Dusty in Memphis

33⅓ Main Series #1

by Warren Zanes

Dusty in Memphis, Dusty Springfield's beautiful and bizarre magnum opus, remains as fine a hybrid of pop and rhythm and blues as has ever been made. In this remarkable book, Warren Zanes explores his own love affair with the record. He digs deep into the album's Memphis roots and talks to several of the key characters who were involved in its creation; many of whom were - like Zanes - outsiders drawn to the American South and mesmerized by its hold over the imagination.

EXCERPT
The love that is the subject of 'Dusty in Memphis' is different from the love of her earlier it is a love that is all at once diffuse, dark, unpredictable, ecstatic, and a terrible deal. It is a love too big for the lyrical (and for that matter musical) framework of Dusty's earlier pop productions, no matter the breadth of that work. Like Memphis itself, the love that is the subject of 'Dusty in Memphis' is indeed bursting with the it happens not simply when you yearn for it, as in some adolescent dream, but when you're not prepared for it; it reveals itself not simply under the star-filled skies where a moon hangs low--in fact, as the first and last tracks on side one attest, it might be at its best when the sun's just arriving at work.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Essays, Biography, Musicals, Music Biography

131 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Zanes holds a PhD in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester. He was a member of the Del Fuegos and is set to release his fourth solo recording. He has worked on films including Twenty Feet from Stardom and Martin Scorsese's George Harrison: Living in the Material World and his writing has appeared in The Oxford American, Rolling Stone, and the Los Angeles Times. Zanes served as a V.P. at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and is currently the Executive Director of Steven Van Zandt's Rock and Roll Forever Foundation. As a professor, Zanes has taught at the University of Rochester, Case Western Reserve University, the School of Visual Arts, and New York University.

Reviews

[Boz Reacher · Rating 1 out of 5]

First you get to read about the author’s old band that nobody would remember if he didn’t mention them in the introduction of his books. Then you get to read about how nice Jerry Wexler was to the author while the author was researching the book - this takes about twenty pages and includes at one point, for some reason, a cutesy letter the author wrote to Jerry Wexler. Then there’s a twenty page remembrance of youthful voyeurism in rural New Hampshire. The final forty pages or so explore the complicated issue of authenticity, the South, and white fascination with black art, and this is interesting until you sense that the author is setting all of this up just to somehow, for some reason, argue that Alan Lomax is more of a scoundrel than Jerry Wexler, because at least Jerry Wexler was upfront about exploiting black artists for financial reasons. (He ties this section in with the nominal focus of the book by discussing, briefly, the amount of mascara Dusty Springfield wore during the Dusty In Memphis recording sessions.) In the middle of all this the author spends two pages actually talking about Dusty Springfield; she’s dismissed as a sweet but shallow train wreck with, of her own volition, minimal artistic agency. I thought this book was pretty much trash.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointment. I'm a fan of Warren Zanes and was really looking forward to finally picking this up.

It's great and all that he starts the book by saying that it's not about the album "Dusty in Memphis" but (a) that's a typical literary conceit that means just the opposite and (b) why the fuck did he write a book about the album "Dusty in Memphis" called "Dusty in Memphis" if it wasn't about the album "Dusty in Memphis"?

This has literally nothing do with the album, offering perhaps dozen sentences in even the remotest relation to it. The writing is overwrought and seems intended more to show off Zanes' fantastic vocabulary than it is to get an idea across.

Zanes does cover some interesting ground about the mysticism inherent in the South, and this is interesting reading but...and this is a big but...it bears no relation whatsoever to the supposed topic of the book.

Authors (and publishers, I suppose) have a responsiblity to their readers. That responsibility was ignored here. This book is one of a series related to great rock albums. Normally, I would have read them all. But after this, no.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not usually sensitive to this sort of thing but to write a book about an album by a woman and ignore her completely except for a paragraph early on where you dismiss her earlier work and another paragraph later where you argue her makeup style suggests she was a loon, is pretty wild and, I think, something you could (rightly) no longer get away with!

[Nathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had hoped that there would be some discussion on an album that I know very little about, but in my reading I discovered I had opened a treatise on the existence of the mythology of Southern music in the American folk music lexicon. While interesting as a cultural study, offered very little on the album...other than the interview of four pages with Stanley Booth at the very end.

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty disappointing. Zanes writes about everything but Dusty and the album itself.

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

[I have decided to read all the 33⅓ books because a) i'm a sicko, and b) whilst they are often awful, they are rarely middling, and I just want to feel something. Also, I'm gonna review the albums as I go, cos if these guys can get up their arse about music, so can I.]

The book: ⭐
Most important thing to say is that this book isn't actually about Dusty in Memphis, in a way that these books often aren't, but in a more extreme way than most. Dusty herself is relegated to a few paragraphs at the end of chapters, and even then the author chooses to discuss her attitude, her makeup (!), and I'm also certain the dude doesn't even realise she's English.

What the book is actually about is a split between this guy remembering being a horny teenager, and a perfectly serviceable (if drab and overlong) essay about the 'South' as a mythological land for Americans. I guess because dude's editor reminded him of the title of the book, occasionally he drops a snippet of an interview with one of a few people involved with the record he managed to talk to - almost without fail the question is three to four times longer (at least) than the answer, which kind of tells you all you need to know about the author, right?

The worst chapter is a long digression into the author being a teenage voyeur, which goes absolutely nowhere and he hadn't even heard this record at that point, so literally has NOTHING to do with it. Dusty must be in Memphis, because she’s barely in this book.

So yes, it seems that 33/⅓ had all the worst tropes in place from the start, and all within just 100 pages. Dull navel gazing? Yup. Pointless tangents? Absolutely. The nagging feeling that writing about the record perhaps seemed more interesting in theory than practice? 100%.

The album: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

There is a great book in here, because the album is great and it was made in strange circumstances - Springfield's initial star fading and the radical idea of heading to Memphis to try being a soul singer is a great story, especially considering the music that came out of it. Whilst I don't think it's 'classic' like many do, it's a very, very good record, especially the second side where it gets a bit weirder.

Springfield’s voice, when it gets going, is perfectly suited to this Atlantic expansive production style, having enough clout and grit to compete with the cavernous orchestration, but because she's so far forward in the mix she can also practically whisper and it still sounds great.

'The Windmills of your Mind' is my favourite track and the best recording of this song I've heard. It's an incredible vocal performance, building and building while the verging-on-psychedelic strings ebb and flow behind Dusty, changing tempo as much as it changes timbre. It's like some strange, lounge Bohemian Rhapsody.

In conclusion, listen to the album, don't bother with the book.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 1 out of 5]

Back in the 1980s, I discovered Q, a magazine out of England. I really loved Q in that time, as it was so different from the only other music magazine I had encountered before then, Rolling Stone. What made Q different? It actually covered music, rather than culture or movies or politics. I’m not knocking the Stone, as there’s room for all that, but I do think they had lost sight over the years of what their magazine was supposed to be about.

One of the really great concepts that Q had in that time was to create Q sleevenotes: small essays on critically acclaimed albums that could be pulled/cut out of the magazine and tipped into your CD jewelcase along with the normal notes. I liked the Q sleevenotes so much for Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love that it became the cover for that CD, slipped in over the normal cover. Skip ahead a couple of decades and discover the concept of the 33 1/3 book series. Like the Q sleevenotes, the idea behind this is to get folks who are passionate about an album to write a short book-long essay on the album that discusses its importance, history, and meaning for the author. And for those obsessive/compulsive types (i.e., you and me, the kind of people who are interested in reading a book-long essay on one album), they’re even numbering the series, so the urge is to get them all. Hell, I’m so anal, I had to start with number 1.

