Dusty by Karen Bartlett

Author:Karen Bartlett [Karen Bartlett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849547635
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2014-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

Dusty and Billings would reach an agreement, about a performance or something he wanted her to do, and then she would return the next day having changed her mind – her friends believed, due to the influence of Norma Tanega. Reece would try and smooth things over, listening to Dusty shouting, ‘I’ve had enough of him, I want a new manager,’ while Billings would tell him ‘She’s a real bitch’ and complain about the way she was doing things. In addition, Dusty was convinced that the only way forward professionally was in America, and that Billings did not have the experience and contacts to help her make it there.

For five years Vic Billings had steered Dusty to the heights of her career, and kept her more or less on track. In parting, Dusty agreed to pay him £20,000 in lieu of two years’ work, and signed a contract with Atlantic to release her work in the US, while she would continue to work with Philips in the UK. To the dismay of almost everyone who knew her, Dusty’s relationship with Billings was over. ‘That was a bad mistake,’ Riss Chantelle says, ‘but you can’t tell people, people do what they want to do.’

Her estrangement from Billings had been having an effect on Dusty, and those around her, all year. After recording a second successful TV series with the BBC in 1967 that included guest stars Warren Mitchell, Mel Tormé, Tom Jones and Scott Walker, Dusty decided to film her third series in 1968 with ATV, at the Hippodrome in Golders Green, north London. Using a different orchestra led by Jack Parnell, It Must Be Dusty featured guest appearances from her brother Tom, Donovan, Georgie Fame, and most memorably Jimi Hendrix, with a duet of ‘Mockingbird’. Despite the calibre of the shows and the guests, however, Dusty felt the programmes had not included the same innovative spark as her BBC series, and bristled at criticism that she was failing to break new ground. ‘And quite right too,’ Dusty told Keith Altham of NME when he raised this criticism with her.

I didn’t produce it and all I can say is that I tried my best and channelled as much energy into it as the previous series … There was a total lack of imagination about the whole series and although I don’t like to bring politics into it – the other two series were with another company [BBC] – and I hope to be doing the next series back with the old firm. I’ll never work for the other one again, I’ll tell you that!

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