Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, better known by her stage name Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, pop and dramatic ballads, with French chanson, country, and jazz in her repertoire. During her 1960s peak, she ranked among the most successful British female performers on both sides of the Atlantic. Her image – marked by a peroxide blonde bouffant/beehive hairstyle, heavy makeup and evening gowns, as well as stylised, gestural performances – made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties.
Green Plaque at the entrance of Ealing Fields High School, Ealing, London, which Springfield, as Mary O'Brien, attended
Cashbox advertisement, 7 March 1964
Springfield in 1965
Plaque, 38–40 Aubrey Walk, London
Blue-eyed soul is rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul music performed by white artists. The term was coined in the mid-1960s, to describe white artists whose sound was similar to that of the predominantly black Motown and Stax record labels. Though many R&B radio stations in the United States in that period would only play music by black musicians, some began to play music by white acts considered to have "soul feeling"; their music was then described as "blue-eyed soul".
The Righteous Brothers, one of the early artists most closely associated with blue-eyed soul
Steve Winwood performing with Traffic, 1969
Duffy, Welsh soul artist