It happens to be true

Biographies by their very nature have sad endings. Biographies of those we like, at least. It's usually the early days, the formative years that are of most interest in the lives of famous people. Where it all came from and how it suddenly clicked into place. Success and fame is a bit of a bore. Marc Bolan, Lou Reed, even Cliff, had 'wilderness years', as did Dusty, which can be interesting if dark, but the end of someone who did great things can't help but seem awful.

Lucy O'Brien is journalistic which makes her an easy read but some of her analysis of Dusty repeats itself. One can be convinced that the tantrums and insecurities come from her childhood self image. Dusty Springfield was an invention of Mary O'Brien and the mascara is highly significant. But she was much more than a product and if she was a creation, it was her that created herself. She understood and was involved in the production of her records as much as Michael Jackson was, perfectionist, sometimes difficult but much more than the glam icon at the front.

In common with Cliff, the media developed a fixation about her domestic arrangements. The wording of the law, nowadays at least, specifies 'between consenting adults in private' but the privacy part of that is often overlooked. In the other direction, perhaps it would be preferable if other artists - maybe Madonna, Prince and the like- hadn't made such currency out of their amourousness but pop music has never been simply about the music. Dusty became almost itinerant between LA and the UK and her relationships seemed to involve a similarly temporary and rootless restlessness. The high price of such artistic achievement involved deep insecurity, mood swings and self doubt but without them the vulnerability and drama wouldn't have been in the music.

There was a time, long ago now, when I didn't realize there was so much to pick between Dusty, Petula, Cilla, Lulu and Sandie Shaw but they are easier to differentiate now. It seems significant that each of the four major record companies had their own, almost seemingly 'token' star girl singer in their otherwise male-dominated catalogues,

Lulu, the Glaswegian singer from Dennistoun Palace in Glasgow's East End was signed to Decca; Cilla Black, the wise-cracking cloakroom girl at the Liverpool Cavern Club...was on EMI; Sandie Shaw and the effervescent Petula Clark were on Pye; and Dusty, of course, was with Philips.

Lucy O'Brien even picks up on the idea that female artists were only offered some sort of second-best material with the best songs going to male acts. I'm less convinced about that when Burt Bacharach provided for Dionne Warwick, Cilla and Dusty, Berry Gordy made a priority of Diana Ross and the Supremes at Motown and, to be fair, the Beatles, Stones and Smokey Robinson can hardly be found guilty of writing their own.

We hear with disbelief how the likes of Donald Trump, Jacob Rees-Mogg and now Vladimir Putin arrive at their self-serving points of view. One excuses Boris Johnson from such a shortlist because he doesn't seem to have a point of view. It was equally dumbfounding how Dusty's tour of South Africa in 1964 ended suddenly when, having stipulated that she would not perform to segregated audiences. To his great shame and with it not clear what it was to do with him, Derek Nimmo spoke out against her and she was accused of publicity-seeking to further her career when she was already top female artist by sales, polls and any other measure. I was reminded of the story that more significant names than Nimmo, Colin Cowdrey and Peter May, had been willing to leave Basil D'Oliviera out of the England party to save the 68-69 cricket tour which seems more amazing now that it must have done then.

It's easy to like such glamorous talent as Dusty, George Best, Paul Gascoigne and Marc Bolan (who is spelt Mark in this book in a proof-reading debacle) who were all capable of great charm without having had to work with them. It's also somehow less easy to credit Gary Lineker, Cliff Richard or Trevor Brooking with the same level of genius because they caused less trouble, which seems less than fair, as if one can't be a genius without being troubled. Perhaps you can't.

Dusty's most memorable comeback effort was with What Have I Done to Deserve This with the Pet Shop Boys, by that time ripe for retro homage from the next generation. Lulu did Relight My Fire with Take That, Cilla was even more famous as a television presenter than she had been as a singer. For Petula the sixties had been like second time around already, having been a child star but Dusty's re-invention, having always been more than the pop product, was the classier, having not heard of the Pet Shop Boys when they first tried to get her but then being so impressed with West End Girls when she heard it on the car radio that she nearly drove off the freeway. 

It is very moving how a fan became a backing singer and then looked after Dusty when the cancer came back fatally a second time. I like to think I'm not the world's most passionate guy but when you read such lines it nearly breaks your heart.

Reading about pop music is a poor substitute for listening to it but, ever concerned about things one need not be concerned about, one feels the need to find out. It's often not pretty. I'm not concerned about whether Dusty was 'white soul' or not. Elvis allegedly thought Tom Jones was black which is reported as if it myust be a compliment. We really ought to have gone beyond such assumptions, or thinking they matter, by now. If it hadn't been apparent at the time when the hit parade might have been regarded as ephemeral, commercial and potentially throwaway, it has surely lasted far beyond any expectations anybody had of it and can by now be regarded as art of the first order.

Dusty's grave has never been without flowers.