In 1966, I
was on the cusp of my teenage years in Belfast. This was The Beatles’
fringe-shaking era and around the time Tom Jones was emerging as a
hip-swivelling knicker magnet. It was a year before Shirley Bassey’s sassiest
record Big Spender and not long after her dramatic Goldfinger. I was 12-years
old and, in my mother’s eyes, vulnerable to the sight of this slinky singer in
revealing gowns, pouting and purring and looking seductively out of the
television screen into my naïve eyes. My mother did everything she could to
shield her young children from this kind of performance. Shirley Bassey was not
as “bad” as Eartha Kitt, another feline sex-bomb, but she was in the same
category. Of course, there were far, far worse threats out there but, in a
Catholic household, safeguarding the purity of a young mind was high on the
agenda. In 1966, in our house, Shirley Bassey was dangerous viewing. However, I
survived and here we are in 2017 celebrating the 80th birthday of
one of the greatest entertainers the world has ever seen.
Shirley
Bassey was born in Tiger Bay, Cardiff on 8 January 1937. She was one of six children. Her father Henry
was Nigerian and her mother, Eliza Jane, was English. Her parents’ marriage did
not survive scandal and complications. Shirley grew up in the neighbouring
area, Splott. From as far back as anyone can remember, she loved to sing. Her
mother recalled that as a young girl, Shirley would position herself under a
table to perform because she was very shy and lacking in confidence. But she
did enter a talent competition, came second and was awarded a £5 note. She used
some of the money to buy her mother a ring. By accounts in interviews, Shirley
recalled that although money was tight, it was a happy home. At school, she was encouraged to sing and
perform but was told that her voice was too loud at times, often drowning out
others in the class. Later on, her work colleagues too liked the singing but
not always the volume.
In her
teens, Shirley earned around £3 a week packing pots and pans in Currans
Engineering Works in Cardiff, a job she did for eighteen months, supplemented
by £2 a night singing in the Splott Working Men’s Club, also known as The Bomb
and Dagger. She once said that she had no real ambitions to be a famous singer
but did have ideas about becoming an air hostess or a nurse. The latter career notion was a non-starter
because she couldn’t stand the sight of blood.
In 1955 she took part in a touring revue called Memories of Jolson. One
of her fellow performers in the revue, Eddie Reindeer, encouraged Burly
Chassis, as he nicknamed her, to make a demonstration record in a Shaftsbury
Avenue studio. They recorded a duet of By the Light of the Silvery Moon,
probably the very first Bassey disc. Reindeer hawked the demo around record
companies but no one was interested.
Shirley was
invited by an agent called Michael Sullivan to an audition on 14 February, 1955
that lead to appearances at Mayfair’s Astor Club, ending her shows with Stormy
Weather. Sullivan recalled, on hearing that song performed: “It sent a shiver
down my spine” At the Astor, she was spotted by bandleader Jack Hylton who
asked her to sing at the Adelphi Club. After the performance, critics agreed
that she was “the great new find” and a newspaper reported: “For the girl,
18-year-old Miss Shirley Bassey from Cardiff, it was the sort of break that
every unknown in show business dreams about.”
She became a regular star at prestigious clubs in London, including the
Café de Paris and The Talk of the Town, building a strong reputation and fan
base in the process. After a guest appearance on TV’s Sunday Night at the
London Palladium, barely 20-years old, Shirley Bassey was on her way to stardom.
She made more television appearances including The Anthony Newley Show and from
recording sessions made between 1956 and 1959, her album The Bewitching Miss
Bassey, which included the very popular Kiss Me, Honey, Honey, Kiss Me, was
released to great acclaim. It was a showcase album featuring a range of amazing
songs written by Cole Porter (Night and Day), Rodgers and Hart (My Funny
Valentine) and Burton and Freed (How About You?) as well as the traditional
Banana Boat Song, which turned out to be her first top ten chart hit. The LP
also featured the number one single As I Love You.
She was
impressing fellow performers along the way. Liberace said: “Shirley is the
stuff that superstars are made of. When she sings it’s from within. She’s an
intense singer, an exciting singer, an electric performer and I’ve seen her
hold audiences in the palm of her hand. Only a great artist with great talent
can do that.” Danny La Rue said: “This
woman is magic. She’s like a work of art. She’s like a painting and if you look
at it long enough and often enough, it becomes more beautiful, more talented.
It is a joy to know her. She is one of our greatest stars.” Elizabeth Taylor called her “the epitome of
professionalism and showmanship, and undeniably one of the greatest singers of
our time.” Des O’Connor told her: “The
British public love you, not just your talent. They love you.”
If the
1950s was an apprenticeship era with growing success and glowing reviews, the
1960s and 1970s were golden years of hits, Royal Variety Performances, James
Bond theme songs and sell-out concerts all over the world. These were the
decades of As Long As He Needs Me, Reach For The Stars, What Now My Love?, I
(Who Have Nothing), Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever and, of course, the
showstopper, Big Spender. After an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1960,
her album collaboration with Nelson Riddle, breathtaking concert performances
including New York and Las Vegas, and subsequent exposure via the 007 movies,
she conquered America. In 1970, her version of George Harrison’s Something
earned her a top five UK hit and two series of The Shirley Bassey Show for the
BBC allowed her to mix music and comedy with top international stars.
All through
these years of outstanding success, her evolution into a unique performer, her
stature as one of the very finest entertainers in history, those young years
singing under the table because of shyness were erased once and for all when
she made a guest appearance, in 1971, on The Morecambe and Wise Show. The
format for the show included sketches in which Eric and Ernie had fun with some
of the biggest names in show business. It is easy to remember conductor Andre
Previn’s bewilderment at Eric’s silly piano playing or newsreader Angela
Rippon’s high-kicking Let’s Face The Music or, indeed, Shirley Bassey losing
her shoe and having it replaced by a hobnail boot as she sang Smoke Gets In
Your Eyes. It is a classic piece of screen comedy, oft-repeated and always
hilarious.
She appeared
on This Is Your Life twice. In 1972, she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews
dressed as a pilot as she stepped off a BEA flight at Heathrow Airport and in
1993 by Michael Aspel gate-crashing her curtain call after a concert at the
Royal Albert Hall. Both profiles skimmed over her personal life – two failed
marriages, a daughter who died at 21 and other aspects of her private off-stage
world. In a newspaper interview she opened up a little about some of the
regrets in her life including the decision all those years ago to leave
Cardiff. “I was happy until success entered my life,” she said, “and then it
was all downhill.” She maintained that success had spoiled her. Nowadays, she
lives in Monaco and London, out of the limelight as much as possible.
Through the
1980s, she eased up touring and semi-retired, picking and choosing occasional
concerts, television appearances and recording sessions, and accepting
invitations to sing at charity events like Sir Elton John’s Aids Foundation’s
White Tie and Tiara Ball. Whenever she performed at gala events and special
ceremonies, standing ovations were still guaranteed. While her personal life
was challenging at times, on stage she was in her element as she was, for
example, in her sensational appearance at the 2007 Glastonbury Festival wearing
a pink dress and fashionable wellies.
Shirley
Bassey is as unique a performer as we are ever likely to see. She has a style
all her own. Her singing is powerful, intense, full-on, loud when necessary,
cheeky occasionally but always mesmerising and thoroughly entertaining. Her
career path is festooned with awards and accolades, walks of fame and, of
course, she is Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, all deserved.
She was and
still is sassy, sexy and sensational whenever she makes an appearance. She is
quite simply, the one and only Shirley Bassey. Happy birthday, Dame Shirley, the
girl from Cardiff, the girl with the Midas touch.
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