OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Sensational Shirley Bassey!
I know what you're thinking (if you're 'Murican), and it might have to do with the outcome of certain polling and balloting or efforts to plebiscite (ten dollar word, amirite?) come the next few days. I know what else you're thinking: how can you possibly get excited about a fabulous Dame at a time like this? But DJ Li'l Scratch urges you to fight against such notions, for this is precisely time we should all be celebrating everything that is good and glamorous, and also brassy and bold and daaaaaamn. So tonight, you and yours are cordially invited to "Pork Steeple!", the Manor's after-hours bar and gourmet sandwich porkery, where DJ L'il Scratch will be spinning tunes from Wales' finest contribution to hot-cha!, jazz hands! and wowza! Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the one, the only...
...Dame Shirley Bassey. There is no other. If you know her, and I bet'cha you do, you probably first think of her indelible tunes for three, count 'em, three "James Bond" movies, "Goldfinger," "Diamonds Are Forever," and "Moonraker." This is an unmatched record; no single performer has ever recorded so many Bond theme songs. Born in Wales in 1937, she was later working in a factory as a 15 year-old and singing in pubs for extra cash at night. She was discovered in these pubs by bandleader Jack Hylton, who swiftly cast her in a West End revue. She didn't stay there long. She scored a record deal shortly after, and as the years unfurled, became the first woman to claim a Top 40 album in the UK across seven, count 'em, seven, consecutive decades.
Let's give a spin to her 1966 LP, "I've Got a Song For You," her first for the United Artists label in America after she left EMI, since this was her attempt to break into the American market after the chart-topping, worldwide success of "Goldfinger." It didn't work out for a variety of reasons; the timing was off, for one, since standards and jazz performers were being skipped over by the public for the just-maturing rock genre; and then there was racism, since Shirley was biracial, being part Nigerian. In America, this meant that she would have had to stay at "Colored Only" hotels while touring - especially during her attempts to crack the market years earlier - and Shirley wanted no part of that.
Black American legends like Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and Eartha Kitt regularly risked their careers, faced lawsuits or canceled bookings (it wasn't just the big stars; every Black performer found conflict), but Shirley, finding some success at NYC's Carnegie Hall and in Vegas, largely skipped over the American market for the rest of the world, which happily and ecstatically embraced her.
Why does the world love her? Because of her joyous and massive acoustic power and theatricality. Some regard her as a belter-style singer, but to me, you can't really call what she does just belting. When she hits a climactic note, for instance, her voice never once thins out, but instead - astonishingly, impossibly - gains in power and wide vibrato. She has singular instrument, and knows how to deploy for maximum impact.
On "I've Got a Song For You," you really must hear her sing "Johnny One-Note." And if you know Shirley, then you know the drill. If she's only going to be given a single note to sing, then she's. Going. To. Kill. It. She's slays in all the other songs, too, and nearly gives you whiplash on "You're Gonna Hear From Me" (one of my favorites, because the insane arrangement seems to match her vocals). There's also...
Ready for more Shirley? Then sit back, because the full LP, largely overlooked in America, is a treat. Surprisingly, large swaths of Shirl's catalogue remains unavailable on Spotify, but in terms of "I've Got a Song For You," the tube of yous has it all RIGHT HERE.
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