Welcoming to the studio as this Sunday's guest, Dame Shirley Bassey who is remarkably celebrating 50 years in showbusiness with a tour and a new CD. Dame Shirley Bassey is only the second Dame to appear hereabouts after Dame Cleo, so why not make a traditional showbusiness fuss! 

Russell: Fifty years is a long time, and we all have our different memories of the young Shirley and her many hits.

QUOTE: "I was listening to Kiss Me, Honey, Honey this morning and we all wanted to be the bloke who did "huh huh""

Russell: So you remember who it was?

Shirley: It was my musical director at the time, Kenny Clayton. It came off beautifully, and then we took the "huh huh" out because we couldn't get anyone to do that deep "huh huh"

Russell: Those things are the hook I suppose

Shirley: That's what I like in a song, a hook; it works every time for me.

SONG PLAYED: Kiss Me, Honey, Honey, Kiss Me

Shirley: I listen sometimes, when I am working on a new act, that’s the only time I listen to old records to see if there is anything I can revive, the voice is incredible on those,.. Well I don’t play the LPs, I have them and I have the machine to play them on, but I don’t want to touch them, they are sacred. When I hear them on radio they sound very strange, high pitched I was wondering if it is anything to do with… if I had that voice or if it was anything to do with the recording at that time, the technique, because it all sounds so high pitched. (Shirley then sings lines of Kiss Me Honey Honey with an exaggerated high pitch)

Russell: I suppose there might be a bit of both in that, the singing has matured and so has the machinery to capture it. But we must go back a bit further to the old country; because when two welsh persons are conversing the talk must include where you are from. Talking about being welsh and going back even before the fifty years, I think we welsh like to think of Wales as a place where music is pouring out of every window. Certainly wasn’t in my part of Wales, was it for you?

Shirley: No, certainly not. It was amazing looking back; going into people’s homes there was no music. In my house there was because my brother was crazy about music, and certain singers like Billy Eckstein, Sarah Vaughan and Judy Garland. Because of him I got to hear these great singers.

Russell: That’s not a bad bunch of three to start off on.

Shirley: Not at all, he had good taste, but he never became a singer.

Russell: Do you remember the first singer that you saw on stage, actually perform?

Shirley: It was at the London Palladium, I went up with the school when I was about thirteen/fourteen, up to London, it was an American singer, the name’s gone out of my head, and she sang this incredible song out of tune. On purpose, I thought, gosh she must know music very well to do that.

Russell: Jo Stafford

Shirley: Jo Stafford! Yes, it was her.

Russell: Darlene Edwards

Shirley: She was incredible. I was up in the concert; it was an incredible day for me.

Russell: I didn’t know she did that on stage, desperately difficult.

Shirley: I remember it well, very difficult, I thought well it’s very out of tune, not knowing but feeling, because I don’t know music, but I felt , I could hear it too that she was out of tune, I was told afterwards, I read it, that she does that.

SONG PLAYED: Jo Stafford, “Darlene Edwards”

Russell: ….A considerable technical feat, but not one that the young Shirley Bassey would want to emulate particularly. It wasn’t too long after experiencing that sound, that the teenage Bassey was officially discovered in one of those overnight star stories, by the veteran showman band leader Jack Hilton.

Shirley: I was at the ?? Club in London and my manager got him over to see me, and after the show he went and said to Jack Hilton “what do you think of my star”, and he said “just another bloody singer” he was made to eat those words the next day, because he woke up to a phone call which said his lead female singer, “Talk of the Town” was rushed to hospital while he was watching me perform. He called my manager and he must have been very reluctant to do this, and he said “That singer of yours, what is her name?” and he said “Shirley Bassey” “get her down to the Adelphi Theatre, she’s going on tonight, my female lead has been taken ill.” And that was it. 

Russell: Suddenly big time wham.

Shirley: Yes it was, all the press were in, and the next day the headlines which knocked me out, “The Tigress from Tiger Bay” hits London.

Russell: There aren’t showmen like Hilton anymore; he was a big powerful man in the business.

Shirley: No, he was great.

Russell: When you went on record first, didn’t you start off by being banned, didn’t the BBC ban you?

Shirley:  Yes, who wants to help me burn my candle at both ends?

Russell: I can’t really see what is wrong with that.

Shirley: I never understood it anyway, I didn’t understand the lyrics, but apparently they were terribly risqué. Of course today they are like a nursery rhyme, but the fact that there was this eighteen year old singing “Who Wants to Help me Burn my Candle”, It went into the hit parade anyway!

