Dusty Springfield - Live in Concert: 1964-1966

Dusty Springfield was one of the most popular singers in Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s. For instance, in 1966, she won both the Melody Maker and N.M.E. polls for best female singer. But despite that popularity, there are shockingly few live recordings from her, even though she toured a fair amount. One official live album, "Live at the Royal Albert Hall," has been released. But, in my opinion, that was from the worst time in her career for a live album, 1979, at the height of the disco era and at a down era for her career. True, there are lots of recordings of TV and radio broadcasts, and I've compiled those as best I could. But in terms of actual concert recordings, there's almost nothing, especially from her 1960s and early 1970s peak era.

I decided to try to change there. When it comes to unreleased concert recordings, there also is very, very little. But I did find a few things from 1964 to 1966. Putting them together, it's just enough for a relatively short live album.

The first section of this concert comes from a concert in Melbourne, Australia, in 1964. She was part of a package tour of Australia with Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. An hour long concert was filmed for Australian TV. Decades later, this has been released on DVD only, under the title "The Liverpool Sound." I was able to find most of that, but not quite all. I'm missing the first song, "I Only Want to Be with You." So, for that, I used a live performance of that song she did for the Ed Sullivan Show. This Australian concert makes up the first 13 minutes of this album, tracks one through eight. The last song, "When the Saints Go Marching In," was the finale, where each of the lead singers got to sing a verse.

The other two sections here come from annual N.M.E. concerts. "N.M.E." stands for "New Musical Express," one of the main music-centric publications in Britain in that era. They had a yearly poll winners concert that brought together the biggest names in music at the time. I've already posted the full 1965 concert, which you can get here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/01/various-artists-nme-poll-winners.html

I have all of what's available of the 1964 and 1966 concerts, and I'd like to post those soon. Springfield wasn't featured in the 1964 one. But I've included her 1965 and 1966 performances here. Tracks nine through 13 are from the 1965 concert, and tracks 14 to 18 are from the 1966 concert. All of these N.M.E. concerts remain unreleased. Springfield's short 1965 set is repeated on the N.M.E. concert I linked to above, but I think there's value in putting all her concert recordings from the era together here.

Luckily, there are no repeats of songs from these three sources. That's probably because they were about a year apart each, so she had different hits to promote each year. When it comes to sound quality, this isn't amazing, but it's about as good as you could expect for the era. Like the Australian concert, the N.M.E. concerts were broadcast on T.V., so that's why we have recordings that survive.

This album is 32 minutes long. 

001 I Only Want to Be with You (Dusty Springfield)
002 talk (Dusty Springfield)
003 Stay Awhile (Dusty Springfield)
004 The Love of a Boy (Dusty Springfield)
005 talk (Dusty Springfield)
006 Shake It Up (Dusty Springfield)
007 talk (Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Brian Poole & Dusty Springfield)
008 When the Saints Go Marching In (Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Brian Poole & Dusty Springfield)
009 talk (Dusty Springfield)
010 Dancing in the Street (Dusty Springfield)
011 talk (Dusty Springfield)
012 Mockingbird (Dusty Springfield)
013 I Can't Hear You [No More] (Dusty Springfield)
014 talk (Dusty Springfield)
015 In the Middle of Nowhere (Dusty Springfield)
016 You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (Dusty Springfield)
017 talk (Dusty Springfield)
018 Shake (Dusty Springfield)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PkcQGKmR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/xmJw8otVzVvSA3I/file

The cover photo is from 1965, but I don't know the details beyond that.