Dusty Springfield’s United Artists Years Collected for the First Time on New Real Gone Music Set

Dusty Springfield’s remarkable artistic journey through the 1970s gets a new chapter with Dusty Springfield: The United Artists Collection, the first-ever collection devoted to the legendary British singer’s United Artists recordings. The 2-LP/2-CD set from Real Gone Music brings together her two UA albums, It Begins Again and Living Without Your Love, along with five non-LP bonus tracks, offering a comprehensive look at a fascinating period in Springfield’s career.

By the mid-1970s, Springfield had stepped away from performing and recording following a difficult period that included her departure from ABC/Dunhill Records. After relocating to Los Angeles in hopes of strengthening her American career, her well-documented insecurities contributed to the abandonment of an album in 1974.

Springfield was subsequently courted by Elton John for his Rocket Records label, but when she returned to the studio in 1977, she instead signed with United Artists Records. Young songwriter Steve Dorff was brought in to produce two of his compositions with Springfield, with “Let Me Love You Once Before You Go” ultimately selected as the single. Although the song only briefly bubbled under the Billboard Hot 100, it marked the beginning of a new phase.

The follow-up sessions were overseen by producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen, and resulted in It Begins Again, released in 1978 as Springfield’s comeback album.

The record demonstrated just how much Springfield still had to offer. Moving comfortably between pop, rock, soul and disco, It Begins Again paired her distinctive voice with some of the finest West Coast studio musicians. Springfield's vocals revealed both warmth and vulnerability, while also displaying new textures and techniques that expanded the sound she had established during her earlier career.

For her second United Artists album, Living Without Your Love, Springfield took a somewhat softer direction. Released in 1979 and produced by David Wolfert for the Entertainment Company, the album focused primarily on soulful pop, with light dance elements adding variety. Together, the two albums document an artist who had rediscovered both her confidence and the joy of performing.

The new collection expands the original albums with five non-LP bonus tracks, highlighted by the promotional-only extended disco mix of “That’s the Kind of Love I’ve Got for You.” The Tom Moulton mix became a Billboard dance-chart entry and, in retrospect, offered an intriguing preview of Springfield’s later embrace of dance-oriented music, culminating in her celebrated collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys a decade later.

For the new edition, most of the tracks have been sourced from the original American masters for the first time. The collection has been remastered for vinyl by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision, while Joe Marchese provides new liner notes in an LP-sized four-page insert featuring rarely seen period photographs.

Available as a two-LP set pressed on violet PET plastic or as a two-CD edition, The United Artists Collection captures an important but sometimes overlooked chapter in Dusty Springfield’s career. Rather than simply marking a comeback, the recordings reveal an artist continuing to evolve, experimenting with contemporary sounds while retaining the emotional depth and unmistakable vocal personality that made her one of popular music’s most enduring singers.

Track Listing

Side A

1. “Turn Me Around”
2. “Checkmate”
3. “I’d Rather Leave While I’m in Love”
4. “A Love Like Yours (Don’t Come Knocking Every Day)”
5. “Love Me by Name”
6. “Sandra”

Side B

1. “I Found Love with You”
2. “Hollywood Movie Girls”
3. “That’s the Kind of Love I’ve Got for You”
4. “Let Me Love You Once Before You Go”
5. “I Am Your Child”
6. “You Set My Dreams to Music”

Side C

1. “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”
2. “You Can Do It”
3. “Be Somebody”
4. “Closet Man”
5. “Living Without Your Love”
6. “Save Me, Save Me”

Side D

1. “Get Yourself to Love”
2. “I Just Fall in Love Again”
3. “Dream On”
4. “I’m Coming Home Again”
5. “Give Me the Night”
6. “That’s the Kind of Love I’ve Got for You (Extended Disco Mix)”