Tom Springfield

Tom Springfield (born Dionysius Patrick O'Brien, 2 July 1934 – 27 July 2022) was a British musician, songwriter, and record producer who was prominent in the 1960s folk and pop music scene. He was the older brother of singer Dusty Springfield, with whom he performed in the Springfields. He wrote several hit songs for the Springfields ("Island of Dreams", "Say I Won't Be There") and later for the Seekers ("I'll Never Find Another You", "A World of Our Own", "The Carnival Is Over", "Georgy Girl"), whose records he also produced.

Known in early life as Dion O'Brien, he was born in Hampstead, London, on 2 July 1934, the first child of Gerard O'Brien and his wife Kay (née Ryle), originally from County Kerry. He attended the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe from 1944 to 1950.

Springfield (as O'Brien) joined the army for his National Service (1952–54), and was assigned to the Joint Services School for Linguists in Coulsdon, Surrey. The school was known as "the Russian course", and its purpose was to train conscripts in intelligence techniques. The course provided exposure to the Russian language by studying Russian literature, films, and also songs. These were taken from a selection known as the "Samovar Song Book", which Springfield and the rest of the "Coulsdon choir" sang together (in Russian). One of these songs was a Russian folksong from 1883 called Stenka Razin; twelve years later Springfield used its melody as the basis of his hit song "The Carnival is Over". Springfield was a talented pianist, and occasionally played jazz in the NAAFI with Tony Cash (later a BBC TV producer) on clarinet, and Malcolm Brown on guitar.

After Coulsdon, Springfield was assigned to the Intelligence Corps depot in Maresfield, Sussex (1954). While there he joined up with two other musicians to form a guitar trio playing Latin American songs, with Tom singing in Spanish and Portuguese. They recorded two songs at a small studio in Brighton; one was "El Cangaceiro" ("The Bandit" – from the 1953 Brazilian movie O Cangaceiro) and the other was written by Tom and called "Magdelena".

Springfield was a founder member of vocal group the Pedini Brothers, active from 1952 to 1955. They mainly sang Latin American, plus Russian songs adapted by Tom from his course material. Colleague Nick Bowyer wrote: "Tom was extremely proficient on both piano and guitar, and played both by ear. also played ragtime piano solos on gigs. We were together from 1952 until 1955, but somewhat spasmodically because of National Service."

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.