The Very Best of Dusty Springfield [Mercury] (CD - 1998)

Directors: Ivor Raymonde; Herb Bernstein; Terry Noonan; Keith Mansfield.

Photographer: Juliet Brightmore.

Unknown Contributor Role: Mike Gill.

Arranger: Ray Stevens.

Mercury records, which controls the Phillips records catalog, has compiled this Dusty Springfield set by referring to Springfield's U.K. and U.S. chart successes from 1964 to 1967, then licensing her two biggest hits for Atlantic records, "Son of a Preacher Man" and "A Brand New Me." The result, in terms of song selection, is an excellent 20-song, 57-minute disc that includes most of her best-known material. (The major omission is "The Windmills of Your Mind," a U.S. Top 40 hit, which was on Atlantic.) The more questionable elements on the album are the sequencing and the choice of mono and stereo takes. These problems are interrelated: if the compilation producer had opted for a chronological sequencing, the drastic aural differences between the early mono tracks and the later gimmicky, extreme (and, in at least one case, apparently fake) stereo tracks would not have been such a constant distraction to the listener. (So many tracks, even from as late as 1967, are in mono, that you wonder why they didn't just make the whole album mono.) And Springfield's stylistic evolution would have been more coherent, too. Why, for example, put the 1968 "Son of a Preacher Man" its full stereo, American R&B-style glory, as the fifth track, then follow it with the 1964 "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself," in boxy mono with orchestral accompaniment? Of course, you can re-sequence the album on your CD player, but you shouldn't have to. ~ William Ruhlmann

The title may be a tad deceptive--one of Dusty Springfield's most memorable records, a gorgeous take on Arthur Alexander's Southern soul classic "Every Day I Have to Cry" is mysteriously missing--but this is nonetheless one of the best single disc anthologies of her work. Arranged in more or less chronological order, it runs the gamut from the exuberant pure pop of "I Only Want to Be With You," through the proto-power ballad "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," to "A Brand New Me," her last American hit.

Some of the lesser known tracks are also revelatory--in the Spector-esque "Stay Awhile" Springfield overdubs herself into a one-woman version of the Ronettes. Her version of "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" has often been performed by Elvis Costello. minimize