SONG PLAYED: Who wants to help me Burn my Candle (at both ends)

Russell: I heard one of your great early singles I heard a story a story, about last week it came from Norman Newell I think..

Shirley: lovely Norman

Russell: ...and it was a session in Abbey road where you were meant to be singing, but you had forgotten I think that it was happening and you were in the cinema and they had to fish you out and put up one of those slides, "would Shirley Bassey come...?"

Shirley: They didn't do that I was in the cinema though and I had to see the end and I was walking out at the end and I stood at the door so I could be the first one out, wouldn't get trampled on. I knew I had be at the theatre, it was so unprofessional of me, but I had to see the end. And I arrived and of course I had missed my opening, I was fined ten shillings. which I couldn't afford and I never did it again!

Russell: This is not quite the same story, the one I heard was to do with "As I Love You" getting to the end and you came on at the end of the session and the MD, must have been Norman, said "what are we going to do?"

Shirley: what was I going to do? "As Long As He Needs Me" or was it "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" one of those,

Russell: ...and you did it in the last five minutes, all one go and it was brilliant.

Shirley: I had to make up, that's another story. Could have been  "As I Love You", yes.

Russell: I am going to say it was, some well known track certainly was and this is my best candidate: recorded in the last five minutes of a three hour session and if anything had gone wrong with the tape the session would have produced nothing, as it was it produced this:

SONG PLAYED: As I Love You

Russell: were you a bit like that those days? I mean, scatty?

Shirley: yes, especially when it came to the cinema, I am a film buff, it's incredible, I got caught twice and I became professional after that.

Russell: All those MD's you worked with, Wally Stott, Geoff Love, Alyn Ainsworth, all those guys, Tony Osborne, Kenny Clayton, was any one of those British ones more important to the others to you, or were they all much of a muchness?

Shirley: No, they were all very talented, extremely talented, and a lovely story about Nelson Riddle, I was recording "What Now My Love?" and he was looking down the list of when we met, the first time we met and he came to "What Now My Love?" and he said I can't do the arrangement for that, because I have just done one for Frank Sinatra- I don't think I could do it justice, another one, and we said, OK, Norman said, we'll get someone else to do and he went back to the hotel, and he felt, "someone else on my record.." he was up all night, at the studio next day he brought the arrangement, and it was an incredible arrangement, so he did better than the last one,  there is something, to admit too that he couldn't do it justice because he had run one for Sinatra, and came up with what you hear on that album.

SONG PLAYED: What Now My Love?

Russell: You certainly need to know how to pace yourself to pull off a performance like that, arranged with a little assistance from Ravel and Nelson Riddle. Was he easy to work with? I heard that he could be, not difficult, but sort of  get depressed and be down on himself.

Shirley: Yes, probably, all true artists get down on themselves, we toured together and he was marvellous

Russell: always a guarantee of a great record

Shirley: his name alone

Russell: Launching yourself in America, did you have the Goldfinger behind you, was that a help?

Shirley: No, Goldfinger came after, and I was in Australia when it was a hit in America, agents were calling my manager, and saying "get that girl over here" but they wouldn't let me out of my contract in Australia, so I missed out on that otherwise it would have been an easier nut to crack because America is terribly difficult to crack , so many English artists have gone over there and Robbie Williams is over there at the moment trying desperately, and Cliff will tell you he had a hard time. They seem to favour their own anyway, it is an awfully big country.

Russell: Carnegie Hall, what's that like to sing in?

Shirley: It's fabulous, it's fabulous, then two years ago I went back and played Lincoln Centre, that was even better, I was worried because the audience doesn't like you to change venues, and Carnegie Hall was the place I played there year in year out, it wasn't available when the promoters wanted it, so they booked Lincoln Centre, and I was worried until I walked out on stage, incredible, and I want to go back there.

Russell: Would it ever attract you to do music on a small scale, say a trio or a quintet, I know a small cabaret room couldn't afford you in real life. In a studio you could do it.

Shirley: You know, I would love to do that, some blues numbers, jazz numbers I would like that I started off doing all these blues songs for Phillips, a whole album of them. They said "you're a blues singer" "no I'm not!"  Lovely old songs, and now I want to go back to that!

SONG PLAYED: Beale Street Blues

Russell: Shirley Bassey sings the Beale Street Blues, unlikely I would have said, that's one I had never heard before this week, in fact a whole album of blues songs had passed me by. In the early days when Shirley put out a single record it was a cover of a classic song a standard, and not a new pop inspired classic, and some of the new material that did arrive came in sideways from continental Europe.

