''A Brand New Me'' is the sixth studio album by English singer

Dusty Springfield Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, Pop music, p ...

, released in 1970.

Writing and recording

The album was recorded in late 1969 at the Sigma Sound Studios in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. It is Springfield's only album on which every song was produced by the same production team: Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Gamble also co-wrote every track on the album, and the Gamble and Huff duo went on to have success with many groups and singers in the 1970s, among them

Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes were an American soul and R&B vocal group. One of the most popular Philadelphia soul groups of the 1970s, the group's repertoire included soul, R&B, doo-wop, and disco. Founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in ...

The O'Jays The O'Jays are an American R&B group from Canton, Ohio, formed in 1958 and originally consisting of Eddie Levert, Walter Lee Williams, William Powell, Bobby Massey, and Bill Isles. The O'Jays made their first chart appearance with the minor ...

MFSB MFSB, officially standing for "Mother Father Sister Brother", was a pool of more than 30 studio musicians based at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios. They worked closely with the production team of Gamble and Huff and producer/arranger Thom Bel ...

and

The Three Degrees The Three Degrees is an American female vocal group formed circa 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although 16 women have been members over the years, the group has always been a trio. The current line-up consists of Helen Scott, Valerie Holi ...

Release and promotion

The album was first released in the United States by

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

in January 1970. Its release in the United Kingdom followed three months later by

Philips Records Philips Records is a record label founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips. It was founded as Philips Phonographische Industrie in 1950. In 1946, Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Decca's Dutch outlet in A ...

, under the title ''From Dusty with Love''. The title track was released as a single in the US in late 1969, peaking at No. 3 on the US

Adult Contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

chart and No. 24 on the Top 40 chart on December 20, 1969; Springfield would not earn another Top 40 hit for 17 years. ''From Dusty with Love'' was Springfield's last UK album to feature her name in the title; all but one of her previous five albums had done so. The album had moderate success in the UK, peaking at No. 35 on their album chart; the US release, however, stalled at No. 107. In 1992,

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...

's sublabel

Rhino Entertainment Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company founded in 1978. It is currently the catalog division for Warner Music Group. Its current CEO is Mark Pinkus. History Founded in 1978, Rhino was original ...

re-released a digitally remastered edition of ''A Brand New Me'' in the US, featuring nine bonus tracks originally issued as A- and B-side singles in the US in the years following the ''A Brand New Me'' album's release, among them recordings made with both Jerry Wexler,

Tom Dowd Thomas John Dowd (October 20, 1925 – October 27, 2002) was an American recording engineer and producer for Atlantic Records. He was credited with innovating the multitrack recording method. Dowd worked on a veritable "who's who" of recording ...

Arif Mardin Arif Mardin (March 15, 1932 – June 25, 2006) was a Turkish-American music producer, who worked with hundreds of artists across many different styles of music, including jazz, rock, soul, disco and country. He worked at Atlantic Records for ov ...

and

Ellie Greenwich Eleanor Louise Greenwich (October 23, 1940 – August 26, 2009) was an American pop music singer, songwriter, and record producer. She wrote or co-wrote "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Be My Baby", "Maybe I Know", "Then He Kissed Me", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", ...

as well as tracks from a shelved second album with Gamble & Huff, and one track recorded for Philips Records, but never released by Atlantic (Springfield's contract with Atlantic allowed them to release Philips recordings). Some of these recordings were first issued in the UK on the 1972 album '' See All Her Faces'' (which had no US counterpart), others would remain unavailable in the UK for another ten years until PolyGram released an expanded edition of ''

Dusty in Memphis ''Dusty in Memphis'' is the fifth studio album by English singer Dusty Springfield. Initial sessions were recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis, while Springfield's final vocals and the album's orchestral parts were recorded at Atlantic ...

'' as part of their mid-price series ''Reflections'', entitled ''Dusty in Memphis Plus'' and released on the

Mercury Records Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...

label in the UK and the rest of Europe in September 1980. ''From Dusty with Love'' was first issued on CD by

PolyGram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

and re-issued in Europe in the early 1990s. A digitally remastered CD edition of ''From Dusty with Love'' was released by Mercury/

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

in the UK/Europe in 2002, featuring alternate versions of recordings from the 1970 Gamble & Huff sessions as bonus tracks.

Critical reception

Reviewing in '' Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies'' (1981),

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

wrote: "Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff have bestowed upon Dusty—who as a singer of contemporary pop has only one peer,

Dionne Warwick Marie Dionne Warwick (; born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, and television host. Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest U.S. hit makers between 1955 and 1999, based on her chart history on ''Billboards Hot 100 pop singles cha ...

