Product Description

Dusty Springfield made her name in the 60s with a string of top ten hits. Her unique singing style and distinctive bouffant blonde look made her famous throughout the world. Despite a period in the wilderness during the 70s and 80s, she was back at the top in the 90s until her death from cancer in March l999.
Born an Irish Catholic in l939, her background set her almost schizophrenically at odds with herself as she realised her sexuality and moved further into the rock world. Both Penny Valentine and Vicki Wickham knew Dusty well, as friend and manager for much of her career. As well as charting her gay relationships, this book also looks candidly at the period of her greatest self-destruction while living in Los Angeles in the 80s. Covering every area of her career with honesty and affection, Dusty is brought vividly to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17908 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
As a child, in a desperate effort to get the attention of her parents, Mary O'Brien would place her hands on the boiler until they burned. As an adult, Mary would have the attention of the whole world. But her wigs and heavy eyeliner masked childhood insecurities that she had never been able to shake. Despite being adored by millions, a part of Dusty Springfield would forever feel loathed and unloved. While chronicling the singer's roller-coaster career, Dancing With Demons--The Authorised Biography of Dusty Springfield, reveals a vulnerable, temperamental, addictive personality whose acts of self-mutilation led to habitual hospitalisation. Based on the "intimate and personal memories" revealed by those "who knew her best", Penny Valentine and Vicky Wickham endeavour to dissect the damage that created the character that became an icon. As you'd expect from a biography written by two of her closest friends, the book paints a sympathetic picture of the high life and low times of the woman who was once the bestselling female artist in the world. But while the book benefits from the close relationship the authors shared with their subject, it also suffers from their inability to be able to view their friend from an objective perspective. Nevertheless, Dusty devotees will devour the detailed and personal account of the all too often sad existence of the white queen of (tortured) soul. --Christopher Kelly

The Observer
'riveting ... remarkable candour and honesty'

Review
Penny and Vicki are very good at unpicking the troubled relationship between Springfield's public persona and her gay sexuality.' (Independent on Sunday )

'a poignant portrait of a much-loved star' (Daily Mail )

'riveting ... remarkable candour and honesty' (The Observer )

'compulsive reading' (The Big Issue )

'a real treat' (Q Magazine )

Customer Reviews

A sad and difficult read on the demons in Dusty's life
This was never going to be an easy book for a Dusty Springfield fan to read. Rather unfortunately, we had the Daily Mail serialisations 2 weeks before the book was published. These focused solely on the low points of Dusty's career and gave the impression the book would be a salacious, scandalous depiction that refused to acknowledge the success and popularity of arguably Britain's most popular female singer.

However, the book manages to discuss many of the more painful moments in Dusty's life without being sycophantic or judgemental. The book is not a history of Dusty's musical career but prefers to tackle the so called 'demons' that seemed to catch up with her in the 1970s when her success had dried up.

We learn about the somewhat eccentric upbringing she received from parents that preferred to throw food around at meal times rather than discuss emotions. Of her strict Catholic upbringing. Of her feeling that she could never quite please her parents enough. And of course her struggles with accepting her sexuality. Somewhat more disturbing are the stories of her self abuse - cutting herself, drink and drugs and admissions to psychiatric hospitals. It's all a long way from the 60s icon that sang hits like I Only Want To Be With You and You Don't have To Say You Love Me.

Although the unhappy instances (mainly a period of ten years from the mid 70s spent in Los Angeles) are very hard to read they are necessary all the more when we get to the final chapters of the book. Dusty burst back on the music scene in 1987 with the Pet Shop Boys and continued to have success with 2 further albums before her untimely death of cancer in 1999. The fact that she overcame the addictions and the abuse (and maybe even some of the guilt) to reach a happier more settled time makes the troubled times all the more significant.

