60 albums
1969 - Dusty in Memphis

So… here’s my first dip into Hazel’s collection and, in a slight cheat, this is actually a 1985 reissue of Dusty in Memphis with bonus tracks and titled Dusty in Memphis… plus - and proves that squeezing bonus tracks onto album reissues to try and get people to buy another copy of an album they already own pre-dates CDs!

Back in the day my parents certainly had a copy of Dusty in Memphis from 1969, it’s probably still suffering in my dad’s garage, so it wasn’t an album I was unfamiliar with before I met Hazel but suspect I didn’t truly appreciate it until I did. In fact I don’t think I appreciated Dusty at all. I sort of thought I liked The Springfields albums I owned more.

Dusty in Memphis is flawless, it’s not just the hits. I was expecting to pick one of those hits as my favourite track on the album, or maybe one of the Goffin/King tracks (becuase of how much I love Carole King) … but no, best track on Dusty in Memphis is the track that probably sounds like it has nothing to do with Memphis.

Dusty’s take on The Windmills of Your Mind is just astounding - the almost bossa-nova-ness of the orchestration with little thrown in noises… a little clatter of castanets, a tinkle of piano, and something I can’t even make out … and then it swells, and swells… perfect. I don’t think I’d realised just how perfect until now.

The four extra songs date from the 1970, 71 and 76 and the sleeve notes to the …plus edition make two ridiculous/stupid claims about them:

• “The songs were considered in keeping with the spirit of the 1968 material, and the album sounded much weaker without them” (my emphasiss)
• “Modern cutting techniques ensure that the album has now been re-released in its finest form”

… both are lies. Dusty in Memphis did not need extra tracks from later in Dusty’s career to improve it. And the pressing is far from perfect even to someone with cloth ears like me.

We have a CD as well, and somewhere, Hazel also has a casssette - I suspect both sound better… as I’d imagine, does the one living in the cold and damp of dad’s garage