Portrait
Dusty Springfield
Born
16 April 1939London, England
Died
2 March 1999Henley-on-Thames, England · aged 59
SingerUnited Kingdom

Dusty Springfield

Her voice connected British pop with American soul, while her openness about attraction to women challenged the expectations surrounding a female star.

Dusty Springfield was born in London in 1939. Originally named Mary O’Brien, she grew up in an Irish Catholic family and sang with the Springfields before launching her solo career with “I Only Want to Be with You” in 1963.

Her voice brought emotional urgency to songs including “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” and “Son of a Preacher Man”. “Dusty in Memphis” (1969) became a defining album, drawing her closer to the soul music she had long championed. She also refused to perform for segregated audiences in apartheid South Africa.

In a 1970 interview, Springfield said that she could be attracted to women as well as men. She shared her life for several years with singer-songwriter Norma Tanega and later had other relationships with women. Public hostility and her own difficulties made those years more complicated than the confident glamour of her image suggested.

Her collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys, “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” (1987), brought renewed chart success. Springfield died of breast cancer in 1999, shortly before her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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