A Brand New Me (Dusty Springfield album)

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.

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.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic (US Release)	[1]
AllMusic (UK Release)	[2]
Christgau's Record Guide	B–[3]

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."[3]

• Dusty Springfield – vocals
• Ugene Dozier – piano, producer
• Roland Chambers – guitar, arranger, producer
• Vincent Montana Jr. – background vocals, vibraphone
• Norman Harris – guitar
• Ronnie Baker – bass guitar
• Earl Young – drums
• The Sweethearts of Sigma – background vocals
• Don Renaldo & His String Section – strings
• Sam Reed & His Horn Section – horns
• Thom Bell – arranger
• Bobby Martin – arranger
• Recorded at Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia
• Joe Tarsia – engineer
• Loring Eutemey – cover design (A Brand New Me)
• Dan Hersch – remastering (A Brand New Me, 1992 re-issue)
• Bill Inglot – remastering (A Brand New Me, 1992 re-issue)
• Jim Feldman – liner notes (A Brand New Me, 1992 re-issue)
• Deborah Frost – project assistant (A Brand New Me, 1992 re-issue)
• Mike Gill – remastering/mix (From Dusty with Love, 2002 re-issue)
• Roger Wake – remastering/mix (From Dusty with Love, 2002 re-issue)

Album – Billboard (United States)

Singles – Billboard (United States)

• Howes, Paul (2001). The Complete Dusty Springfield. London: Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. ISBN 1-903111-24-2.

• Article about A Brand New Me