A Little Piece of My Heart: The Essential Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield’s voice is a paradox of high-gloss glamour and devastatingly private intimacy. This collection captures the breadth of that contradiction, moving from the exuberant, brass-heavy pop of her early career to the sultry, smoke-filled rooms of her later soul explorations. It is the sound of a woman who understood the mechanics of a hit song but felt every syllable of the heartbreak she sang about. The arrangements are often massive; swelling strings, punchy horn sections, and wall-of-sound percussion; yet her voice never gets lost. Instead, it sits right in your ear, whispering secrets even when the band is at full tilt.