Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis (Thirty Three and a Third series) [Paperback]

Warren Zanes (Author)

Book Description

Series: 33 1/3 | Publication Date: October 2003

Dusty in Memphis, Dusty Springfield's beautiful and bizarre magnum opus, remains as fine a hybrid of pop and rhythm and blues as has ever been made. In this remarkable book, Warren Zanes explores his own love affair with the record. He digs deep into the album's Memphis roots and talks to several of the key characters who were involved in its creation; many of whom were - like Zanes - outsiders drawn to the American South and mesmerized by its hold over the imagination. EXCERPT The love that is the subject of 'Dusty in Memphis' is different from the love of her earlier songs: it is a love that is all at once diffuse, dark, unpredictable, ecstatic, and a terrible deal. It is a love too big for the lyrical (and for that matter musical) framework of Dusty’s earlier pop productions, no matter the breadth of that work. Like Memphis itself, the love that is the subject of 'Dusty in Memphis' is indeed bursting with the contrary: it happens not simply when you yearn for it, as in some adolescent dream, but when you’re not prepared for it; it reveals itself not simply under the star-filled skies where a moon hangs low—in fact, as the first and last tracks on side one attest, it might be at its best when the sun’s just arriving at work.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Warren Zanes was the lead guitarist of the Del Fuegos,a band praised by, among others, the inventor of rock & roll, Sam Phillips. After the Fuegos self-immolated, Warren entered into an academic career and is now Dr. Zanes. Never mind-he still knows what counts. What counts? Genuine feeling, which this shapely small volume is full of...Warren is a greatly gifted good heart, and I love him. Read his book, listen to his record, and you will too." -Stanley Booth, author of The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

“Sure, there are informative interviews with producer Jerry Wexler, and of course Zanes parses songs like ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ and ‘Breakfast in Bed.’ But it’s the twists and turns, the oddly illuminating vagaries in between, that make the book such a compulsive read. Zane’s approach is apropos for a record that was something of a masquerade—but was no less authentic or affecting for it.” -–The Boston Phoenix, 7/8/04 (Mike Miliard )

"A heartfelt dive into the world of 60s R&B…dazzling." —Pop Culture Press

"Zanes' dry analysis of Dusty Springfield's classic white soul album is coupled with revealing interviews with Jerry Wexler, the man behind the song selection, and Stanley Booth, the album's original liner notes writer."—Uncutf

"The inaugural volume, Dusty in Memphis by Warren Zanes, sets the template for the series beautifully."- Joe Pettit, Ugly Things, Issue 25 (Ugly Things )

Title mentioned by Aaron Hicklin, in an article in Out, Saturday 1st March 2008.

"Warren Zanes was the lead guitarist of the Del Fuegos,a band praised by, among others, the inventor of rock & roll, Sam Phillips. After the Fuegos self-immolated, Warren entered into an academic career and is now Dr. Zanes. Never mind-he still knows what counts. What counts? Genuine feeling, which this shapely small volume is full of...Warren is a greatly gifted good heart, and I love him. Read his book, listen to his record, and you will too." -Stanley Booth, author of The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

"A heartfelt dive into the world of 60s R&B…dazzling." —Pop Culture Press

“The inaugural volume, Dusty in Memphis by Warren Zanes, sets the template for the series beautifully.”- Joe Pettit, Ugly Things, Issue 25 (, )

From the Publisher

"Thirty Three and a Third" is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives – often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. What binds the series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors – musicians, broadcasters, scholars, and writers – are huge fans of the album they have chosen.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 131 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826414923
• ISBN-13: 978-0826414922
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,001,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not really about the album..., October 22, 2003

By 

S. Sittig "Divawatch" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis (Thirty Three and a Third series) (Paperback)

As much as I can appreciate being original, and trying a fresh approach to writing, Warren Zanes spends about 20% of his time discussing the album and 80% discussing his childhood, his take on the South, Atlantic records, and other miscellaneous things that have very little if anything to do with "Dusty In Memphis" the famous LP the book is supposedly about.

I don't mind that Zanes has taken this different approach, and in a sort of roundabout way, he has covered some of the material necessary to understand this classic pop album, but eventually, even the most open-minded of readers will tire of his tangential musings.

There are a few interesting insights into his views on what made Dusty Springfield such a special singer, and what made the material, the arrangements and the musicians on the album so special, but definitely not enough.

If you want to really learn more about "Dusty In Memphis" the LP and what went on in the studio, skip this. It's a waste of time.

Instead, you can learn much more just by reading the chapter on Memphis in Lucy O'Brien's biography DUSTY or even on the various websites on Dusty Springfield.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very divisive little book!, December 12, 2003

By 

Donald Burnside (Salem, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis (Thirty Three and a Third series) (Paperback)

This is the first time I have been moved to post a review on Amazon.com - I feel that Mr. Zanes's book needs defending, particularly from Linda Bowden's review below. I have read this book three times now. Perhaps, for a Dusty Springfield fanatic, there is not enough detail in this book about what Dusty was wearing when she sang her vocals in the studio, or which take ended up being used on the album. I can see the appeal of such minutiae - and I've read enough music books like that in my time. This, however, is something entirely different. And something vastly superior.

