Tom Springfield was a celebrity brother of the late English singer Dusty Springfield.
Tom Springfield was an English 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.
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.
In the late fifties, O’Brien formed a duo, “The Kensington Squares”, with folk musician Tim Feild, whom he had met while playing clubs in Belgravia, London.
His younger sister, Mary O’Brien, was at the time performing as one of the Lana Sisters, and when that group folded in 1960, he invited her to join him and Tim to form a new folk-pop vocal trio, the Springfields.
He jealously guarded his privacy. The only public sighting of him in later years came in 1999 on his sister’s death, when he took her ashes to Ireland and scattered them over the Cliffs of Moher. He lived in the United States for a period, and resided in Chelsea, London, up until his death on 27 July 2022, at the age of 88.