It’s an unfortunate beginning, because Warren Zanes’ take on Dusty in Memphis by Dusty Springfield had potential. It’s an album that I have listened to several times, and like a few of the songs, but did not understand why it was considered a classic. Zanes’ essay did nothing to further my understanding, nor did it fill in much of the history behind or during the making of the album. Most of the book is spent focused on how Zanes made personal connections to the album’s producer or justifying his choice to focus the book more on himself and his struggle to write the book than on the album itself. I think I learned more about Dusty Springfield on her Wikipedia entry, almost as if Zanes expected that every reader who came upon his book would know the fine details of this nearly-forgotten pop star from the 1960s.

So, unless you’re a completist, you can skip this entry in the 33 1/3 series and move on to the next. We’ll talk about it sometime here in the future.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zanes gets in the way for most of the book. I get that he’s using the album as a canvas for some larger cultural critique but I found it to be extremely frustrating. The few people he centres in the narrative are himself and the men involved in this record’s creation, completely sidelining the absolutely fascinating person that was Dusty Springfield. Super disappointing given how much I loved his approach to Springsteen’s Nebraska in Deliver Me From Nowhere.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't need to know the brands and number cigarettes smoked in each day's recording session, but Warren just goes on about the South in general and a certain woman from Tennessee who moved to his N.H. childhood home for way longer than he seems to talk about Dusty, except to say that she wore a ton of makeup.

This is one of if not my fav album ever so yeah I was disappointed.

Good Things I Found Out:
Randy Newman wrote the genius "I Don't Want To Hear It Anymore"
Carole King wrote "I Can't Make It Alone", normally skip this as the Lou Rawls version owns me
Totally didn't realize that Dusty recorded "Son of a Preacher Man" before Aretha (her Young Gifted, and Black album is insane btw), another skipper so guess I must really like the rest of it huh?
I need to read Mailer's "White Negro" piece already!

[Andy Troyanos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yawn, I would have loved to hear about the making of this album, but this is the author blabbing on and on about the south. He talked to some of the main participants but it really about his love affair with the south. I love the 33 1/3 books but this was not enlightening and didn't let me look at this wonderful recording in a new light.

[Jay French · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not much to do with Dusty in Memphis. The very few music business anecdotes were interesting, but the writing felt like poetry slam writing, lots of $20 words that don't add anything but would sound good read out loud. And boy, does this guy drop names.

[Nathalie]

I give up. As unfair as it may seems for the author I'd rather listen to the music than to read about it.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

A record this tragic and magnificent deserves better.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 33 1/3 books focus on a single significant music album. One of the first in the series was @WarrenZanes' 'Dusty In Memphis.'

Released in 1969, the album never achieved much commercial success. Appreciation has grown over time, and it is now consistently found on "Best Albums of All-Time" lists.

Zanes looks into the cultural aspects of how all roads lead to the idea of the South's mythical status. As he writes, the album is "a portal that looked into a mad and beautiful world."

#WordsAndMusic

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dusty in Memphis, the first in Continuum’s (now Bloomsbury’s) long-running 33⅓ book series, was published way back in 2003, to my complete shock (and slight horror). After reading a handful in 2010, I took advantage of a deal to acquire the first 100 books of the series in late 2014 or early 2015. Now prominently displayed on a bookcase, and, more importantly, readily accessible for the first time in years, I can take advantage of squeezing in these short books between library requests or as a respite from heavier tomes.

Author Warren Zanes, known first to me as a member of the garage-rock band the Del Fuegos, is probably better known to most as the guy who wrote Tom Petty’s biography, titled (What else?) Petty: The Biography. Zanes holds a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies, and it’s clear from Dusty in Memphis that he’s a pretty smart guy. As far as premises go, Zanes sets us up from the outset that “this book is about an experience with a record more than it is about a record.” He continues, “It’s both a chronicle and an analysis of what happened when a particular person met up with a particular piece of vinyl at a particular time and the unfolding of that relationship.”

