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Dusty in Memphis is the fifth studio album by English singer Dusty Springfield. Initial sessions were recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis, while Springfield's final vocals and the album's orchestral parts were recorded at Atlantic Records' New York City studios. The album was released in March 1969 in the United States by Atlantic Records, and Philips Records distributed the record outside the U. S. Springfield worked on the album with a team of musicians and producers that included Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin, Tom Dowd, conductor Gene Orloff, backing vocalists the Sweet Inspirations, bassist Tommy Cogbill, and guitarist Reggie Young. Dusty in Memphis sold poorly upon its initial release despite featuring one of Springfield's top 10 UK hits "Son of a Preacher Man". It has been acclaimed as her best work and one of the great albums of all time. Music critic Robert Christgau called it "the all time rock era torch record" and included it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). In 2001, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2020, the album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In its official press release, the library stated that despite its modest sales when first released, "over time, Dusty in Memphis grew in stature to become widely recognized as an important album by a woman in the rock era." In addition to their pop session work, The Memphis Boys had previously backed soul musicians Wilson Pickett, Joe Tex, Bobby Womack, and King Curtis. Recording engineer Terry Manning, who was hired on assignment to write a piece on the sessions for the New Musical Express, attended and ended up assisting Dowd, along with Ed Kollis. The songs were written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Randy Newman, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The recording was a challenge for Wexler. In his book Rhythm and the Blues, Wexler wrote that out of all the songs that were initially submitted to Springfield for consideration, "she approved exactly zero." For her, he continued, "to say yes to one song was seen as a lifetime commitment." Springfield disputed this, saying she did choose two: "Son of a Preacher Man" and "Just a Little Lovin. He was surprised, given Dusty's talent, by her apparent insecurity. Springfield later attributed her initial unease to a very real anxiety about being compared with the soul greats who had recorded in the same studios. Eventually Dusty's final vocals were recorded in New York. Additionally, Springfield stated that she had never before worked with just a rhythm track, and that it was the first time she had worked with outside producers, having self produced her previous recordings (something for which she never took credit). the record company signed the group with a $143,000 advance.

Dusty in Memphis was released by Atlantic Records in March 1969 in the United States and on 18 April by Philips Records in the United Kingdom. The album was a commercial failure in both countries, reaching only number 99 on the American album charts and failing to chart altogether on the British Top 40. According to music journalist Peter Robinson, its failure stalled Springfield's career rather than revive it, although the record eventually became "a popcultural milestone [and] timeless emotional reference point" for listeners who discovered it in second hand shops or purchased one of its several reissues years later. Robert Christgau called it "a pop standard and classic", predicting in his 1973 column for Newsday it would be "the kind of record that will sell for years because its admirers need replacement copies, and it is the perfect instance of how a production team should work." Greil Marcus was less enthusiastic in Rolling Stone, deeming some of the songwriting inconsistent on what was "a real drifting, cool, smart, sexually distracted soul album". Despite modest sales (the platter has sold 216,000 in the United States in the SoundScan era, per Luminate Entertainment Data) it was the first of a small wave of "in Memphis" style albums that were recorded by pop singers at American Recording Studios. Three months after Springfield's album was released, Dionne Warwick's Soulful album was released, which had a similar mix of soul and pop and was recorded at American. In the summer of 1969, Elvis Presley's From Elvis in Memphis was released, featuring Presley recording at American with The Memphis Boys musicians. The following year, Petula Clark's Memphis album, also recorded at American, was released. These albums were all part of a larger 1960s and 1970s boom of soul and pop music production in Memphis (home to Stax Records, Hi Records, and other studios and labels), and nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Dusty in Memphis has been named one of the great albums of all time. NME named it the 54th greatest album ever in their 1993 list, and it was voted number 171 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked the record 89th on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, a rating which the album maintained in a 2012 revised list, before rising to number 83 in a 2020 reboot of the list. According to Richie Unterberger of AllMusic, the album's reputation has improved significantly over time as the music is "deserving of its classic status". Q took note of its balance between "R&B and sensitive pop dramas", and Spin critic Chuck Eddy viewed it as one of the all important blue eyed soul records. In The A. V. Club, Keith Phipps wrote that Springfield and her team of musicians and producers for Dusty in Memphis developed an elegant and distinct fusion of pop and R&B that predated the Philadelphia soul sound of the 1970s. According to Eric Klinger from PopMatters, its sophisticated style of music influenced the sound of 1990s trip hop artists who sampled songs from the album and became a blueprint for British female singers of the 2000s, including Adele, Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Joss Stone, Paloma Faith and Rumer.