Editing Dusty Springfield (section)

=== Musical style ===
Influenced by US pop music,<ref name=rolling>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/rollingstoneency00holl |url-access=registration |quote=dusty springfield. |chapter=Dusty Springfield |title=The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll |publisher=Touchstone |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-7432-0120-9 |first1=Holly |last1=George-Warren |first2=Patricia |last2=Romanowski |first3=Patricia |last3=Romanowski Bashe |first4=Jon |last4=Pareles}}</ref> Dusty Springfield created a distinctive [[blue-eyed soul]] sound.<ref name="Napier-Bell" /><ref name=marcus1>{{cite magazine |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090414080323/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/dustyspringfield/albums/album/230620/review/5945017/dusty_in_memphis |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/artists/dustyspringfield/albums/album/230620/review/5945017/dusty_in_memphis |first=Greil |last=Marcus |title=Dusty Springfield: ''Dusty in Memphis'' |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=1 November 1969 |archive-date=14 April 2009 |url-status=dead |access-date=29 June 2012}}</ref> [[BBC News]] noted "[h]er soulful voice, at once strident and vulnerable, set her apart from her contemporaries... She was equally at home singing [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] standards, blues, country or even techno-pop".<ref name="BBCObit" /> Allmusic's Jason Ankeny described her:{{blockquote|[T]he finest white soul singer of her era, a performer of remarkable emotional resonance whose body of work spans the decades and their attendant musical transformations with a consistency and purity unmatched by any of her contemporaries; though a camp icon of glamorous excess in her towering beehive hairdo and panda-eye black mascara, the sultry intimacy and heartbreaking urgency of [her] voice transcended image and fashion, embracing everything from lushly orchestrated pop to gritty R&B to disco with unparalleled sophistication and depth.<ref name=allmusic>{{cite web |url={{AllMusic|class=artist|id=p5503/biography|pure_url=yes}} |title=Dusty Springfield |last=Ankeny |first=Jason |publisher=Allmusic. Rovi Corporation |access-date=2 July 2012}}</ref>}}
Most responses to her voice emphasise her breathy sensuality.<ref name="britannica" /><ref name=topia>{{cite journal |url=https://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/topia/article/viewFile/113/105 |journal=Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies |last=Mitchell |first=Tony |title=Memorializing Dusty Springfield: Millennia, Mourning, Whiteness, Fandom, and the Seductive Voice |volume=6 |year=2001 |pages=83–97 |format=PDF |access-date=4 July 2012 |doi=10.3138/topia.6.83 |doi-access=|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Another powerful feature was the sense of longing, in songs such as "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" and "Goin' Back".<ref name=topia /><ref name=rnb356 /> The uniqueness of Springfield's voice<ref name=rnb356 /> was described by Bacharach: "You could hear just three notes and you knew it was Dusty".<ref name="BBCFarewell" /> Wexler declared, "[h]er particular hallmark was a haunting sexual vulnerability in her voice, and she may have had the most impeccable intonation of any singer I ever heard".<ref name="Sexton">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.cpinternet.com/~mbayly/tribute6.htm |title=Springfield Remembered |last=Sexton |first=Paul |magazine=Billboard |publisher=Woman of Repute |date=19 March 1999 |access-date=5 July 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923210852/http://www.cpinternet.com/~mbayly/tribute6.htm |archive-date=23 September 2015}}</ref> Greil Marcus of ''Rolling Stone'' captured Springfield's technique as "a soft, sensual box (voice) that allowed her to combine syllables until they turned into pure cream".<ref name=marcus1 /> She had a finely tuned musical ear and extraordinary control of tone.<ref name=rnb356 /> She sang in a variety of styles, mostly pop, soul, folk, Latin, and rock'n'roll.<ref name=musicianguide /> Being able to wrap her voice around difficult material,<ref name=rnb356>Gulla, p. 356.</ref> her repertoire included songs that their writers ordinarily would have offered to black vocalists.<ref name=marcus1 /> In the 1960s, on several occasions, she performed as the only white singer on all-black bills.<ref name=musicianguide /> Her soul orientation was so convincing that early in her solo career, US listeners who had only heard her music on radio or records sometimes assumed that she was black.<ref name="Randall2005" /><ref name=topia /> Later, a considerable number of critics observed that she sounded black and American or made a point of saying she did not.<ref name="cole13">{{cite book |first=Laurence |last=Cole |page=13 |title=Dusty Springfield: in the Middle of Nowhere |chapter=Chapter Two: White Soul Queen |publisher=Middlesex University Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-904750-41-3}}</ref>

Springfield consistently used her voice to upend commonly held beliefs on the expression of [[social identity]] through music. She did this by referencing a number of styles and singers, including [[Martha Reeves]], Carole King, Aretha Franklin, Peggy Lee, [[Astrud Gilberto]], and [[Mina (Italian singer)|Mina]].<ref name="Randall3">Randall, (2009), [https://books.google.com/books?id=O4kFsOnFQqMC p. 3].</ref> Springfield instructed UK backup musicians to capture the spirit of US musicians and copy their instrumental playing styles.<ref name=musicianguide /><ref name="Randall2005" /> However, the fact that she could neither read nor write music made it hard to communicate with session musicians.<ref name="Leeson49">Leeson, [https://archive.org/details/dustyspringfield0000lees <!-- quote="read music". --> p. 49].</ref><ref name="Kort">{{cite journal |title=The Secret Life of Dusty Springfield | journal=[[The Advocate (magazine)|The Advocate]] |date=27 April 1999 |first=Michele |last=Kort |issue=16}}</ref> In the studio she was a perfectionist.<ref name="taylor">{{cite journal |last=Taylor |first=Charles |date=12 January 1997 |title=Mission Impossible: The Perfectionist Rock and Soul of Dusty Springfield |url=http://weeklywire.com/ww/12-01-97/boston_music_2.html |journal=[[The Phoenix (newspaper)|The Boston Phoenix]] |access-date=29 June 2012 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304025519/http://weeklywire.com/ww/12-01-97/boston_music_2.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Despite producing many tracks, she did not take credit for doing so.<ref name=liner /> During extensive vocal sessions, she repeatedly recorded short phrases and single words.<ref name="Randall2005" /> When recording songs, headphones were typically set as high in volume as possible–at a [[decibel]] level "on the threshold of pain".<ref name="mojoref"/>

The Philips Record company's studio was slated as "an extremely dead studio", where it felt as though it had turned the treble down: "There was no [[wikt:ambiance|ambience]] and it was like singing in a padded cell. I had to get out of there".<ref name="Mojo" /><ref name="mojoref">{{cite news |work=[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]] |date=May 1999 |issue=66 |title=Real Gone – Dusty Springfield, England's Lady Soul |first=Lucy |last=O'Brien |page=34}}</ref> Springfield wound up recording in the ladies' toilets because of superior [[acoustics]].<ref name="mojoref"/> Another example of refusal to use the studio is "I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten"–recorded at the end of a corridor.<ref name="mojoref"/>