Longing

In the early 1970s, Dusty Springfield relocated from her native England to Los Angeles in an effort to pursue new opportunities in her career and signed with ABC/Dunhill Records.

Her 1973 album Cameo showcased Springfield’s soulful pop in splendid fashion but failed to generate significant traction outside of Billboard’s Adult Contemporary listings.

For her sophomore project with the label the following year, Dusty travelled to New York to team with producer Brooks Arthur, renowned for his work with Phil Spector’s 1960s coterie of girl singers.

For Longing, Arthur chose to frame Dusty in the 1970s singer-songwriter milieu, surrounding her with material from Colin Blunstone (“Exclusively for Me”), Melissa Manchester and Carole Bayer Sager (“Home to Myself”), Janis Ian (“In the Winter”), Stephen Schwartz (“Corner of the Sky”), Chi Coltrane (“Turn Me Around”), Barry Manilow (“I Am Your Child”) and others.

In many cases, the songwriters themselves contributed directly by playing keyboards on their respective creations at Arthur’s famed 911 Studios. Bruce Springsteen was also known to sit in on some of the sessions in admiration.

As the sessions wound down in the summer of 1974, Dusty found herself suffering from emotional exhaustion and professional uncertainty. She subsequently chose to put the album on the shelf and part ways with the label, ultimately re-recording a pair of the tracks when she signed to United Artists Records a few years later.

In 2001, under the supervision of producer Arthur, nine of the ten tracks he recorded with Dusty were released on CD as part of a collection of her ABC/Dunhill period. A tenth track (“Corner of the Sky” from the Broadway musical Pippin) was reworked as a duet with Petula Clark and included on a pair of her anthologies.

Now, all ten tracks make their vinyl debut, including the first-ever solo release of “Corner of the Sky” along with new mixes for eight of the other selections for this dual CD and LP release.