1939 – 1999

I would like to nominate Dusty Springfield who I feel was very bold and brave at a time when women in entertainment were meant to be second-class compared to men. As well as being a first-rate singer, now widely acknowledged as probably the best female pop singer Britain has ever produced, she was not afraid of controversy and to speak out when she needed to. She challenged apartheid in South Africa and was deported from the country for playing to multi-racial audiences, she confronted entertainers like Buddy Rich when she felt their behaviour was inappropriate and admitted she was attracted to people of the same sex in a Britain that was then generally hostile.

Her musical range went from pop through soul, light jazz, disco, musical songs and many more. Her music always sounded fresh and it never dated. Whether it was her first solo outing in 1963, ‘I Only Want To Be With You’, her haunting ballad which topped the charts in 1966, ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’, the still contemporary, ‘Son of A Preacher Man’ from 1969 or her work with the Pet Shop Boys in the 1980s, we can safely say that although Dusty may be sadly gone, she most definitely will not be forgotten

Paul Wilmot