awful. Granted, I only have songs from those decades that were included on my anthologies, but these songs are very bad. It leaves you to ponder how bad the other songs on those albums were. Additionally, while the author mentions that Dusty sang in a vast range of musical genres, there is no hint that she sang some of them rather poorly. I've never heard a country song that Dustry Springfield sang without a cringe. I grew up on country and folk and blue grass, and my idea of an authentic country voice is grounded in Earl and Scruggs, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, the Stanley Brothers, Loretta Lynn, and artists of that ilk. When I hear Dusty Springfield sing country, it puts me in mind of the absolutely horrible version of the Louvain Brothers' "The Christian Life" that the Byrds did on SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO with Roger McGuinn on lead vocal. It sounds like a parody of a country song. If you listen to the version with Gram Parsons's singing lead on the bonus cuts of that CD you'll hear country the way it ought to be sung. I know the Springfields were beloved and all, but the difference between Dusty Springfield singing "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" and Linda Ronstadt's singing it is similar to the difference between McGuinn and Parsons on "The Christian Life."

I loved most of the detailed discussions contained in the book. I really enjoyed the discussion of the pop aria (many of Randall's comments about the songs that Dusty sang in that vein could be applied equally to those of Roy Orbison, a singer who has many parallels to Dusty Springfield) and about the role of camp in her music. I also enjoyed the close attention to Dusty's recording techniques, especially as these were at the root of many of the tensions in her Stax recording sessions. (Randall is not a big fan of DUSTY IN MEMPHIS, and I will confess that I find that album somewhat overrated, though I will add that "Son of a Preacher Man" is one of the most transcendentally glorious singles in the history of rock, and she certainly excepts that song from the other criticisms she has of the album.) The one real problem I have with the book is that while the individual topics are discussed with great insight, I was never quite clear on what the point of the book as a whole was. It does, in fact, feel more like four separate essays that have been loosely connected than a real book. Because they are all about Dusty Springfield, the essays are unified by subject matter, but even so they are distinct from one another.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed both reading this book and listening to the music that it drove me to. Dusty Springfield is still not a major figure in my own life as a listener of music, but I have a much deeper appreciation of and knowledge of her music than I did before. I still am uncertain as to who will be best equipped to read the book, academics with the requisite intellectual background or fans with the requisite knowledge of and passion for the music of Dusty Springfrield. But maybe are more of each than I imagine.

Sitting outside my older sister's room, I was mesmerized by the music; Sam Sham and the Pharaohs, Dionne Warwick, Lulu, and Dusty Springfield, and Dusty was my favorite. Known as the "White Queen of Soul" Dusty Springfield catapulted to fame during the 1960's with her covers of Will You Love Me Tomorrow?, You Don't Own Me, Mama Said and her trademark blonde hair and distinctive makeup and ultra mod look. Dusty! Queen of the Postmods by Annie J. Randall explores the close relationship Dusty had with her fans exemplified through two fans, two in the UK and one in the US. She also explores the close affinity between Springfield and black musicians of the time, including Dusty's refusal to play only segregated shows in South Africa and her forced departure from the country. There is even a bit about her open acknowledgment of her sexuality far ahead of the time when it would be more socially acceptable. From breaking down her movements whole singing (perhaps harking back to her Catholic school days), to the deconstruction of her music and her particular sound, this book has a bit of everything. Dusty! Is not a biography, it covers a very specific aspect of Springfield's music and influence so readers looking for a life story will be disappointed (as I was).

When I was 15 yrs old,I'd heard Son Of A Preacher Man so much on KHJ am radio that regardless of the fact it wasn't some hard rockin' guitar Cream or Hendrix,I crumbled and bought the 45 single because of THAT VOICE. When I grew up a bit more,I bought her best of and the Dusty In Memphis album. All that said,I went into reading this knowing a little because of the tunes and watching old TV videos with her doing her various hits,so I was curious and I couldn't put the book down once I started reading. The book explains many of the racial trials of being a white Brit singing soul in the very turbulent 60's,things that I had never heard about and things that are hard to believe happened only 40 yrs ago. There's a very interesting section where a couple hardcore fans from the 60's go into detail about their adventures seeing as many Dusty shows as possible and their joy of all things Dusty in a totally innocent way. The book also touches on her sexuality (something that never crossed my mind)and besides the study of her biggest yrs in the 60's it goes into her decline then comeback,her eventual death in 1999 and her musical legacy,including "tribute acts" straight & drag and other ways her music is being passed along. I enjoyed the book,as I said I could not put it down and if you wish to catch a different view of the 60's craziness,get the book

If you're looking at this book, probably you already know something about the artist known to the world as Dusty Springfield, but born Mary O'Brien. A truly great singer and Rock n Roll Hall of Fame inductee just after her death in 1999, Dusty Springfield was a favorite of Burt Bacharach and some of the best song writers of the swinging 60s and 1970s. Possibly best known for her amazing soul/pop album "Dusty in Memphis," Springfield had a late career resurgence when the Pet Shop Boys made her a part of their #1 1988 hit, "What Have I Done to Deserve This?"

So for the casual or serious fan, Annie Randall's scholarly study of Dusty Springfield's life is a treat. She has included a lot of detail on Springfield's career from those who knew her. But there's also an interesting analysis of her style and use of body gestures used in singing to signify "devotion," "doubt" and so on. While that's interesting (and seems pretty accurate - she compares Dusty photos taken in concert with classic poses of actresses like Sarah Bernhardt) I'm not sure that people used to gossipy celebrity biographies are going to like it.

But for people interested in the person who was Dusty Springfield, a lady whose public persona was sometimes at odds with her private life, this book is worth a read. Every so often it just seems a bit more like a masters thesis fleshed out to book-length form than a definitive biography of the White Queen of Soul.