Sunday, June 30, 2019

Dusty Springfield - Sweet Inspiration - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1974)

This is the last of my Dusty Springfield stray tracks albums.

I'm a really big fan of her music in the 1960s through the early 1970s. But in the mid-1970s, she moved to the US and lived several years with a very low profile. She apparently was depressed and used a lot of drugs. Her music career slowly petered out due to poor sales and her own distractions. She put out albums in 1972 and 1973, but she also had albums she finished in 1971 and 1974 ("Faithful" and "Longing" respectively) that didn't get released. (Both came out much later.)

In 1976, Elton John wanted to sing a duet with her, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." But she wasn't up for it due to her problems, so Kiki Dee sang it instead. It went to number one in the US and Britain and pretty much everywhere else. However, in 1978 she started to come back with a new album. She regularly released music in the 1980s and 1990s, until her early death of cancer in 1999. She even had a few big hits, mostly with the help of the Pet Shop Boys.

Unfortunately, I don't like much of her later music. In my opinion, many great musicians of the 1960s and 1970s lost the plot due to disco in the late 1970s, followed by the bad production techniques of the 1980s. I think Springfield is a classic example. She might have still sung well, but I usually can't get past the production issues.

So this album is kind of a last hurrah for me. I recommend you get her four early 1970s albums ("Faithful," "See All Her Faces," "Cameo," and "Longing"). This is meant to scoop up whatever didn't get released on those.

The vast majority of the songs here are outtakes from various album sessions that didn't get released until much later. The only still-unreleased song is her theme to "The Six Million Dollar Man." Apparently, this was used for two made-for-TV movies that served as warm-ups for the hit TV show.

"Corner of the Sky" is also an interesting case. Springfield wanted to record this for her 1974 album "Longing." But she only did some of the vocals before giving up. Petula Clark came along many years later and sang the missing parts, turning it into a duet.

This album is only 33 minutes long.

01 Sweet Charlie (Dusty Springfield)
02 Something for Nothing (Dusty Springfield)
03 Sweet Inspiration (Dusty Springfield)
04 Go My Love (Dusty Springfield)
05 A Song for You (Dusty Springfield)
06 Nothing Is Forever (Dusty Springfield)
07 O-o-h Child (Dusty Springfield)
08 What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life (Dusty Springfield)
09 Sea and Sky (Dusty Springfield)
10 The Six Million Dollar Man (Dusty Springfield)
11 Corner of the Sky (Dusty Springfield & Petula Clark)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15176264/DstySpr_1970-1974_SweetInspration_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I found a nice photo from late 1970. I also added in the record company logo, since her albums from that time period did that.

8 comments:

  1. Thank You for all these Dusty compilations. For years and years I wanted to make exactly you made here. 14 of them I was completely blown away the time and the effort of research to make extra Dusty works to listen to on top of her regular albums. I have all this mixed in compilations and things. But how it's sorted here is well researched you are a definitely a Dusty fan. Thank You

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    1. Thanks. I definitely am a Dusty fan, though as I've mentioned elsewhere, my interest in her music plummets after the mid-1970s.

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  2. Paul, Thanks for this one, and for the constant updating of earlier collections. That's appreciated

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  3. hi and many thanks for all that but the links of all I try to dl are obsolete, in particular for all dusty's stuff... Would you please re-up? Best regards - Al

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    1. Thank you but I still can't find any link on... All the zippyshare's are off and no new link in the comments or?...

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    2. Here's the link:
      https://www105.zippyshare.com/v/lMB8udxw/file.html

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