There are happier times too. We learn about her awe of the Motown artists like Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and the joy of performing with them. We get a glimpse of the wonderful sense of humour she had and her loyalty to her friends. Her professionalism when it came to recording and performing. And, near the end, the stories of how she petrified friends when she got behind the wheel of a car!

The overriding assessment of Dusty was that she was an intensely private person - never giving all away and never being able to trust anyone completely. Thus, we are left feeling that for all the accounts, how much have we really learnt.

Overall, the book is compulsive if sometimes harrowing reading. There's a real feeling of sadness at the end that we have really lost one of the greatest singers Britain has ever produced and the irony was that her death occured not from drink or drugs but from the dreaded cancer. However, if there is a joy it is that there is a wealth of music out there to explore... Ultimately, it's the music that Dusty will always be remembered for...

"Demons" - Oh, really?
Don't you just love the vultures who come out to profit off someone else's misery after they're no longer here to defend themselves? Having known Dusty, she's probably waiting for a seance just to get back here and tell these two "authors" where to get off. After almost 40 years of working overtime to keep her private life private, these two come along and blow her well-guarded privacy all to pieces. Disgraceful!

The woman was one of the most gifted singers of our time. Her courageous fight against the ravages of disease - be it bi-polar disorder, addiction, or breast cancer - should be admired. She, like most of us who share those particular inherited maladies, did the best she could. No one knows the torment of the day in day out battle against those ill forces unless they've fought them up close and personal.

If you want to know Dusty Springfield, just listen to her music. It's all there. She didn't get all that "soul" by being a piece of fluff. Dusty suffered for her art. And, make no mistake, an artist she was.

What difference does it make with whom she slept? It was nobody's business when she was alive. Why should it be spread all over these pages now that she's tragically gone?

Insteading of wasting your hard-earned money on this drivel, treat yourself to a copy of "Dusty In Memphis"; and, enjoy the gift she left for all of us. Dusty will be missed forever for those of us who loved her and her music.

If read with some sensitivity this book has value.
Any ardent fan of Dusty Springfield knows that this unbelievably talented artist was also extremely private. Dancing With Demons spills the beans. That said, it is my view that the story of Ms. Springfield's private life would have come out at some point in one way or another. Vicki Wickham was there throughout, so she does have some authority on the topic. What this book does is provide an outline of the emotional climate that Dusty Springfield lived in and describes what happened to her as a result. It is a piece of her story that hadn't been told before. But it is only a piece. The fabulous aspects of Dusty Springfield, i.e., her music and her soul, are missing.
There are some wonderful stories of her humor, generosity and strength, but not enough. The story of Dusty Springfield is told from the authors' perspective, in a series of anecdotes and observations told by Ms. Wickham and those whose stories the authors recruited. It is heart breaking, especially in it's description of her years in California; and her struggle with drink, drugs and some very difficult emotional issues. The weakest part of the book is that Dusty Springfield's own voice is missing from this description. The book is really about some of the people who knew her, and how they felt about her. So although her own view of the situation is absent, the book does shed some light on the life of Dusty Springfield by describing the attitudes of the people surrounding her.
One major detail of Dusty Springfield's life left out by the authors is a description of the difficulties of being an extremely gifted woman in a world of music dominated by male record execs and their ideas of music as a business. Although the authors discuss in great detail the personal difficulties the singer experienced while recording, especially during the seventies, they don't discuss the stresses and difficulties placed on her by the business itself. As Dusty Springfield was first and foremost a singer, this factor shouldn't have been overlooked as a contributor to her life and emotional state.
The fact that Dusty Springfield overcame many of her emotional issues and her addictions later in her life is an awesome achievement, which is also much downplayed. A lot of pieces are missing for sure in this book, but Dusty Springfield left behind many of the other pieces herself in her interviews and in her music. If you put them all together, you will have a more complete picture of this incredible woman. Without this book, you wouldn't have that picture. So as sketchy as Dancing With Demons sometimes is, I can only say that, if read with some sensitivity, it has value. That said, I recommend the book.