Bubbling Under: Dusty Springfield- "Let Me Love You Once Before You Go"

Dusty Springfield's career from the late 1970's onwards.

Welcome to Bubbling Under. In each edition, I cover an artist or song that charted outside Billboard’s Hot 100. This week: Dusty Springfield’s career from 1977 onwards. As usual, be sure to like, comment, or hit the subscribe button. Thank You!

The 1970’s were not a great time for Dusty Springfield. Her projected ninth album, which was to have been 1974’s Longing wasn’t released. Dusty was no stranger to the Bubbling Under Charts and plenty of her early 1970’s singles could be entries unto themselves.

By 1977, she switched North American labels. Now on United Artists, Springfield was ready to record her first album since 1973’s Cameo. In the meantime, though, a new single was released.

It’s easy to see why this was chosen. The song is an easy listening ballad in the vein of Rita Collidge or Carly Simon. It was probably seen by her new label as a surefire way to reintroduce Dusty Springfield to the masses. The song isn’t bad but it’s not really memorable either. I’d remembered hearing it years earlier but kept getting it confused with another ballad she recorded and released not long after, her cover of “I’d Rather Leave While I’m In Love”.

Personally, I think “Let Me Love You Once Before You Go” sounds like a coffee commercial jingle. “I’d Rather Leave While I’m In Love”, which incidentally is best known via the 1979 Rita Coolidge version, isn’t awful, but I prefer this version by singer Thelma Jones:

At this point in Springfield’s solo career, she was being handled by two separate record labels.

In the UK, more interesting single choices were made. It Begins Again, her 1978 album, was produced by Roy Thomas Baker, who at the time was in demand via his association with Queen.

“A Love Like Yours” was chosen as the first single. It peaked on the UK Breakers List which was their equivalent to the Bubbling Under chart. And more importantly, it got Dusty Springfield on Top Of The Pops.

She also appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test to promote her new album:

For the second single, the label chose a cover of “That’s The Kind Of Love I’ve Got For You”. The song was released a few years previously by the criminally underrated 70’s singer Rita Jean Bodine. Bodine was an interesting singer. Like another 70’s singer, Noosha Fox, Bodine had a 1920’s silent screen star image fused with a funky rock sound. She cut two albums for 20th Century Records (More on them later!) in the mid-70s and then quickly vanished. I was lucky enough to find her second album Bodine, Rita Jean at an antique mall once.

“That’s The Kind Of Love For You” should have been a hit. For whatever reason, Rita Jean Bodine didn’t catch on and unfortunately, neither did Dusty Springfield’s version.

To be fair, United Artists did try out “That’s The Kind Of Love I’ve Got For You”. A 12” remix by the legendary Tom Moulton was released and the track did become a minor Hot Dance Club Play hit. However, the label seemed more interested in pushing a different track that was not part of the album.

Corvette Summer is a mostly forgotten car chase comedy that’s best known now for being Mark Hamill’s first post-Star Wars starring vehicle (no pun intended). It also features Annie Potts in a rare romantic leading role. I caught it on TV once around twenty years ago. Any movie starring Mark Hamill and Annie Potts isn’t going to be awful. That said, it’s not mind-blowingly great either.

The trailer resorted to mentioning Star Wars to drum up interest, so there’s that:

What does this have to do with Dusty Springfield? Well, for starters, she’s on the soundtrack. And being a United Artists release, that’s what her North American label decided to push instead.

It’s a safe blues-y ballad that isn’t as strong as the work she did with Roy Thomas Baker. The label should have tried to push “That’s The Kind Of Love…” instead.

Following another album, 1979’s Living Without Your Love (which featured one single in each territory) she finally did have one minor UK hit once the Breakers List was done away with and the chart became a Top 100.

Going into this piece, I wrongly assumed that “Baby Blue” was an early Trevor Horn production. While he was a co-writer alongside Buggles cohorts Geoff Downes and Bruce Wooley, it was rather produced by David Mackay.

It’s one of the best things Springfield recorded during this period. Unfortunately, it too wasn’t the hit it should have been, stalling at #61 in the UK. Mercury would release one more single in early 1980 and then give up on Dusty Springfield completely.

