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On This Day…

Dusty Springfield was born on this day in 1939.

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien OBE (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English pop singer and record producer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s. With her distinctive sensual sound, she was an important blue-eyed soul singer and at her peak was one of the most successful British female performers, with six top 20 singles on the United States Billboard Hot 100 and sixteen on the United Kingdom Singles Chart from 1963 to 1989. She is a member of both the US Rock and Roll and UK Music Halls of Fame. International polls have named Springfield among the best female rock artists of all time. Her image, supported by a peroxide blonde beehive hairstyle, evening gowns, and heavy makeup, made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties.

Trivia: She admitted to her bisexuality in a 1972 interview.

She is of Irish descent and she attended Catholic schools.

She refused to perform concerts in South Africa before segregated audiences, as required by that country's apartheid system, and in fact was deported from South Africa in 1964 for performing before a racially mixed audience.

Ranked #24 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll