Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien OBE (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known as Dusty Springfield, was a singer. Of all the female British pop artists of the 1960s, she made one of the biggest impressions on the American market. Owing to her distinctive sensual sound, she was one of the most notable white soul artists.
Born to an Irish Roman Catholic family that loved music, Mary O'Brien learned to sing at home. Springfield began her solo career in 1963 with the upbeat pop hit, "I Only Want To Be With You". Her following hits included "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself", "Wishin' and Hopin'" and "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me".
A fan of American pop music, she campaigned to bring the little-known soul singers to a wider British audience by devising and hosting the first British performances of the top-selling Motown Records artists in 1965. Her rendition of "The Look of Love", written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, was included on the soundtrack of the James Bond movie Casino Royale (1967) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song in 1967.
The marked changes of pop music in the mid-1960s left many female pop singers out of fashion. To boost her credibility as a soul artist, Springfield went to Memphis, Tennessee, to record an album of pop and soul music with the Atlantic Records main production team. This album Dusty in Memphis earned Springfield a nomination for the Grammy Award in 1970 and it received the Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2001. International readers and viewers polls list the record among the one hundred greatest albums of all time. This album's standout track "Son of a Preacher Man" was an international Top 10 hit in 1969. After that album, Springfield's pop music success dipped for many years. In 1987, collaborations with the Pet Shop Boys returned her to the Top 20 of the British and American charts with the three singles "What Have I Done to Deserve This?", "Nothing Has Been Proved" and "In Private". In 1995, Ms. Springfield was diagnosed by her physicians with serious breast cancer.
Springfield was voted the Top British Female Artist in the New Musical Express reader's poll in 1964, 1965 and 1968. Interest in Springfield's early output was revived in 1994, due to the inclusion of "Son of a Preacher Man" on the soundtrack of the movie, Pulp Fiction. She is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the U.K. Music Hall of Fame. Springfield has been named among the best 25 female rock artists of all time in the international readers and artists polls by Mojo, Q and VH1.
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