Dusty Springfield: a life in music Edward Leeson Robson Books, 208pp, £16.95 ISBN 1861053436

My first sighting of Dusty was on TV with the Springfields, a vivacious redhead with a smile in her voice and destined, I just knew, for mega-stardom. For Dusty, that folksy image was but a brief prelude to a hugely successful solo career. As a young fan steeped in Sixties music, I was mesmerised by the intensity of feeling in her voice, that heady cocktail of power and vulnerability. And it is the voice and music that provide the main focus of this cogently written biography of Britain's greatest female soul singer.

Leeson charts her ascent to fame, from the inchoate efforts of a schoolgirl "blues" group to international solo success; from plump, shy, bespectacled Mary O'Brien to the alluring persona of Dusty Springfield. With her first top ten hit single, "I Only Want to be With You", the metamorphosis is complete and "it is as if she has shaken off her fetters and is at last free to stand alone".

The deep insecurity that dogged Dusty throughout her career is well documented by previous biographers. Her self-doubt manifested itself in an obsessive pursuit of perfection. She soon acquired a reputation for being "difficult", and there were stormy encounters with musicians. According to her producer, Jerry Wexler, she was the most insecure singer in the world, "all raw nerve ends and neuroses".

Watching a rehearsal for her TV series, I witnessed one of these confrontations. It made fascinating "copy" for my interview with her for the music press (and marked my debut as a young journalist). Given that she was operating at a time (pre-feminism) when women were still expected to take a more submissive role, and in the macho world of session musicians, it is easy to see why Dusty's demands could meet a wall of resistance. In early recordings, she can sound swamped by the backing, because of her penchant for putting her voice on last, seeing herself as part of the orchestra. And, to achieve the exact effect she wanted, she sometimes recorded in corridors, and once in a ladies' loo.

The late Seventies marked the beginning of a series of partially successful "comebacks": the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and, a few months later, a one-nighter at the Albert Hall. I attended both, and Dusty's performances were electrifying. In the decade or so since she had left Britain, a gay revolution had taken place and Dusty had joined the pantheon of "queer" icons. At Drury Lane, it felt as if almost the entire audience had leapt out of the closet to welcome her back.

The Eighties, however, marked the watershed. Dusty's new association with the Pet Shop Boys enabled her to reinvent herself, spawning her first major solo success for more than a decade ("Nothing Has Been Proved", from the film Scandal). She had found a way of moving on at last, acquiring a new set of admirers in the process. For myself, I prefer to remember Dusty in her Sixties heyday, belting out soul numbers on Ready Steady Go! as some of us danced on the studio floor, dodging cameras and guitar leads.

Dusty's latter-day renaissance was thwarted by her untimely death from breast cancer, but not before yet more accolades: a final, poignant solo album ("A Very Fine Love") and her OBE. Leeson writes with all the knowledge and enthusiasm of a genuine fan. He devotes just one chapter to her decline into drugs and booze as her US career crumbled, and alludes tactfully to the speculation and rumours about her reasons for remaining single. He eschews the sleaze in favour of the songs, which are her true and proper legacy.

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