Despite recent chart successes through work with the Pet Shop Boys, Dusty Springfield is still seen by many as a Sixties has-been; they recall a few desolate ballads, a ton of mascara, and a slippery slide into 17 years of personal despair and professional failure. Though the 1990 album Reputation proved a poor showcase for her talents, the marginalisation of Britain's finest female singer of the 1960s is still surprising and ironic in view of the rich harvest much lesser veterans are now reaping from Sixties nostalgia.

Springfield, who won numerous awards as a vocalist, has found only her gay following has stayed consistently loyal. Yet given our strange values, had she succeeded in killing herself, recognition would probably have followed in full measure.

A "singer's singer", she remains a favourite among top white and black musicians and songwriters for her original and versatile voice, her uncanny rapport with black music, and painful sensitivity of phrasing and interpretation.

She was the incomparable translator of writers like Bacharach, while Carole King recalled: "Literally hundreds of people have recorded our songs, but no-one ever interpreted them as well as Dusty did."

With the release over recent months of several 1960s albums on CD, the under-40s, the sceptics, and keen fans baffled by her long disappearance have a new chance to appreciate the quality and legacy of the dusky-voiced "White Negress".

Despite a 1960s string of 14 hit singles, much of Springfield's best work was on lesser-known album tracks, where she moved with casual ease among the rhythms of soul, R&B, jazz, and big ballads, with support from classy backing singers like Doris Troy or Madeleine Bell, and some of the best pre-synthesiser musicians. She could belt out up-beat number (like "In The Middle Of Nowhere", with Alan Price), breathe Bacharach like "This Girl's In Love With You", then move into fresh yet immaculate interpretation of Hollywood classics like "Second Time Around", before debunking its pretension with the sound of smashing crockery.

Sadly the crockery has gone from Philip's CD release of Dusty . . . Definitely (first released in 1968), probably the most under-rated of Springfield's musically schizophrenic albums. The gritty soul blasts of tracks like "Love Power" or "Take Another Piece Of My Heart" contrast with some marvellously rich and sensitive performances of music often dismissed as easy listening or supperclub (which can be the hardest to make tolerable), like Charles Aznavour's "Who (Will Take My Place)?", or "I Only Wanna Laugh".

Endless rehashes of Greatest Hits are the grim fate of singers who disappear and though Philips' tasteful Silver Collection is still a strong seller, Songbook has won most praise from Springfield fans. Pickwick, an independent low-budget label, deserve the more credit for managing to find for their 20-strong 1964-1974 collection, stereo recordings of songs like "I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten" - when giants like Philips could not.

Springfield's rapport with black American soul was already obvious on her first 1964 album, A Girl Called Dusty, reissued by Phonogram and featuring highlights like Charlie and Inez' Foxx's "Mockingbird" - where she duetted with herself. Her second album, Ev'rything's Coming Up Dusty (Beat Goes On) includes Baby Washington's "That's How Heartaches Are Made", while Where Am I Going (Phonogram) has Madeleine Bell and Lesley Duncun backing desolate numbers like "Chained To A Memory".

Springfield's most acclaimed album, still a classic in the music business, was Dusty In Memphis. Her 1968 Atlantic collaboration with some of America's finest black and white R&B musicians, which made the spare and understated "Son Of A Preacher Man" an equally acclaimed hit single, has - in my experience - been perversely hard to find. Meanwhile, the promised Phonogram boxed CD set is still awaited, with March the latest projected release date, and is due to include half-a-dozen previously unreleased tracks.

Dusty Springfield's legendary perfectionism was an ordeal for those she worked with, but she may need to resurrect it minus the self-doubt. For her future success will not depend on a voice whose quality needs no proving, but on the good judgment of the singer and those who influence her. EMI/Parlophone inexplicably continue refusing to release "Daydreaming", the most popular track on Reputation, as a single, and Springfield's own inclination to opt for current music won't work unless the material and musicians are first class and use her voice to best effect.

She has already said of the synthesiser-laden Reputation: "I wasn't raised on this kind of music . . . it would be nice to do an album of really good old standards." Another schizophrenic album would be worth the risk, for if such influential singers venture again into what they do better than anyone else, then whenever the music was written, the results are unlikely to be branded as dated or obsolete.

Sarah Nelson
Glasgow Herald, 14 February 1991