Review of the Glasgow Concert From
John O'Groat Journal by Wicker
But I was delighted to travel some 280 miles to the Scottish Exhibition and
Conference Centre in Glasgow for the second time to see the inimitable Shirley
Bassey (though not by foot, I hasten to add).
Dame Shirley was celebrating her 50 years in showbusiness, most appropriately,
by singing her way through a series of concerts throughout Britain. I was one of
a small Caithness contingent which was swallowed up in a packed auditorium and
left with the hope that the diva will continue to thrill us for many more years
to come.
Shirl didn’t get off to the best of starts and missed her cue when she joined
the orchestra for her powerful trademark, the theme from the Bond movie
Goldfinger. But with a stage presence that appears to have been inherent in her
early years, she simply instructed her musical director, Peter Hagen, to start
again.
The year was 1955 when Shirley was starting to spread her wings, if not those
demonstrative hands. She was 18 when a promoter lined up a date for her in
Glasgow, dangling the carrot that if she could serenade the Scots then he would
give her a contract to appear in all the Moss Empires in the UK.
As Shirley recalled in her biography, she had to run the gauntlet. It turned out
to be a baptism of fire – or, as she put it, “a bear pit”.
She trembled as she stood in the wings and heard the crowd boo the acrobats when
they nearly lost their balance and jeer the comedians when their jokes fell
flat.
Her first song was an up-tempo number, sufficiently fast and noisy to mask any
heckling. But the second offering was slow and sensuous and gave the punters
their chance to savage the young hopeful. The audience began hollering and even
shouted to Shirley to get her clothes off!
But the “tigress” from the tough Tiger Bay area of Cardiff had grown up the hard
way and wasn’t averse to showing her teeth. Mid-song, she stopped and the
surprised orchestra drifted to a halt. Then, through the microphone, the
audacious starlet faced down the derisive crowd.
“Now, look here,” the young Bassey piped up in her broad Welsh accent, “I’ve
come here to entertain you, and if you don’t want to listen then I’ll bloody
well go home. But you can at least give me a chance.” There was a deathly
hush... the startled Glesca audience had never been spoken to like that before.
But they got the message and began to thaw. By the time Shirley had finished her
performance she had them eating out of her hand – the applause was deafening.
It was, needless to say, like that from the word go at the SECC. The singer
settled for the same dress – a lacy number, split to the thigh of course – for
her entire non-stop performance which lasted an hour and a half. There were
standing ovations, gifts laid at the feet of the singer, and a personal
acknowledgement from her for a punter who rose to give an impromptu Bassey
impression, hands and all.
There may have been some slight criticism of Shirley after her last Glasgow
appearance for singing too many lesser-known numbers. If so, she more than made
up for it this time round. Aided by some superb orchestration, she worked her
way through a range of vocal moods from the plaintive Patsy Cline hit “Crazy”
and the provocative invitation “Kiss Me, Honey, Honey” to the dramatic “I Who
Have Nothing”, the sentimental Bart hit “As Long as He Needs Me”, another Bond
theme with “Diamonds Are Forever”, the strident “New York, New York” and the
George Harrison composition “Something”. And no Bassey session would be complete
without the classic “Big Spender”, complete with a flash of that sexy thigh.
Bet a few “dames” in the audience would have no qualms about splitting some of
their dresses if they ended up looking as good as her at 66. Shirley puts
everything into her performance, and not simply through her exceptional vocal
range and stagecraft. She’s a consummate performer who throws everything into
her songs, bringing her eyes and arms and body into play to express the varying
sentiments.
Easy to see why she’s been around for 50 years – and, if her latest Scottish
concert is anything to go by, she’s certain to be wooing us for a few years yet.