I have a dreadful weakness for the sound of Dusty Springfield’s up front and true sounding voice like no other lady singer I can think of.  Yes, I know, Barbara Streisand is in the neighborhood.

For decades I thought Dusty Springfield had to have grown up just down or up the road from Bobbie Gentry from Mississippi.  You know, the gal who sang the Ode to Billie Joe.  If you head down I-55 down from Memphis, you drive over the Tallahatchie River.  One can only speculate if that was “the bridge”.

That husky voice of Dusty Springfield actually came from the old country.  Dusty Springfield was born in London, England.  Here’s a piece of musical trivia for you.  Dusty and her brother and another chap were in a trio called The Springfields.  This group was voted England’s most popular group in 1961 and 1962.  Here’s the good one.  The Springfields rendition of the tune Silver Threads and Golden Needles was the first song by a British vocal group to be a Top 10 hit single in the USA.

In earnest, my life’s contemporary listening of Dusty Springfield was when she appeared on the Pet Shop Boys’ tune What Have I Done to Deserve This in 1987.  She sang the chorus.  If you can call it that.  Every time that song came on MTV, I waited to hear her voice.  Dusty Springfield was 59 when she passed away in 1999.  Hers is one voice that I missed hearing in person, and I regret it

So… I am mining through YouTube videos to watch whilst I exercise.  This is how I find out that David Gilmour has “dropped” a new song.  That is what the kids say when a new song comes out.  The new song is “dropped”.  The English teacher in me is not fond of such connotation.

I saw Gilmour at Rupp Arena in 1987 when he was in Pink Floyd, and they were on their first post-Roger Waters tour.  I enjoyed that album, Momentary Lapse of Reason; they played most of the album that early November night.  The concert was great.  Pink Floyd was one of those “other stratosphere” bands.  I can’t explain it.  But, just like Rush and Genesis, and to a degree, The Moody Blues, there are more guys in the audience than there are ladies.  It’s an industrial sound.  Those concerts are no place to look for sugar from your sweetie, unless Justin Hayward is singing Nights in White Satin.

Gilmour is like the rest of us.  He’s getting older.  But he can still play.

Go find something to listen to!

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson