I've been a Dusty Springfield fan ever since her family's version of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles"; at one time, I thought nothing could surpass the moment when she joyously allayed eveyone's adolescent romantic anxieties with "I said no matter, no matter what you do/I only want to be with you." But little did I suspect that this newest album, appropriately entitled Cameo, would be such a superior and involving piece of work. Her smokey, intimate voice has been singing in my living room for weeks now, and I'm not tired yet.

The songs herein are about love, fighting, expectations, growing, breaking uo, reunion, and so on. Some celebrate, others rue. Most are by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, Dusty's producers, though there's one by Bread's great David Gates, as well as Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" (beautiful tune, stupid lyric.) Lambert's and Potter's songs aren't too ambitious, but they are solid and simple, speaking of love in direct images and unpretentious language. The arrangements will be familiar to fans: spare and open, crispy ominous electric piano and rhythm guitar chords over unison strings playing easy, masculine figures. The rhythms are often forward-moving, or otherwise neo-Motown; the feeling is more from the world of "The Look of Love," "Anyone Who Had A Heart" and "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" than "Windmills of Your Mind."

Further, I can't say that I've ever heard a better match of material to singer/persona. Dusty is a mature woman, one who's been around, who's upfront about her experiences. She strikes a balance between the sensibilities of Joni Mitchell and Loretta Lynn. The songs seem to be her own; the integrity is striking. There is little vocal artifice, though there's plenty of expressivity. The voice doesn;t puch big messages, or beat it's breast (to mix metaphors). Cameo is as natural and easy as a Carol King record, though it is not at all adolescent, being more redolent of cigarette butts and empty Manhatten glasses. If you've been put off by the distant cleanliness of Judy Collins, the fraudulent emotionalism of Carly Simon, and the inattentiveness to lyric and meaning of Roberta Flack and Karen Carpenter, then give a listen to Dusty Springfield. There's nothing to object to in Cameo.

Peter Moran
Rolling Stone, 1973

Nothing has given me so much pleasure in the past couple of months as hearing this album. I've long believed that Dusty Springfield is more than a match for most of the highly rated rock singers I've heard, yet apart from odd flashes on her albums, a few of her singles, and the Dusty in Memphis collection, there's been very little hard evidence to back up my belief. That's frustrating, not so much because I needed the evidence myself, but because I was tired of other people's scepticism. Go on Dusty, show 'em -- and on Cameo she surely has.

It's almost the album I've been longing for her to make, and it'll certainly do more than well until the next one. It surprised me slightly by achieving the effect I'd been hoping for, but through different means . . . What she's done (apart from the pure rhythm section and horns on "Tupelo Honey") is combine a tight rhythm section with more conventional string arrangements, and though it flags on some tracks, it surpasses even my imagined results in others.

"Who Gets Your Love" is the perfect example -- the arrangement for bass, drums, guitar, strings, horns and backing vocals provide her with a rich yet firm background over which her voice soars. More than any other singer I know she has the ability to keep her voice on a taunt rein, perfect control, yet at the same time use it as powerfully expressive instrument.

On "Easy Evil" the restraint of the band enhances that quality, and her craftsmanship throughout the album is breathtaking. Even on fairly mediocre songs with unimaginative arrangements, the phrasing and little twists in the melody give her the edge.

I got tough with myself after listening to the album over a couple of weeks and made myself list the tracks I could really say I enjoyed without reservation. I came to the conclusion that two - "Who Gets Your Love" and "Tupelo Honey" -- were outstanding, three almost made it to that, and the rest I had various reservations about, mostly because I didn't particularly like the songs or the arrangements. There aren't too many albums I can rate that highly.

Author and publication unknown.