Like most everything else she was recording it was yet another case of “Right Place, Wrong Time”

“Your Love Still Brings Me To My Knees” was another flop, but became a huge European hit not long after when covered by singer Marcia Hines.

Despite no longer having a UK record label, Springfield did still have one in North America. Springfield was next signed to 20th Century, the label I mentioned earlier as once having Rita Jean Bodine on their roster. And it was once again another label affiliated with a movie studio.

Norma Rae had been a huge hit that helped establish Sally Field as more than a television actress. While it won Field her first Academy Award for Best Actress, the film also won Best Song for “It Goes Like It Goes”

Because Jennifer Warnes, who originated the song on the film’s soundtrack, was signed to Arista at the time, 20th Century had their latest signing record the song for release on their label.

Springfield had started work on an album for 20th Century when that label was bought by Polygram and shuttered. Amazingly, work continued on the album and she was moved over to Casablanca Records. Casablanca had been a big deal during the 1970’s and while the label was still releasing music steadily into the mid-1980’s, it wasn’t as prestigious as it once had been due to the disco backlash. They did have some hits with things like the soundtrack to Flashdance. Future Bubbling Under subjects Commuter, a band that only released one single, were also a Casablanca act.

Casablanca was also at this point closely affiliated with Mercury via the Polygram association. From what I gather, due to her past association with the label, the UK arm of Polygram rejected the album leading to it only being released in the United States and Canada.

It’s a shame that the album hadn’t been picked up by a better label instead because it’s actually pretty good.

Initially, the album was to be released around-mid 1982 which is when the single "Donnez Moi (Give It to Me)" was released. The album was delayed six more months and not released until the end of 1982.

For some reason, the track is unplayable on Spotify, so here’s a YouTube video:

Dusty Springfield jumped into the 80’s new wave headfirst and the results were pretty solid.

Those aren’t the best tracks on the album, though. I know that previous parts of this piece have gone on about labels picking safe-sounding ballads for release over more “experimental” fare but she had two on this album that should have been singles.

The first, “Don’t Call It Love” was later a country hit for Dolly Parton. Previously, Kim Carnes had recorded it for her Mistaken Identity album. All three artists did well with it, though, and it should have been a pop hit at least once. Actually, it’s the song that got me into Dusty Springfield’s music in my early 20’s. I should add that Carnes was also having a successful career at the time with a very similar musical style to the one Springfield attempted on White Heat with tracks like “Voyeur”.

The other, “Time And Time Again” is more adult contemporary fare. It’s a bit out of place among the more new wave and synth-led oriented material but it’s one of the best of her later tracks. A haunting orchestral piano ballad, it deserved better than to be buried on an album that was barely released.

The album also included a song written by Elvis Costello, “Losing You (Just A Memory)”

There were also two tracks written by Carole Pope and Kevan Staples of the Canadian band Rough Trade: “I Am Curious” (The B-Side to Donnez Moi which should have been a single instead) and “Soft Core”

At the time the album was recorded, Springfield and Pope were in a relationship. The two met in 1981 at a concert Springfield was performing at in New York. Springfield moved to Toronto briefly to live with Pope. The relationship lasted 18 months during which time Springfield also sang backing vocals on Rough Trade’s 1981 album For Those Who Think Young and the band’s biggest hit “All Touch”. That’s a story for another week, though.

As for Dusty Springfield, she periodically released singles over the next five years or so. None of them really made an impact. She had a reversal of fortune when the Pet Shop Boys got her to sing as a credited vocalist on their 1987 smash “What Have I Done To Deserve This?”.

Over the next twelve years, Springfield’s career had a turnaround that resulted in a small string of solo UK hits in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s including “Nothing Has Been Proved” which was featured in the 1989 film Scandal.

Unfortunately, this period of her career was cut short by a 1994 cancer diagnosis, She would release one more album, 1995’s A Very Fine Love before she died in 1999. Her music lives on and has attracted many new fans in the 25 years since.

Next Week: Beyond The Guess Who returns with Rough Trade.