On the start date it will be the 85th anniversary of the birth of Dusty Springfield and last month we passed the 25th anniversary of her passing. She was globally recognised as a singing star and as the best female soul singer produced in Britain, having a string of hits from the 1960s onwards, selling over her career millions of records, which still continues as new generations find her voice; she is recognised in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio & the Grammy Hall of Fame. Between 1966-69 she hosted her own show both on BBC and ITV. We recognise her because of the Bacharach/Davis song The Look of Love which was a big hit, featuring in the spoof Bond film Casino Royale 1967 and was nominated for an Oscar. She was born in West Hampstead, London to Irish parents, grew up in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and in the early 50s lived in Ealing, West London, making her first recording there in a music shop. She attended St Anne’s Convent, Northfields Catholic school and started singing in The Lana sisters, then The Springfields, which were very popular. She is also connected to Sussex as her parents lived in Hove from 1962, her mother dying in a nursing home there and her father in Rottingdean. Her first hit was in 1963 I Only Want to be with You and as she grew in popularity she is recognised as bringing the sound of Motown to England, also performing Mockingbird with Jimi Hendrix. She was actually deported from South Africa after she insisted on performing only before an integrated audience near Cape Town at the time of apartheid. From the mid-70s to early 90s she lived in California, recording amongst other things theme songs for The Six Million Dollar Man. When her career was on the wane it was revived by Quentin Tarantino when he featured her Son of a Preacher Man in Pulp Fiction 1994, after which she recorded with The Pet Shop Boys. In the 90s she became ill and returned to the UK, living at her home in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire and was an enormous cat lover. When she became terminally ill with breast cancer, she was awarded an OBE but was too ill to attend Buckingham Palace so in a highly unusual step it was presented to her in an intimate gathering at the Royal Marsden Hospital in West London; she died at home on the day she would have attended the Palace. Part of her ashes are interred at Henley, and her brother took the rest to her ancestral origins at the Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland. We believe she is more than worthy of a match in her honour and hope you will accept our challenge.
Equaliser769
