DUSTY SPRINGFIELD (UK)

Born: 16 April 1939
Died: 2 March 1999 (aged 59)
Real name: Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien

Dusty was born in West Hampstead, an area of North West London. She would earn the nickname Dusty from playing football with the boys in the street as she grew up. When she left school, she and her brother Tom would sing together in local folk clubs. In 1958 she answered an advert for a singer for the vocal group The Lana Sisters and would record a handful of singles with them. In 1960 she left The Lana Sisters and set up The Springfields with her brother and a guy called Reshad Feild (who would go under the name Tim Feild and would later be replaced by Mike Hurst). As they were recording in spring, they took on the band name The Springfields and each member took Springfield as a surname. They would see early success with singles ‘Breakaway’ and ‘Bambino’ which went to 31 and 16 respectively in the UK. They would go on to see 3 further UK hits and 2 Hot 100 hits in the US. The Springfields would break up in 1963. Tom would go on to work as a songwriter, seeing hits when his songs were recorded by The Seekers. Dusty embarked on a solo career. Her first solo release was ‘I Only Want To be With You’ which peaked at 4 in the UK and 12 in the US. She would go on to manage 32 hits on the UK charts, topping them with 1966’s ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’. In the US she saw 20 hits and her duet with The Pet Shop Boys, ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This’ gave her a best peak of 4. She would die from breast cancer.

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
26-Nov-1987	What Have I Done To Deserve This	16	16
		Total hits	1
		Total weeks	16

Biggest climber awards	3
Star rater climbs	3
Biggest fallers	1
Weeks with oldest in the charts	0
Longest run in the charts (weeks)	16
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts	0
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)	0
Top 30 points ranking	=932
Top 20 points ranking	=1053
Top 30 points	127
Top 20 points	22