That sounds … fine (?) … I guess, though I’ll admit to having a bit of pause at the word “analysis.” But things start well enough. Zanes is not a writer of economy (nor, generally, am I), but he does have a conversational style, inasmuch as his somewhat formalist writing (which is not to say stuffy or academic) can present itself conversationally. I mostly felt like I could have been listening to a well-written and well-delivered podcast. And while Dusty in Memphis the book was not specifically about Dusty in Memphis the album (as in a book about the making of the album, for example), the album nevertheless remained the focus of what unfolded, including snippets of interviews with many involved, including, amongst others, Jerry Wexler, Chips Moman, and Arif Mardin.

It’s hard to know exactly where things begin to run afield, but run afield they do. Zanes’s doctorate kicks in—recall the word “analysis” above—and soon he’s no longer talking about “what happened when a particular person met up with a particular piece of vinyl at a particular time.” He’s not even talking “about an experience with a record.” Instead, he goes long on why we from outside the South have a fascination with the South—not the real South but the imagined South (emphasis Zanes’s): the South of folklore and fantasy, primal and authentic, symbolically loaded, impossibly tangled in its own mythologies, and made strange from the pressure of meanings overloading the place. In short: the South as Other.

If Zanes doesn’t exactly plumb the depths of this line of inquiry, this is a pocket-sized 121 pages after all, he at least chisels at its margins in a myriad of pseudo-intellectual ways—via sociology, ethnography, anthropology—but the analysis never comes full circle to what it all means to him and his experience with the album. Instead, he offers lazily in his final paragraph, “I was in love with Dusty in Memphis because I was in love on a regular basis. And what a mess that could be. I needed someplace to go with all of it. That album gave me one, a fantastic place, a place I’d gone before. But never had I gone with such a guide.” Unfortunately, if the point of the 33⅓ series is to impart a greater appreciation for a given album—and I don’t know that it is, but if it isn’t, it probably should be—Zanes could have been a better guide if he’d written a little less from the head and a little more from the heart.

[Ross Bonaime · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty much any 33 1/3 book that starts with "This book is not going to be about (the album you bought this book for, because you were interested in learning more about said album)" is not a good sign. Every time a book has started with that qualifier, I've found myself disappointed with what is to come, and found the book to be severely lacking in what is supposed to be the book's focal point.

Granted, I don't mind if these books go off the rails a bit and explore elements outside the album, elements that tie into the book in some major way, but with Warren Zanes' take on "Dusty in Memphis," he seems far more interested in exploring what the South means for those who have never been, and most importantly, for musicians going there to create music. All this, despite the fact the name is called "Dusty in Memphis," Dusty Springfield didn't actually record her vocals in the South - a fact that is reiterated multiple times.

The interest here is in the mystifying nature of the South, and since Zanes was already curious about the South, he felt like "Dusty in Memphis" was a gateway to this existing love. But Zanes focuses far too much on what the South *means* as a bewildering land than he does on the album. There's a way to integrate this album into the conversation more than he does here, and I finished this book knowing little more about the album than I knew when I began it.

This is particularly a shame since Zanes talks to people integral in making the album happen, and basically squanders it. I think the best example of this comes at the very end, when Zanes is conducting an interview where he asks exhaustive questions that don't really give the answerer much room to explore, let alone talk about "Dusty in Memphis." The answers are terse and short, because Zanes doesn't really give any room to breathe, more interested in sounding smart than giving the person being interviewed an opportunity to say something genuinely interesting about the album.

