The finest female voice we ever had

IN ONE OF those strange, premonitory coincidences that occur from time to time, I had been thinking about Dusty Springfield - specifically, The Springfields' 1962 hit Island Of Dreams - just a few hours before learning of her death. Why, I wondered, had nobody (to my knowledge) ever recorded a cover version of this beautiful, fragile song, so full of hope and yearning, yet so vulnerable?

The answer, of course, applies equally to virtually the entire output of Dusty's solo career; for only the most foolhardy or hubristic of singers would dare place themselves in direct comparison with the finest female pop voice this country ever produced. True, Elvis may have taken on You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, and The Byrds successfully re-worked Goin' Back, but you could search long and hard for covers of hits like I Only Want To Be With You, Losing You and I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself , and even if you did manage to find one, it's odds on you wouldn't be able to recall what it sounded like, so completely did Dusty inhabit those songs.

She was born Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien in 1939, and raised among London's Irish community based in West Hampstead. A brief stint as one of the three Lana Sisters was succeeded by a more successful liaison harmonising with her brother Tom in his folk group The Springfields, who scored a few hits in the pre-Beatles early 1960s, and provided her with a catchier stage name.

Dusty shrewdly opted for a solo career, quickly becoming one of the pre-eminent icons of the era. Her formidably backcombed blonde bob and heavily mascara'd "panda eyes" set Dusty apart from the more waiflike run of 1960s pop chanteuses. Dusty was an unashamed glamourpuss.

None of her peers, however, could quite match Dusty's poise and command of her material.

Many of her songs dealt with an almost masochistic degree of female vulnerability, yet Dusty seemed somehow in command, strong and powerful despite the emotional tribulations. It's there at its most compelling in Dusty's underrated 1964 hit Losing You, a breathtaking performance which builds with operatic grace from its subdued, reflective opening to a cathartic climax which leaves her emotionally drained but cleansed of regret: as the song concludes, it's clear that once the eyes are dry, she will prevail.

By the time Dusty's bisexuality became common knowledge in the mid-1970s, she was already an icon for gays who admired her glamour, her dramatic musical style, and her spirit of survival. She was the perfect pop diva, a role model for drag queens and drama queens alike, though the rumours didn't help a career lulled into inactivity by boredom: there was a gap of almost 20 years between top ten appearances, until her 1987 comeback collaboration with The Pet Shop Boys, What Have I Done To Deserve This?. The accompanying Reputation album and its country-oriented follow-up A Very Fine Love were reasonably well-received, but neither really did Dusty's abilities full justice.

Apart from the tranche of 1960s hits, her peak achievement is undoubtedly the Dusty In Memphis album she recorded in 1968 with Atlantic's noted soul production team of Tom Dowd, Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin, from which came the hit single Son Of A Preacher Man. Unlike her previous arrangers who tended to lay on the melodrama with a trowel, they played instead to Dusty's vocal strengths, letting her voice rest easily among the more restrained Memphis soul settings. Although the album was a flop on both sides of the Atlantic at the time, it remains probably the finest pop record ever made by a British female singer, an indelible testament to her immense talent.

Obituary, Review, page 6