Longing (album)

Infobox Album |
Name = Longing
Type = Album
Artist = Dusty Springfield


Released = "Unreleased"
Recorded = 914 Sound Studios
Blauvelt, New York
July - September, 1974.
Genre = Pop
Length = 32:27
Label = ABC Dunhill Records
DSD-50186.
Producer = Brooks Arthur
Last album = "Cameo"
(1973)
This album = Longing
(1974)
(unreleased)
Next album = "It Begins Again"
(1978)|

"Longing" was to have been Dusty Springfield's second LP for the ABC Dunhill Records label, and tenth studio album overall, recorded in 1974 and planned for release the same year. However, the album was never completed, but with the exception of one track ("Corner of the Sky") all of the "Longing" recordings were released in the early 2000s.

"Longing" was recorded in New York and produced by Brooks Arthur, best known for his work as a sound engineer for Phil Spector through most of the 60s and later as a composer and producer in his own right for among others Neil Diamond, Bette Midler, Van Morrison and Janis Ian. "Elements" was the working title of the album but it was re-titled and advertised as "Longing" in the music press near the end of 1974 (See original "Elements" album cover to the right), and had at that stage also officially been given a catalogue number: DSD-50186. Springfield complained in interviews later in the seventies that some producers of her previous album, "Cameo", had not even asked "what key I wanted to sing in". Not used to being so uninvolved in her own work (owing partly to her own reported perfectionist tendencies), suffering from self esteem issues due to her rapidly declining career, and enduring problems with substance abuse, Springfield abandoned the "Longing" album altogether late in the year.

The only track from the "Longing" sessions to be given an official release in the 1970s was "I Am Your Child", though only the instrumental track (featuring the song's writer, Barry Manilow) was used. Springfield recorded new lead vocals over the original backing track and the song was released as the B-side of her 1977 US single "Let Me Love You Once Before You Go" on the United Artists label. In 1980 the re-recorded version was in turn issued as the B-side of the Philips Records UK single "Your Love Still Brings Me To My Knees" and "I Am Your Child" found its way onto the compilation album "Love Songs" released by Phonogram in Europe in the late 1980s. The song is also of special significance in the history of Manilow's own career as he claims it is the first song he ever wrote.

When Springfield, after a time in her life often described as her 'wilderness years', returned to the music scene for the recording of the 1978 album "It Begins Again" with fellow Briton Roy Thomas Baker she re-recorded two further tracks originally included in the "Longing" set; the Motown classic "A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Everyday)" and Chi Coltrane's "Turn Me Around", both with slightly updated and different arrangements.

The year 2000 saw the debut of three original recordings from the "Longing" sessions; Janis Ian's "In the Winter", Melissa Manchester and Carole Bayer Sager's "Home To Myself" and Colin Blunstone and David Jones' "Exclusively For Me", all of which had been mixed and digitally remastered as early as 1995. These three titles were finally released as part of Mercury/Universal Music UK's 4 CD boxed set "Simpy Dusty", a project which was commissioned with Springfield's full approval before her passing in 1999. In 2001 Universal Music's American sublabel Hip-O Records released the compilation "Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection" which besides the 1973 album "Cameo" also contained nine of the ten titles intended to be used on "Longing", including the original versions of "I Am Your Child", "A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Every Day)" and "Turn Me Around". In addition, some of the tracks used incomplete or 'practice' vocals, done to enable a release of the album in any form; the track "Corner Of The Sky" being the best example. Springfield completed some vocals on the track, but never sang a whole verse. Thus, it was the only track not included in the "Beautiful Soul" set as it was too incomplete to arrange any sort of commercial release. It was however completed and released in 2007, after fellow British singer Petula Clark added her own vocals and released the song as a duet on her album "Duets".

As was the case with many of Springfield's albums released and/or recorded in the '70s, "Longing", though unreleased, contained some of Springfield's most critically acclaimed work. The track "In The Winter", written and also recorded by Janis Ian, is often singled out from the recording sessions as an example. Ian is on record as saying that after hearing Springfield sing the song she (Ian) could "no longer do the piece justice" herself. Melissa Manchester has also been quoted as saying she was "over the moon" upon hearing Springfield sing "Home To Myself" during the recording session, on which Manchester also played the piano.

