8 Dusty Springfield Beautiful Soul: The ABC/Dunhill Collection HIP-O, 2001

You say: “Past her peak, but this is soaking in emotion… that voice.” Ian Webster, via Twitter

After Springfield’s US contract with Atlantic ended she moved to California and began recording with Lou Adler’s Dunhill label. She cut one complete LP,

Cameo, before abandoning another, Longing. The complete sessions collected here are powerful, often painful listening. The singer was drinking and drugging too much, and Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter’s Cameo production wrap Springfield’s voice in a soporific California warmth while the Longing sessions, recorded with Phil Spector engineer Brooks Arthur, foreground the soulful despair, especially in her desolate cover of Janis Ian’s In The Winter.