Entered: Nov 25 1972 Highest: UK Album: #24  Run: 7 weeks Re-Entry: Feb 17 1973  Run: 2 weeks
		Entered: Nov 1972 Highest: Pop Albums: #171

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And I Love You So, Shirley Bassey's fourth studio album of the Seventies for United Artists - and, indeed, her second album release of 1972, following hot on the heels of I Capricorn - proved to be yet another potent and satisfying blend of big ballads and contemporary pop songs.

The 12 selected numbers were all given Shirley's usual distinctive interpretations and so it is perhaps ironic that, commercially, the album failed to scale the UK chart heights of its immediate predecessors, peaking at number 24 but still securing a nine-week chart residency. Nevertheless the album was also a substantial seller throughout Europe as well as in Australia and the United States.

And I Love You So's relatively slow sales in Britain were probably due to the lack of a major hit single on the album. Indeed, the title recording had been issued as a single by United Artists and received considerable airplay, but Shirley's recording was overshadowed by the British Top 10 success of veteran American crooner Perry Como's own version of the Don McLean ballad. A second single, Ballad Of The Sad Young Men, was also taken from the album but again failed to make any UK chart impact, although the song itself became a very popular inclusion in Shirley's dynamic stage performances throughout the years. The And I Love You So album once again teamed Shirley with executive producer Noel Rogers and arranger/producer Johnny Harris. It was a formula that had worked well for the Something, Something Else and I Capricorn albums, and the Bassey-Rogers-Harris partnership continued to deliver the musical goods (aided also by some extra excellent musical arrangements by Arthur Greenslade).

Shirley once again interpreted a handful of 'show' songs (which are just about obligatory on any Bassey album) but, significantly, the three chosen numbers all came from contemporary stage musicals as opposed to the more traditional show songs that she had recorded in the past. Two of the most successful stage musicals of the early Seventies were Godspell and the Andrew Lloyd Webber - Tim Rice rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, and Shirley recorded the show-stopping hit songs from both productions.

Shirley's version of Day By Day opened in a relatively quiet mood before building into an electrifying up-tempo tour-de-force which became a favourite in her live performances (and featured on her 1973 live album recorded at New York's Carnegie Hall). Similarly I Don't Know How To Love Him, the song sung by the character of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar, was given the full majestic Bassey treatment. The recording was also released as the B-side to the And I Love You So single.

Also featured on the album was Jacque Brel's dramatic ballad If We Only Have Love which featured in the musical production, Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well, And living In Paris. This was a song that was covered by many other ballad singers of the era but, arguably, Shirley's version ranks among the very best, and it is perhaps surprising that it was never released as a single. Contemporary pop songs also found there way onto the And I Love You So album.

Someday, co-written by Richard Carpenter, opened the musical proceedings and was followed by Bless The Beasts And The Children, the main title theme from the film of the same title. Shirley was also among the first to record the pop standard Without You which had been a UK number 1 hit for Harry Nilsson earlier in 1972. It is another number that has remained a consistent favourite in Shirley's live performances over the ensuing three decades. Ewan MacColl's The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face had been another major pop hit in 1972, albeit as recorded by American blues/soul performer Roberta Flack. Shirley delivered a highly credible interpretation of this gentle-but-powerful song classic.

Completing the original 12-track selection of the And I Love You So album were Jezahel, The Way Of Love and I'd Do It All Again. The Way Of Love in particular is another song that would have made an excellent single release. A dramatic Italian ballad that features a powerful chorus, The Way Of Love had been released as a single by Kathy Kirby back in the mid-Sixties (albeit with a lack of chart success) and has subsequently been recorded by Cher and frequently features in the rock diva's live shows.

This CD re-issue of Shirley's And I Love You So album also features two bonus tracks from the same album sessions. If I Should Love Again, another song of Italian extraction with English lyrics supplied by Shirley's long-time record producer Norman Newell, was the B-side of Ballad Of The Sad Young Men. Paul Williams' Let Me Be The One, with an arrangement by Arthur Greenslade, is another recording that never quite made the original album release although from the same sessions.
 

© Billboard Magazine 1972

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