My main problem with Linda Bowden's review is that she compares the book to a "poorly written high school paper". On the contrary, it's one of the most beautifully written books about music I have ever had the pleasure of reading. (And something else: it's also very funny at times.) I hope that Mr. Zanes or his publishers won't mind me doing this, but here is the very first paragraph of the book:

"This is not a book about a record. Sorry. I hope no one has been misled. This is something else altogether. As I was writing it, I conceptualized my agenda in this way: as an attempt to understand why a particular long-playing phonograph, "Dusty in Memphis", pulled me into its world and what I did there. Which is to say, this book is about an experience with a record more than it is about a record. It's both a chronicle and an analysis of what happened when a particular person met up with a particular piece of vinyl at a particular time and the unfolding of that relationship."

I have a very bright daughter in high school, and I'm still waiting for the day when she is able to write something as clear and expressive as that!

As the book unfolds, we learn a lot (as several reviewers have pointed out) about Mr. Zanes and his relationship with this album. To me, this is perfectly acceptable behavior for the author of a book about pop music. Would it not be stranger for someone to write an appreciation of an album (or a work of visual art, or an opera) while remaining utterly detached and objective? Mr. Zanes is clearly deeply enamored of "Dusty in Memphis", and that love shines from every page of this book. To be sure, he digresses, he wanders, he rambles around the subject. But every single word of this book (OK, perhaps not the amusing aside about Nature's Miracle!) resonates around his theme - which is that the American South is a land of make-believe, and that this extraordinary album reflects that like no other.

Another point: Linda Bowden writes that "the author knows nothing about the work that went into the production of this great album". If that is the case, how does she explain the large presence of Jerry Wexler in the book? Mr. Zanes tracks down Wexler - the legendary producer and former head of Atlantic Records - in his retirement in Florida, and extracts some fascinating material from him, which is quoted at length here.

I do not wish to demean the opinions of some of the reviewers on here. Anybody looking for a strictly, traditionally written biography of a pop star and her greatest album would be advised to avoid this book. But for those of you with open minds and a taste for a more subjective style of writing, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is thoughtful, provocative, warm-hearted, and insightful - and, like the album itself, it will take you into another, more entrancing, world for a while.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beats a cup of coffee, October 14, 2004

By 

C. Bourke "Backbeat" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis (Thirty Three and a Third series) (Paperback)

What was so special about Memphis that producer Jerry Wexler took the diva of British pop there and created pop magic? Warren Zanes, 1980s teenage rock star in the Del Fuegos turned PhD (cultural studies) in the 1990s, has written a small book to find out, the first in a series on classic albums. Continuum offers its writers a lot more space than Greil Marcus did in Stranded - 32,000 words by my count - and Zanes uses it brilliantly.
His essay isn't academic deconstruction but a mix of personal passion, acute perceptions and old-fashioned journalistic leg work. Being a musician helps his analysis of what makes the album so special, but even more so is his understanding of Southern culture. He writes of the creatures inhabiting the album; when he hears the opening to `Breakfast in Bed' ("You've been crying, your face is a mess. Come in, baby, you can dry your tears on my dress") he pictures Cloris Leachman in The Last Picture Show. To understand these characters means grasping how the South serves as the backdrop to it all. Not just the South that's there, but the South that's in the popular imagination. "Sweating, carnal, obsessed with the past, violent, agrarian despite the times, natural, authentic, certainly unpredictable ... it sometimes seems that [the weed] kudzu is simply the plant form of a mythology that has already covered the region."
Zanes' ideas about the spirit of the South, how it connects with literature, with history, with civil rights and with trash culture - and how it shapes its music - are beautifully expressed and convey a deep understanding of the milieu. His book is unpretentious but profound, avoids hype and self-indulgence while going off on always-relevant tangents that take in Flannery O'Connor, Huck Finn, Alan Lomax, The Dukes of Hazzard and To Kill a Mockingbird. He talks to Wexler and co-producer Chips Moman and, best of all, tracks down Stanley Booth, recluse writer and professional Southerner, who wrote the original liner notes (and the sublime True Adventures of the Rolling Stones). He quotes the influence of a boys adventure book from his youth ("In the North, young men dream about the South. The more discriminating among them slide down the darkness and go straight to Memphis") and explains the magic of Memphis, and Springfield's uncanny way of capturing it. "Led by a singer in a mask, the team that made Dusty in Memphis went after beauty and came up with a little truth." Zanes' essay is the best extended think-piece I have read on music since "Mystery Train", or the contributors to "Stranded". The other writers in the first Continuum series (covering the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society, Love's Forever Changes, the Smiths' Meat is Murder, Neil Young's Harvest and Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn) have a hard act to follow. (By the way, Linda Bowden's misunderstanding of what this book is about is typified by her connecting it to the Coltrane "Love Supreme" book: that is a completely different approach, a different series, and different publisher.)