Springfield, who died March 2 after a long battle with breast cancer, had a voice that could churn up your psyche like a rototiller. It stirred up strange feelings and mysterious longings, unearthing anything you thought was buried for good. It was the voice of experience, and at a time when everyone but Elton is struggling to fing the perfect words of praise, the truest way to honor Dusty Springfield is to experience that voice for yourself.

And thanks to one of those ironic quirks of timing, Rhino Records has made it easy to do rightly by Dusty. Last month, Rhino re-released Dusty in Memphis, the 1969 landmark that gave us "Son of a Preacher Man." At the same time, Rhino's archiving fiends released Dusty in London, which features more than 20 recordings from the '60s and '70s that were never officially available in the U.S., except on import.

Like Springfield's big bouffants and awning-sized eyelashes, not all of these songs age well. Dusty in London is plagued by frilly string arrangements and too much romantic masochism for its own good (or yours). Dusty in Memphis is perfect, but its 12 bonus tracks range from the breathtaking (a gorgeous version of David Gates' "Make It With You") to the vaguely deranged (the lurching "Goodbye").

But even as the conductors flailed away and the lyricists opened vein after vein, Springfield refused to indulge in anything as ordinary as excess. Her voice could sound as big as a hurricane, but the British pop icon never blew a tune away just because she could. She used her power sparingly, unleashing the gospel diva within only when necessary. She treated the songs she recorded like scripts, and she negotiated their emotional peaks and valleys like an Oscar-winning Sherpa. No wonder songwriters loved her.

Because it is a compilation rather than a proper album, Dusty in London is the spottier of the two releases. "Love Power" and "Crumbs Off the Table" are two of Springfield's more awkward "rock" flirtations, and "Sweet Inspiration" and "Girls It Ain't Easy" aim for sassy but end up on the wrong side of shrill.

As shy and self critical as she was, Springfield could find a place for herself in almost any song. When she couldn't, you can hear it. The high notes sound pinched, and her easy huskiness seems forced. But Springfield had a knack for taming unruly tunes, and some of Dusty in London's best songs are also its weirdest.

Jimmy Webb's "Mixed Up Girl" features a Byzantine arrangement and pretzel-logic lyrics, and Springfield sails through the whole busy mess with aplomb, leaving a trail of gleaming vocal bon-bons in her wake. And if you swoon over Springfield's versions of Bacharach and David's "This Girl's in Love With You" and Leon Russell's "A Song for You," check out "I Start Counting" and "See All Her Faces." In addition to their low-key arrangements, these elliptical odes to dreamy, lost women feature vocals that are as fragile as your grandma's good china, and as tenacious as the spiderwebs that never wash off.

Beautifully and empathetically produced by studio pros Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin, Dusty in Memphis is a much more consistent album. But don't think for a minute that "consistent" means "safe." Everyone knows "Son of a Preacher Man," and anyone with half an ear knows it is as staemy and irresistible as Top 40 pop gets. What you may not know is there is plenty more where that came from.

There is "Breakfast in Bed," which is actually naughtier than "Son of a Preacher Man." (What's your hurry? Springfield signs. Please don't eat and run.) There is the biting "Don't Forget About Me," which proves that Dusty can really, really rock. And just to ensure that no one leaves in one piece, Dusty in Memphis dishes out "The Windmills of Your Mind," "In the Land of Make Believe" and "I Can't Make It Alone," a mad-woman trifecta that features the wrenching sound of someone breaking down from the inside out. By the time the cracks show, it's way too late for repairs.

Whether she was holding back ot letting her big voice fly, Dusty Springfield sang like a woman whose interior life was as rich as the melodramas she played out on vinyl. She sang with intelligence and intuition. She gave the songs room to breathe, but she always made them her own. She is gone now, but thanks to these wonderful, wild albums, she will always be as close as a heartbeat.

Karla Peterson
The San Diego Union-Tribune,
March 25, 1999