“I Only Want to Be With You”/”Stay Awhile” (Dusty Springfield)

Over the past few days we’ve looked at a few British girl singers, including the extremely talented Petula Clark. The biggest of the ’60s Brit girls, however, was arguably Dusty Springfield. Dusty was a phenomenon, racking up fifteen Top 40 hits on the UK charts and ten in the U.S.

With that in mind, today’s classic songs (plural) of the day are Dusty’s first two big hits. Her debut single, “I Only Want to Be With You” was released in November of 1963 and hit #4 on the UK Singles Chart and #12 on the American Billboard Hot 100. “Stay Awhile” was released in March of 1964 and peaked at #13 on the UK Singles Chart and #38 on the Billboard Hot 100. Both songs were written by Mike Hawker and Ivor Raymonde, who also wrote tunes for other British girl singers, including Pye Girl Helen Shapiro.

Both “I Only Want to Be With You” and “Stay Awhile” are very early-60s sounding songs. They have the same brassy, upbeat, Wall of Soundish British beat and helped to propel Ms. Springfield to superstar status. She went on to have huge international hits with “Wishin’ and Hopin” (#6 in 1963), “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” (#4 in 1966), “The Look of Love” (#22 in 1967), “Son of a Preacher Man” (#10 in 1968), and “Brand New Me” (#24 in 1969); host her own television variety programs on the BBC (Dusty, 1966-1967; It Must Be Dusty, 1968; Decidedly Dusty, 1969); record what is universally regarded as one of the top albums of all time (Dusty in Memphis, 1969); and define the Brit girl look for the mod generation with her big beehive hair and racoon eyes.

I personally put Dusty Springfield at the top of my list of favorite 1960’s female singers. (It’s a tough list that also includes Dionne Warwick, Petula Clark, and Aretha Franklin.) She sang with a kind of blue-eyed soul that belied her straight laced British background.

Dusty, born Mary Catherine O’Brien, started singing professionally at age 19 with a group called the Lana Sisters. She also sang with her brother Tom in various folk clubs, and joined Tom (and another singer) in the folk group the Springfields. They had a Top 20 U.S. hit with a song Tom wrote, “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” which was notable for Dusty’s bravura singing in the bridge.

Dusty left the group in 1963 to embark on a solo career. Her first single, “I Only Want to Be With You” was a smash and it just got better from there. In addition to her obvious vocal skills, Dusty had a talent for picking really great songs to sing and made sure they were tightly produced. Her exuberance when singing live, especially in the early days, is something to behold, as witnessed in this final clip of her performing a medley of her first two hits on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 10, 1964. (Ed had a lot of great performers on his show back then!)