Living Without Your Love

Living Without Your Love
Studio album by Dusty Springfield
Released January 1979 (US)
16 March 1979 (UK)
Recorded ABC Recording Studios, United/Western Studios & Cherokee Recordings Studios, Los Angeles, California,
June–September 1978.
Genre Pop
Length 36:52
Label United Artists Records
UA-LA936-H (US)
Mercury Records
9109 617 (UK)
Producer David Wolfert
Dusty Springfield chronology

It Begins Again
(1978)		 Living Without Your Love
(1979)		 White Heat
(1982)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]

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.

While Living Without Your Love was produced by the at the time fairly unexperienced session musician David Wolfert instead of Roy Thomas Baker, it could very easily have been mistaken for being It Begins Again, Volume 2; it was another no-expenses-spared Los Angeles production, recorded with more or less the same session musicians and backing singers as the previous album and partly in the same studios, it featured a cover version of a 60s Motown classic, "You Really Got a Hold on Me", combined with well-crafted material from a number of acclaimed composers and lyricists in the American adult contemporary genre; Melissa Manchester, David Foster, Steve Dorff, Carole Bayer Sager – and even Albhy Galuten and Barry Gibb – yet the result was as Springfield herself later described it: "unstunning" . Living Without Your Love met with the same fate as It Begins Again: lukewarm reviews and 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 – supposedly rented – leaving the room, the album with its alternate title and cover was even allotted a catalogue number. These plans were however shelved and the album was instead issued under the fairly unimaginative name Living Without Your Love – with matching cover art – taking its title from one of the album's tracks and also its only single release in the US.

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 – with the chorus going: "...And I'm coming home again. It's been too long a time getting back what's mine. And I can't remember why I went away, but it's looking now like maybe I can stay..." The single was released simultaneously with the announcement that Springfield was to embark on a monthlong UK tour, her first live dates in Britain in more than six years. 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. 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". 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.

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 – it was however during the Albert Hall concert that Springfield made the unfortunate 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. The Princess took this as a personal insult, and later sent the singer a type-written apology to the Queen which Springfield was made to sign and return – which she to the surprise of close friends like backing singer Simon Bell did.

The publicity about the cancelled homecoming tour and the Albert Hall debacle which only generated more speculation about Springfield's own sexuality in the British tabloid press didn't help to boost her record sales in the UK. 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 – at the time members of The Buggles – and Bruce Wooley, a disco-pop track also issued as an extended 12" single which did manage to become a minor club hit (#61) but "Your Love Still Brings Me to My Knees" never charted and the track became Springfield's swan-song for Phonogram.

Springfield didn't come home in 1979; she stayed on in Los Angeles for another ten years – a part of her life often referred to as her 'lost years' – and it was also to be more than a decade before she released her next full-length album in the UK.

In 2002, Mercury/Universal Music released Living Without Your Love on CD for the first time, though not including any bonus tracks, as had been fairly standard for Springfield's previous albums released to compact disc.

An edited version of the 1979 concert at the Royal Albert Hall was released on both CD and DVD by Eagle Rock in 2005.

Track listing

Side A

  1. "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" (Smokey Robinson) – 3:49
  2. "You Can Do It" (Evie Sands, Richard Germinaro, Ben Weisman) – 4:12
  3. "Be Somebody" (Melissa Manchester, Vini Poncia, John Vastano) – 3:24
  4. "Closet Man" (David Foster, Donnie Gerrard, Eric Mercury) – 4:09
  5. "Living Without Your Love" (Steve Nelson, David Wolfert) – 3:36

Side B

  1. "Save Me, Save Me" (Albhy Galuten, Barry Gibb) – 3:06
  2. "Get Yourself to Love" (Douglas McCormick) – 4:06
  3. "I Just Fall in Love Again" (Steve Dorff, Larry Herbstritt, Harry Lloyd, Gloria Sklerov) – 3:14
  4. "Dream On" (Franne Golde, Dennis Mayoff, Carole Bayer Sager) – 3:32
  5. "I'm Coming Home Again" (Bruce Roberts, Carole Bayer Sager) – 3:44

Personnel

Production

Sources

  1. ↑ Allmusic review