—the same cool-soul formula that's worked so successfully for

Jerry Butler Jerry Butler Jr. (born December 8, 1939) is an American soul singer-songwriter, producer, musician, and retired politician. He was the original lead singer of the Rhythm and blues, R&B vocal group the Impressions, inducted into the Rock and Rol ...

, but here it's wearing thin. The songs (every one written in part by Gamble) echo each other melodically and rhythmically, the instrumentation never varies, and neither does the vocal mood. If only Dusty could bring all her moods together—starting with her harder-driving stuff and working through the title cut here—she'd make a greater album than ''

''. But that's a lot to ask."

Track listing

Bonus tracks CD re-issues

* Track 11. Recording date: March 1970. Recorded at Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia. Producers: staff for Gamble-Huff Productions. Arranger:

Thom Bell Thomas Randolph Bell (January 27th, 1943 – December 22, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, arranger, pianist, and composer known as one of the creators of Philadelphia soul in the 1970s. He found success as a producer ...

. * Track 12. Recording date: 23 July 1970. Recorded at A & R Studios, New York. Producers: Ellie Greenwich & Mike Rashkow. * Track 13. Recording date: September 1968. Recorded at American Studios, Memphis. Dusty Springfield's final vocals recorded in New York. Producers: Jerry Wexler,

. * Tracks 14 & 15. Recording date: 27 March 1971. Recorded at Century Sound Studio, New York. Producer & arranger: Jeff Barry. * Tracks 16, 17 & 18. Recording date: between January and June 1971. Recorded at Century Sound Studio, New York. Producer & arranger: Jeff Barry. * Tracks 11–13. Recording date: February–March 1970. Recorded at Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia. Producers: Gamble & Huff Productions. Other tracks Recorded February 1970 at Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia. Producers: Gamble & Huff Productions. * "Something for Nothing" - 2:52 * "Cherished" - 2:39 * "Goodbye" - 2:34 * "Sweet Charlie" - 2:57 "Sweet Charlie" was originally thought to have been titled "Sweet Charlie Babe". Singer Jackie Moore released a song with the latter title a few years later, and due to the similarity of the titles, it was thought that Moore had used a backing track for what had been assumed to be Springfield's version, and simply recorded over Springfield's vocals. However, it was discovered in the late 2010s that Springfield had, in fact, recorded the track "Sweet Charlie" instead, a completely different song to Moore's. Due to the mistaken assumption that Moore had recorded over Springfield's vocals, the track remained unmixed and unreleased until the mistake was discovered and the song finally released 47 years after its recording, in 2017, on the compilation "A Brand New Me: The Complete Philadelphia Sessions".

Personnel

* Dusty Springfield – vocals * Ugene Dozier – piano, producer * Roland Chambers – guitar,

arranger In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

, producer * Vincent Montana Jr. – background vocals,

vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...

* Norman Harris – guitar * Ronnie Baker – bass guitar * Earl Young – drums * The Sweethearts of Sigma – background vocals * Don Renaldo & His String Section – strings * Sam Reed & His Horn Section – horns *

– arranger * Bobby Martin – arranger * Recorded at

Sigma Sound Studios Sigma Sound Studios was a recording studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.. It was founded in 1968 by recording engineer Joseph Tarsia. Located at 212 North 12th Street in Philadelphia, it was one of the first studios in the United States to ...

, Philadelphia * Joe Tarsia –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

* Loring Eutemey – cover design (''A Brand New Me'') * Dan Hersch – remastering (''A Brand New Me'', 1992 re-issue) * Bill Inglot – remastering (''A Brand New Me'', 1992 re-issue) * Jim Feldman – liner notes (''A Brand New Me'', 1992 re-issue) * Deborah Frost – project assistant (''A Brand New Me'', 1992 re-issue) * Mike Gill – remastering/mix (''From Dusty with Love'', 2002 re-issue) * Roger Wake – remastering/mix (''From Dusty with Love'', 2002 re-issue)

Charts

Album –

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

(United States) Singles – Billboard (United States)

Sources

* Howes, Paul (2001). The Complete Dusty Springfield. London: Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. .

External links

Article about ''A Brand New Me''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brand New Me, A 1970 albums Dusty Springfield albums Albums produced by Kenneth Gamble Albums produced by Leon Huff Albums arranged by Thom Bell Albums arranged by Bobby Martin Albums recorded at Sigma Sound Studios Atlantic Records albums Philips Records albums