Shirley: I would sometimes because of Norman have a new number,  I would find a song I would like on my travels, in French, Italian or Spanish and bring it back to Norman, and say "Norman, I love this song could you put some English lyrics?" and he would; he did that with This Is My Life, and I (Who Have Nothing), he did it with Never, Never, Never, it was called Grande Grande Grande in Italian.

Russell: I didn't realised until this week, but I Who have nothing the words were by Leiber and Stoller, 

SONG PLAYED: I (Who Have Nothing)

Russell:  I can confirm that Leiber and Stoller with their slightly strange but certainly under-praised versatility did provide the English text for that song, dramatic accompaniment directed by Tony Osborne, record produced by George Martin, spectacularly cleaned up in terms of sound for the new CD release.

Russell: Tony Bennett, he has gone in for this duets business, he has got a cunning strategy, got old songs with younger people to sing them with.

Shirley: Frank Sinatra did that very successfully on the duets album which is brilliant and Tony seems to be doing the same thing, good luck to him!

Russell: You have done your share of duets Would you fancy it otherwise, as a strategy?

Shirley: No, I don't know, I don't think so, otherwise I would have done it by now, it's difficult to find people who want to sing with me, from an early age in the choir I was in the front then on the third row, then the fifth, then out of the room all together, because the voice was too powerful, and to this day recording my songs, I think producers have a difficult time  reading my voice, when that needle goes up into the red, they panic.

Russell: a certain amount of adrenalin went into that, I have seen it said that you are actually quite a nervous singer, so the oomph factor must go up?

Shirley: Once you hear the music and you walk on stage the spotlight hits you the adrenalin starts pumping, I would like the adrenalin to start pumping before I go on stage, it would save me all the nerves. I get nervous, I don't mind admitting that. Sinatra got nervous, most entertainers I have met got nervous.

Russell: It probably wouldn't work if you didn't?

Shirley: No, I don't think so I think you have to have that edge.

SONG PLAYED: Let's Face the Music and Dance

Russell: ...even a touch of Vaughan Williams somewhere in the string writing, as for live concerts they have to be mapped out and arranged for and with a back catalogue of Bassey proportions, it can't be easy to draw up a song list.

Shirley: Well sitting down to do the act what do we leave out? do we leave out something that the audience are going to  be upset about. Never Never, I left out Big Spender once, and nearly got lynched, I was in the dressing room, and the stage manager came in and said I think you have to go back and do Big Spender, they are going "Big Spender, Big Spender", the dress went back on again they just would not let up, out I walked and I had to do Big Spender, ... If you don't do it, you have to please your audience, forget the critics, they are criticise you anyway, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

SONG PLAYED: Big Spender

Russell: One of the great OTT stage numbers of Broadway written by Si Coleman and Dorothy Fields, and according to audience response, an essential part of Dame Shirley's part as a popular music Diva,  regarding that she has a wonderful story that throws light on something you may have wondered about, namely inter-diva relations in this case Bassey and Streisand, it all began when Barbra Streisand was starring in Funny Girl at the Prince of Wales theatre in London.

Shirley: She was in it for  three months and pregnant and suddenly had to leave, and I got a message to say would I like to go in, "to do funny girl? no! to do your own show", and I did, I went into the star's dressing room, and there was the egg she talks about in the musical Funny girl, with a note saying good luck, and I hope you enjoy this egg, love Barbra, so I sent her a cable saying, "thank you for the egg, for dessert I had the audience" and then two years later I met her in Vegas, on her closing night, there was a party, I went up to her and said "did you ever get my telegram?" "No, what did it say" "it doesn't matter because it has been so long now" I told her what it said and she roared with laughter, and then she asked me where I lived, I said Switzerland, "so you think I should live in Switzerland?"  

Russell: Wasn't her mother still around at that time?

Shirley: Yes, her mother was sitting on her left and I was on her right, and every now and again she would start singing "Goldfinger...",  and finally Barbra said "Mother! Shut up" and she said "I can't help it she is my favourite singer," and then I though it was time to bow out, I didn't want to be a cause of a row between mother and daughter,

Russell: Have you seen her since?

Shirley: No... Oh yes I have and she snubbed me, backstage at Wembley and they wanted a photo of us and she looked at us and said "no, I'm tired."

SONG PLAYED: Thank You for the Years (Anniversary Mix)

© BBC 2003

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