Living Without Your Love
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Living Without Your Love is the eleventh studio album recorded by singer Dusty Springfield, and tenth released. The album was recorded in summer 1978 and released in early 1979.
Background
While Living Without Your Love was produced by the at the time fairly inexperienced session musician David Wolfert instead of Roy Thomas Baker, it was another no-expenses-spared Los Angeles production, recorded with more or less the same session musicians (Neil Larsen, for example, is little more than a David Paich clone) as the previous album and partly in the same studios. Living Without Your Love met with the same fate as It Begins Again, charting neither in the US nor the UK.
The album was originally titled Never Trust a Man in a Rented Tuxedo and then also had slightly risqué cover art, picturing a near naked Springfield coming out of a hotel room shower, only covering herself up with a towel and a man in a tuxedo leaving the room.[citation needed] These plans were however shelved and the album was instead issued under the name Living Without Your Love and new cover art.
Touring
The track chosen to promote the album in the UK was the ballad "I'm Coming Home Again", a cover of a song released on Gladys Knight's first solo album the year before. The single was released simultaneously with the announcement that Springfield was to embark on a month-long UK tour, her first live dates in Britain in more than six years.[citation needed] When Springfield arrived in the UK she was however met by the news that all concerts in the provinces had been cancelled due to poor ticket sales.[citation needed] Springfield subsequently made an appearance on UK TV wearing a black veil, jokingly saying she was "in mourning because all my dates have been cancelled".[citation needed] She also made a playback performance singing "I'm Coming Home Again" with the comment that the lyrics perhaps weren't as relevant any longer.[citation needed]
Springfield did play two live dates at London's Drury Lane Theatre and one charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall in the attendance of Princess Margaret, all sold-out and major successes.[citation needed] During the Albert Hall concert Springfield made the off-the-cuff remark "I am glad to see that the royalty isn't confined to the box.", a tongue-in-cheek reference to her large gay following and the drag queens in the audience.[citation needed] The Princess took this as a personal insult, and later sent the singer a typewritten apology to the Queen which Springfield was made to sign and return.[citation needed]
The publicity about the cancelled homecoming tour and the Albert Hall debacle didn't help to boost her record sales in the UK.[citation needed] Living Without Your Love consequently became her last LP recorded for Phonogram, a company which she had been with in various forms (Fontana Records/Philips Records/Mercury Records) for nearly twenty years. Two non-album singles produced by David Mackay were recorded and released in the UK that same year: "Baby Blue", written and co-produced by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, and Bruce Wooley, a disco-pop track also issued as an extended 12" single which did manage to become a minor club hit (No. 61) but "Your Love Still Brings Me to My Knees" never charted and the track became Springfield's swan song for Phonogram.
Springfield stayed on in Los Angeles for another ten years. It was also to be more than a decade before she released her next full-length album in the UK.
Release
In 2002, Mercury/Universal Music released Living Without Your Love on CD for the first time.
An edited version of the 1979 concert at the Royal Albert Hall was released on both CD and DVD by Eagle Rock in 2005.
Reception
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
Track listing
Side A
- "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" (Smokey Robinson) – 3:49
- "You Can Do It" (Evie Sands, Richard Germinaro, Ben Weisman) – 4:12
- "Be Somebody" (Melissa Manchester, Vini Poncia, John Vastano) – 3:24
- "Closet Man" (David Foster, Donnie Gerrard, Eric Mercury) – 4:09
- "Living Without Your Love" (Steve Nelson, David Wolfert) – 3:36
Side B
- "Save Me, Save Me" (Albhy Galuten, Barry Gibb) – 3:06
- "Get Yourself to Love" (Douglas McCormick) – 4:06
- "I Just Fall in Love Again" (Steve Dorff, Larry Herbstritt, Harry Lloyd, Gloria Sklerov) – 3:14
- "Dream On" (Franne Golde, Dennis Mayoff, Carole Bayer Sager) – 3:32
- "I'm Coming Home Again" (Bruce Roberts, Carole Bayer Sager) – 3:44
Personnel
- Dusty Springfield – vocals, background vocals
- Dianne Brooks – background vocals
- Patti Brooks – background vocals
- Brenda Russell – background vocals
- Ed Greene – drums
- Lenny Castro – percussion
- Gary Coleman – percussion, vibraphone
- Will Lee – bass guitar
- Scott Edwards – bass
- Dennis Budimir – guitar
- David Wolfert – guitar
- Jay Graydon – guitar
- Neil Larsen – keyboards
- Lincoln Mayorga – keyboards
- Jai Winding – keyboards
- Ian Underwood – synthesizer
- Michael Canahan – saxophone
- David Leull – baritone saxophone
- Tom Saviano – alto, soprano & tenor saxophone
- Richard Hyde – trombone
- Steve Madaio – trumpet, flugelhorn, horn
- Harry Bluestone – concert master
- Nick DeCaro – musical conductor
- Gene Page – musical conductor
Production
- David Wolfert – record producer, horn arrangements, rhythm arrangements
- Dusty Springfield – associate producer
- Charles Koppelman – executive producer
- Myles Chase – rhythm arrangements
- Nick DeCaro – string arrangements
- Gene Page – string arrangements
- Tom Saviano – horn arrangements, rhythm arrangements
- Al Schmitt, Jr. – sound engineer
- Sheridan Eldridge – engineer
- John Weaver – engineer
- John H.R. Mills – engineer, remixing
- Mike Reese – mastering
- Frank DeCaro – contractor
- Joe Black – co-ordination
- Linda Gerrity – production co-ordination
- Bill Burks – art direction, design
- Roger Wake – digital remastering (2002 reissue)
- Mike Gill – executive producer (2002 reissue)
- Paul Howes – liner notes (2002 reissue)
Sources
- Howes, Paul (2001). The Complete Dusty Springfield. London: Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. ISBN 1-903111-24-2, pages 65, 77, 92, 96, 130–131, 147–148, 173–174, 211, 274, 281.
- Liner notes, Dusty Springfield: Living Without Your Love (2002 re-issue), Mercury Records/Universal Music 586 005-2.
- Liner notes, Dusty Springfield: Live at the Royal Albert Hall, Eagle Rock EAGCD310, GAS 0000310 EAG, ER20081-2 (CD), EV 30133-9 (DVD), 2005.