What am I to do?

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts.

21/02/65 : A Girl Called Dusty - Dusty Springfield


Our third visit with Dusty, but the second this year and it's another debut album - I have high hopes for this one.

Oh yes, she had a lovely voice. As is often the case for debut albums, it's all cover versions but she's picked a good selection with "Mockingbird", "Only 24 Hours From Tulsa", "Anyone Who Had A Heart", "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "Wishin' And Hopin'" all done particularly well - but there's really no duds on there. I think there's a good argument that her version of "Anyone Who Had A Heart" is the definitive version because of the emotion she conveys - and it's been covered by an awful lot of people since the original version by Dionne Warwick. And her version of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" is also great, but doesn't quite pip the original version by The Shirelles for me. All in all, this is a fine album and easily the best of a genre we've seen quite a few of this year - it's an interestingly casual album cover as well

We're at #16 with a re-entry for a single week, but its main run was 21 weeks in '64 when she peaked at #6 in her fifth and sixth weeks. The top five this week were The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Jim Reeves, Val Doonican and The Kinks and we have one new entry for P. J. Proby's monstrosity (#17).

Wikipedia tells us that Dusty was a member of the girl group The Lana Sisters and the folk-pop trio The Springfields in the early '60s and whilst touring the US she was exposed to soul music which made her want to expand her musical range and hence she decided to go solo, which lead to "I Only Want To Be With You" and then this album. And that's your lot - I checked her entry out for some padding facts, but there's so much in there that it's hard to pick something, so let's go completely random and tell you she liked throwing crockery down stairs and reading maps. Don't we all, dah-ling?!? I also learned that her brother (who she sang with in The Springfields) went by the name Tom Springfield was actually called Dionysius - there's a name you don't see often!

This is easily up there with the best albums of the year - she was such a talent and this shows it off well in the way that her follow-up didn't quite manage. I loved it.

14/02/65 - Pretty average
28/02/65 - Fine, but unexceptional

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