A Brand New Me is the sixth studio album by English singer Dusty Springfield, released in 1970.
Writing and recording
The album was recorded in late 1969 at the Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. It is Springfield's only album on which every song was produced by the same production team: Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Gamble also co-wrote every track on the album, and the Gamble and Huff duo went on to have success with many groups and singers in the 1970s, among them Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, The O'Jays, MFSB and The Three Degrees.
Release and promotion
The album was first released in the United States by Atlantic Records in January 1970. Its release in the United Kingdom followed three months later by Philips Records, under the title From Dusty with Love.
The title track was released as a single in the US in late 1969, peaking at No. 3 on the US Adult Contemporary chart and No. 24 on the Top 40 chart on December 20, 1969; Springfield would not earn another Top 40 hit for 17 years. From Dusty with Love was Springfield's last UK album to feature her name in the title; all but one of her previous five albums had done so. The album had moderate success in the UK, peaking at No. 35 on their album chart; the US release, however, stalled at No. 107.
In 1992, Atlantic Records/Warner Music Group's sublabel Rhino Entertainment re-released a digitally remastered edition of A Brand New Me in the US, featuring nine bonus tracks originally issued as A- and B-side singles in the US in the years following the A Brand New Me album's release, among them recordings made with both Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd, Arif Mardin and Ellie Greenwich as well as tracks from a shelved second album with Gamble & Huff, and one track recorded for Philips Records, but never released by Atlantic (Springfield's contract with Atlantic allowed them to release Philips recordings). Some of these recordings were first issued in the UK on the 1972 album See All Her Faces (which had no US counterpart), others would remain unavailable in the UK for another ten years until PolyGram released an expanded edition of Dusty in Memphis as part of their mid-price series Reflections, entitled Dusty in Memphis Plus and released on the Mercury Records label in the UK and the rest of Europe in September 1980.
From Dusty with Love was first issued on CD by Philips Records/PolyGram and re-issued in Europe in the early 1990s. A digitally remastered CD edition of From Dusty with Love was released by Mercury/Universal Music Group in the UK/Europe in 2002, featuring alternate versions of recordings from the 1970 Gamble & Huff sessions as bonus tracks.
Critical reception
Reviewing in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau wrote: "Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff have bestowed upon Dusty—who as a singer of contemporary pop has only one peer, Dionne Warwick—the same cool-soul formula that's worked so successfully for Jerry Butler, but here it's wearing thin. The songs (every one written in part by Gamble) echo each other melodically and rhythmically, the instrumentation never varies, and neither does the vocal mood. If only Dusty could bring all her moods together—starting with her harder-driving stuff and working through the title cut here—she'd make a greater album than Dusty in Memphis. But that's a lot to ask."
Track listing
Bonus tracks CD re-issues
Track 11. Recording date: March 1970. Recorded at Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia. Producers: staff for Gamble-Huff Productions. Arranger:Thom Bell. Track 12. Recording date: 23 July 1970. Recorded at A & R Studios, New York. Producers: Ellie Greenwich & Mike Rashkow. Track 13. Recording date: September 1968. Recorded at American Studios, Memphis. Dusty Springfield's final vocals recorded in New York. Producers: Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd & Arif Mardin. Tracks 14 & 15. Recording date: 27 March 1971. Recorded at Century Sound Studio, New York. Producer & arranger: Jeff Barry. Tracks 16, 17 & 18. Recording date: between January and June 1971. Recorded at Century Sound Studio, New York. Producer & arranger: Jeff Barry.
Tracks 11–13. Recording date: February–March 1970. Recorded at Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia. Producers: Gamble & Huff Productions.
Other tracks
Recorded February 1970 at Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia. Producers: Gamble & Huff Productions.