Since the sixties, when Dusty Springfield was London's sturdiest girl hitmaker, her distressed mezzo-soprano has magnetized listeners. As shown by this anthology of Seventies and Eighties duets, soundtrack songs and live recordings, she could go uptown and still retain her white-hot rock-soul fire; for instance, when Burt Bacharach produced Springfield on "The Look of Love," the result was her greatest track. That's why this often showbiz-y collection works: Springfield turns "(But It's a) Nice Dream" into pure regret, sings the splendid hell out of "Private Number" with Spencer Davis and, onstage, grabs — authoritatively — the Drifters' "Up on the Roof." Her voice was like a Ferrari engine, great at 135 mph but sublime at 70 because of the sensed possibilities of wilder speeds.

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."