Review of Dusty Springfield: People Get Ready

Introduction

Dusty Springfield is one of those true musical icons. You may not know most of her back catalogue and you may not even like any of it, but you probably know who she is. Springfield was most famous during the 60`s after splitting from the family group The Springfields. Her success as a solo performer led to her getting her own TV shows; Dusty for the BBC which ran from 1966-67 and ITV`s It Must Be Dusty in 1968 and finally a swansong for the BBC in 1969 with Definitely Dusty. Springfield`s shows not only showcased her wide range of material but also featured leading stars of the day as guests. One of the most memorable was the duet that she performed with Jimi Hendrix, the tape of which was sadly lost.

Her career stalled for a number of reasons during the 70`s and early 80`s before she was given the opportunity to record a duet with the Pet Shop Boys on What Have Done To Deserve This? This track introduced her to a new audience when it was a big hit globally, but most notably in the UK and US. She returned to the Pet Shop Boys fold a year later when singing the theme song to Scandal, a British film about the Profumo affair. Nothing Has Been Proved was another big hit and was followed by another Pet Shop Boys hit with In Private.

Springfield sadly died of cancer in 1999, just ten days before she was officially inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and before she had a chance to pick up the OBE bestowed to her in the 1998 New Years Honours List.

People Get Ready is a compilation of some of the footage from her various TV appearances and contains some of her most popular songs.

Video

Mixture of colour and black & white TV broadcast quality footage from both the 60`s and early 70`s, some of which aren`t the most flattering fashion-wise (maybe they were then, but I`m not too sure of that…). Most of it has a soft grainy look to it and whilst it`s in pretty good condition, there is artefact damage here and there which is hardly surprising given the age.

Audio

5.1 soundtrack that`s essentially just a mono track coming out of all 5 speakers. Good enough for what`s required and pretty loud too.

Features

Biography - rolling text biography over the same clip of Can I Get A Witness that appears as part of the main feature. Rolls just a little to quickly for comfort and needs better formatting to be effective and of real interest.

Conclusion

This is quite a nice collection of music from Dusty Springfield at her commercial peak. Not a true retrospective as it doesn`t contain anything beyond circa 1970, but I`m sure there will be plenty of Springfield fans that would be happy with this as a budget price collection of clips. They`re mixed up and not in any sort of chronological order, but the whole thing flows quite nicely.

Not bad.