When a 33 1/3 book is at its best, it either reiterates and strengthens my feelings on an album I already love, or it makes me reconsider an album that I maybe didn't give the credit it deserved. At their worst, a 33 1/3 book is written for the writer and few other people, a masturbatory exercise that is more selfish than enlightening for the reader. Unfortunately, Zanes' "Dusty in Memphis" is that type of self-interested exercise.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author said he wasn't going to write specifically about the album, and he didn't lie. His ruminations about the mythology of the South were interesting up to a point--but I don't care a book's worth about that, and that's pretty much all you get here. Also, much of the writing is in an academic style--perhaps to give him some distance from what he admits is a very personal response to the album? Whatever the reason, it gets a little repetitive, not to mention (my pet peeve) there is egregious over-use of the conditional. Mixed in are brief interviews with people involved in the making of the album. There are not enough of those, and many of them seem to be there only to illustrate the southern mythology theory, not actually illuminate the history or concept of the album.

So...a bit disappointing. The book does contain a few pearls, the best of which is that Elvis Costello described "Breakfast in Bed" as the most knowingly adult pop song ever written. So true! And Elvis summed up the album in one sentence better than this whole book does.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of the 33 1/3 series and Dusty in Memphis is one of my fav albums of all time. That being said I was pretty disappointed in this book. Although I liked how the author personalized his experience with the record, I think he spent too much time on academic theorizing of the ides of the "south" and how other cultures and outsiders fetishize it. I was looking forward to hearing more about Dusty and how this record was made then an academic analysis of the use of black musicians in the south. I would still recommend this book but def know what you are getting in for as I think many people would expect more of a making of the record type book.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to the Thirty Three and a Third series by Eric Mandelbaum. Each of these short reads is a very personal reflection by its author on a particular album (in most cases) by a musical artist or group during the past several decades. I give the highest rating to Dusty in Memphis because I was captivated by the wide-ranging discussion, not just for the few insights into Dusty Springfield or how the album was put together. Zanes grapels with:
the mystique of the South
the significance of Jerry Wexler's involvement and approach
how and why he (Zanes) connected to the music
and much more.
A fast read that more than pays back the investment

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The 33 1/3 series is such a swell idea, and such a disappointment in the execution (of the ones I've read, anyway). Instead of being about the record it purportedly addresses, this one is maybe 20 percent about "Dusty in Memphis" and the rest is the writer's memoir of growing up in New Hampshire, an essay about outsider views of the South and a deeply stupid interview with a writer of liner notes. I mean, would it be too much to include a tracklist? (One compelling nugget: Title notwithstanding, Dusty was not in Memphis to record the album, but in New York.)

[Downward · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is a much more interesting exploration and sociological tract about the south and its relationship to all sorts of intersectional issues than it is a critical analysis of an album. it starts with zanes relating his personal experience with dusty in memphis and the track by track revelatory nature of its power and vulnerability before moving briefly into an analysis of jerry wexler (all on topic! all good!) before spiraling wildly out of control with digressions that only obliquely feint at the album meant to be the topic of discussion. selah.

[Billy · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is very little here about the album itself. It seems like a missed opportunity, as Jerry Wexler was interviewed for the project.

If you want to read a thesis about Oedipus complexes and Norman Mailer quotations, this is the book for you.

What a disappointment. I think I'll go and read the liner notes from the Deluxe Edition again.

[Travis Wagner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Other than the revelation into how problematic Alan Lomax is, this reads as a music journalist taking up space to wax poetic about his own weird and exploitative relationship to the American South and to reclaim a creepy moment from his childhood. All of this occurs at the expense of not discussing an absolutely achingly beautiful record.

[pianogal · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was a lot in this book about Memphis and the South, but the author kinda forgot about Dusty. I could have had a lot more about her and less about Alan Lomax. This book did get me to listen to the album - which is a good album at least.

[John Vettese · Rating 2 out of 5]

This starts off as a meandering but informative read about a beautiful album and ends up wandering into murky academic racism territory that the author seems to recognize and course correct his way out of but isn’t entirely successful in doing so.

[Jason Mock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much author (and Jerry Wexler) biography and social theory, and not album biography.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Warren has a PhD from the University of Rochester in Visual and Cultural Studies. Unfortunately, this book is more about the culture of the South than the record.

