In the 60s, her popularity was comparable to that of the Beatles. The singer's career lasted almost forty years, her inimitable sexy voice excited more than one generation of men, and women brought their eyes exactly as she did, the bright and shocking Dusty Springfield.
The beginning of the way
The singer's real name is Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien. She was born on April 16, 1939, in London. From early childhood, the girl was distinguished by a noisy, restless disposition, for which she received the nickname "Dusty" (dusty) from her parents. Her father, an inveterate music lover, managed to instill in his daughter a fanatical love of jazz, and at eleven Mary recorded her first song. After graduating from high school, she passed the casting and soon sang with the vocal group "Lana Sisters", from where she left in 1960. The reason for leaving was her brother, who, together with a friend, created his own musical project, The Kensington Squares. With the advent of Dusty, the band was renamed into the folk trio The Springfields. It was then that Dusty turned into Dusty Springfield. Thanks to such hits as "Breakaway", "Bambino", "Island of Dreams", "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" The Springfields became famous not only in England, but also in America. And yet, despite this recognition, the team broke up three years later.
Solo career
Dusty recorded her first solo song "I Only Want To Be With You" just a few days after the band broke up. This single gained a lot of fame, as did the subsequent ones “Stay Awhile”, “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” and “Losing You”. In an effort to create a new image, red-haired Dusty dyed her hair blonde and began to highlight her eyes with an abundant amount of mascara, which gave rise to a real boom among English fashionistas.
From 1963 to 1970, the singles of the singer repeatedly topped the British and American charts. For her brilliant performance of songs in the style of rhythm and blues, she was even nicknamed "the white black woman."
In 1987, Dusty recorded with the Pet Shop Boys a joint single "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" returned. A few years later, her song "Son of a preacher man" was included in the soundtrack to the later very famous film "Pulp Fiction", thanks to which the singer received her first "platinum" in her life.
Personal life
Dusty Springfield never had a family as such. Back in the 70s, the singer publicly admitted that she was equally attracted to both men and women. It was known that she had affairs with several women at once, and this lasted for more than a dozen years. Once at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dusty Springfield met actress Teda Bracci. A few months later, they even held a kind of wedding ceremony, but their relationship was too stormy, they either diverged, then converged again, until they finally fled.
People around were used to seeing Dusty strong and independent, and only a few knew that a fragile vulnerable nature was hidden behind this screen. Mental torment, drugs, alcohol, unsuccessful suicide attempts, year after year, sharpened her from the inside.
In 1994, when Dusty, completely immersed in creativity, was recording her new album, doctors discovered she had breast cancer. After a course of treatment, the disease receded, but after three years it returned again, and this time it was not possible to overcome it. Dusty Springfield died on March 2, 1999. She was 59 years old.