Tracks from the "Longing"/"Elements" sessions

#"In the Winter" (Janis Ian) - 3:01
#*Recording date: 22 July 1974. First release: 4 CD boxed set "Simply Dusty", UK 2000
#"Home to Myself" (Melissa Manchester, Carole Bayer Sager) - 2:47
#*Recording date: 15 July 1974. First release: 4 CD boxed set "Simply Dusty", UK 2000
#"Exclusively For Me" (David Jones, Colin Blunstone) - 2:41
#*Recording date: 9 July 1974. First release: 4 CD boxed set "Simply Dusty", UK 2000
#"Turn Me Around (Original recording) (Chi Coltrane) - 4:11
#*Recording date: 23 July 1974. First release: compilation "Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection", US 2001
#"I Am Your Child" (Original recording) (Barry Manilow, Marty Panzer) - 2:40
#*Recording date: 23 July 1974. First release: compilation "Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection", US 2001
#"A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Everyday)" (Original recording) (Lamont Dozier, Edward Holland Jr., Brian Holland) - 3:42
#*Recording date: 23 July 1974. First release: compilation "Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection", US 2001
#"Make the Man Love Me" Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil) - 3:30
#*Recording date: 23 July 1974. First release: compilation "Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection", US 2001
#"Angels" (Arthur Resnick, Christie Thompson) - 3:24
#*Recording date: 15 July 1974. First release: compilation "Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection", US 2001
#"Beautiful Soul" (Margie Adam) - 2:54
#*Recording date: 9 July, 14 August, 4 & 5 September 1974. First release: compilation "Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection", US 2001
#"Corner Of The Sky" (Stephen Schwartz) - 3:37
#*Recording date: 22 July 1974. Original recording unissued. Re-recorded duet version with Petula Clark released on album "Duets", 2007

Personnel and production

* Dusty Springfield - vocals, background vocals
* Brooks Arthur - record producer, audio engineer
* Larry Alexander - assistant engineer
* Ron Frangiapane - musical arranger, keyboards
* Garry Sherman - arranger, keyboards
* Renee Armand - background vocals
* Gail Kantor - background vocals
* Merle Miller - background vocals
* Judy Thomas- background vocals
* Christie Thompson - background vocals
* Maretha Stewart - background vocals
* Rita - background vocals
* Steve Gadd- background vocals
* Gary Chester - drums
* Jimmy Johnson - drums
* Bernard "Pretty" Purdie - drums
* Barry Lazarowitz - drums
* Ralph MacDonald - percussion
* Joe Venuto - percussion
* Al Gorgoni - guitar
* Cornell Dupree - guitar
* Hugh McCracken - guitar
* David Snyder - guitar
* John Trope - guitar
* Russell George - bass guitar
* Gordon Edwards - bass
* Frank Owens - keyboards
* Joe d'Elia - keyboards
* Richard Tee - keyboards
* Paul Griffin - keyboards
* Melissa Manchester - keyboards, background vocals, liner notes ("Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection")
* Barry Manilow - keyboards, liner notes ("Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection")
* Artie Kaplan - music contractor
* Ben Mitchell - digital remastering, mixing ("Simply Dusty")
* Paul Howes - digital remastering, mixing ("Simply Dusty")
* Tony Heester - digital remastering, mixing ("Simply Dusty")
* Janis Ian - liner notes ("Simply Dusty")
* Kevin Reeves - mixing ("Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection")
* Dan Hersch - digital remastering ("Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection")
* Jim Pierson - liner notes, compilation producer ("Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection")
* Pat Lawrence - executive producer ("Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection")
* Michele Horie - project coordinator ("Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection")
* Dana Smart - project coordinator ("Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection")

ources

* Howes, Paul (2001). The Complete Dusty Springfield. London: Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. ISBN 1 903111 24 2.
* Liner notes: Janis Ian. "Simpy Dusty", Mercury Records/Universal Music 546 730-2, 2000.
* Liner notes: Barry Manilow & Melissa Manchester. "Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection", Hip-O Records/Universal Music 088 113 477-2, 2001.