[Jaz · Rating 1 out of 5]

How this got published as part of the 33 1/3 series (or at all, in fact) I have no idea, as the album is barely mentioned.

Absolutely pointless.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

When an author is supposed to investigate the creation and background of a classic album, but instead falls into a socio-political study of the American South, you get a disappointing experience.

[T. H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read a few other 33 1/3 books, including Cornelius's Fantasma and Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, so I decided to read the entire series over from the beginning, international entries included. After finishing this one, I'm glad to say that I got into the series through books other than this one, because otherwise, I might have mistakenly written off the entire series as a whole.

Warren Zanes seems to be otherwise successful, given his other work, which I haven't heard, read, or seen yet. Despite this, this book has a very amateur quality; Zanes says at the very beginning that the book was "not about a record," and in hindsight, I should have taken that more seriously. He doesn't seem to really be that interested in the subject matter, given how both Dusty and the songs are barely mentioned in favour of anecdotes about the producer, Jerry Wexler, and the people who have interacted with him.

Yes, the book talks about Southern music, views of the South, Wexler's life, his philosophy, and so on and so forth... but apart from scattered sections in the book, Zanes doesn't seem to put any effort into arguing or showing how it all relates to Dusty herself. Yes, he gives a vague explanation of how she was attached to the South, but he also deliberately omits her story and a deeper exploration of her perspective, simply because he felt that "it had been told too much." Overall, I find this to be both lazy writing and ignorant of the audience, especially since many of the readers, myself included, would not have known about specific aspects of her life beforehand.

NOTE: The following section contains discussions of sexual harassment and sexism. Skip this section if you are not comfortable with those topics.

But in a way, this also makes sense, given a particularly disturbing, unnecessary, and appalling story told in the third chapter. Just so you won't have to waste your time, when Zanes was a teenager, he and a few of his erotica-addicted friends would go around the neighbourhood, attempting to spy on women having sex without their knowledge. Their unfortunate target happened to always leave the windows' shutters open, so for several nights, they would delightfully invade her privacy by always peeking inside. No, it doesn't matter that they might not have owned or had access to adult video tapes.

When an older boy saw them and decided to go into the house himself, all of the shutters were closed, preventing the boys from seeing inside. Naturally, Zanes and his entire friend group decided to gossip about the woman's sexuality around town, as well as how the older boy "went to town on her." As it turned out, the older boy only told her to close the shutters, before he left, but he did not want to quash the rumours because they increased his popularity. The woman only suffers, and as a result, she ends up moving out of town. After repeatedly invading her privacy and turning her into a social pariah for her sexuality, Zanes doesn't even express any remorse for what he had done.

So, you might be asking yourself: why did he feel the need to mention any of that? Well, it was because the woman was from Tennessee, and he had heard when he was younger that Southern women had "crazy experiences," including those involving their cousins. He used the entire anecdote as a way to talk about perceptions of the South! Was Zanes absolutely unconcerned about the perceptions of himself? I would have been in for a world of hurt if I did any of what he did, yet he somehow gets off scot-free, and to the point of writing the book, did not seem to comprehend why what he did was wrong. Jeez.

His treatment of Wexler is also questionable, although not nearly as questionable as the prior story, thankfully. At times, Zanes seems to turn the man into an idol, excusing the way he stiffed the backing band because of his "philosophy." Zanes seems to be very fixated on said "philosophy," using it as a sweeping term to refer to pretty much everything Wexler did, whether good or just plain unfair. Of course, Zanes could have still turned him into an interesting character, but his prose itself is so rambly and tangential that I quickly became bored at how much he was dodging the point of his book; that was, to write about the album Dusty in Memphis.

At some point, he really should have started from scratch and changed up the book to be a biography about Jerry Wexler himself. Maybe I would have been less harsh on it, and maybe the author wouldn't have had an excuse to freely and uncritically boast about how much of a jerk he was when he was younger. I do know that I probably won't end up taking the time to go through any of his other media... who knows?