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Shirley Bassey is one of the few truly international divas of popular music. Her songs have been equally at home on concert stages and in record charts the world over for more than four decades. That makes it all the more surprising to reflect on the fact that her 1964 rendition of Goldfinger, the title track of this collection, remains her sole top forty success in the United States. Her long-time core of devoted American fans doubtless be thrilled by the present anthology, but it serve an even greater purpose if it introduces curious newcomers to the fact that what we are fortunate enough to have in Ms. Bassey is a gifted song stylist with much more to her credit than a few memorable film themes. Her versatility and uncommon skill in conveying the emotional impact of a lyric always make of her work a richly rewarding listening experience.

"The Tigress of Tiger Bay" was born the youngest of seven children to a Welsh mother and a seafaring, West African father in the town of Cardiff, Wales on January 8, 1937. The dockside Tiger Bay section of Cardiff was a somewhat less than genteel area, with gang fights and crime a part of daily life. Shirley took an early interest in music, singing along with the radio and to records, but her father died when she was only two and so to help ease the strain of her family's poverty the budding songstress took a job in an enamelware plant, vocalizing surreptitiously amidst the pots and pans, "When I was factory girl in Cardiff, starting work at 7:30 every morning," she later recalled for the British magazine Hit Parade in 1957, "I used to dream of all the things I would do if ever became rich and famous."

She branched out from performing before friends and family at gatherings to singing in some of the rowdy local pubs for the rough equivalent of three dollars a night. Bassey landed her first real professional assignment at the delicate age of sixteen, joining the chorus of a touring revue entitled Memories of Al Jolson. Two years later in 1955 she was part of a variety bill at the Astor Club when she came to the attention of Jack Hylton. Hylton had led one of Britain's most popular dance bands in the '30s, and after putting down the baton he embarked on an equally successful career as an agent and theatrical impresario, Hylton secured Shirley a spot in a review that was scheduled to open soon in London's West End. Entitled Such Is Life, the show was built around the talents of comedian Alan Reid. She eventually toured the country in the piece, gaining enough exposure to try her luck as a solo attraction. A critic reviewing her first appearance as a top of the bill variety artist at the Birmingham Hippodrome in 1957 raved, "Wow! What a girl is Shirley Bassey! She's like Eartha Kitt, Lena Horne, and Teresa Brewer rolled into one." The natural progression of her rise to stardom led inevitably to the recording studio, and in February of '57 she scored her first of many top ten successes in the British charts with Banana Boat Song. Bassey recorded for the Philips and U.K. Columbia labels' (with some of the material seeing the light of day in the U.S. on United Artists), and later signed a deal with United Artists in 1967.

Bassey came to the U.S. to appear on top television shows hosted by Ed Sullivan, Garry Moore, and Dinah Shore. She also recorded briefly for Columbia in the States under the auspices of hitmaking guru Mitch Miller. Mike Sullivan, her manager at the time, embarked on a conscious effort to turn his young charge into an international star, though major success proved elusive in America. Back home Bassey found herself Britain's highest paid entertainer, and her sensual stage presence provoked enough sensational copy involving would-be suitors to make "Saucy Shirley" a darling of the tabloid press. Much like Billy Daniels, Bassey laced her exciting stage presence with a hint of sexual intrigue that has never been fully captured by the recording microphone. It worked to her tremendous advantage when she returned to the U.S. in 1961 for a breakthrough cabaret engagement in the Persian Room of New York's Plaza Hotel. Working in "a small spot that fit almost as tightly as her dress," in the phrase of one reviewer, Bassey undulated through suggestive numbers like Who Wants To Help Me Burn My Candle At Both Ends?, wearing backless; sideless; strapless gowns that made for a suspenseful evening.

The opening track of this present collection, With These Hands, is earnestly dramatic rather than suggestive. It is exactly the sort of theatrical ballad that has proved Bassey's strong suit over the years. In 1953, the song had been a sizeable U.S. hit for both Eddie Fisher and Johnnie Ray. Bassey's strong sense of the dramatic, coupled with her powerful, emotional delivery, has made her an ideal interpreter of show tunes and songs from motion pictures. Her 1960 rendition of As Long As He Needs Me from the hit musical Oliver! signalled the arrival of a newfound maturity in her interpretations. It rose to number two in the charts in Britain and eschewed the novelty appeal of some of her earlier successes, like Fire Down Below and You You Romeo. Also included here from the pen of Oliver! composer Lionel Bart is a lovely song of hope entitled Far Away that was a top forty hit for Bassey in the U.K. but is previously unreleased in the U.S.

Climb Ev'ry Mountain from The Sound of Music is another Broadway tour de force from Bassey, It rose to the top of the charts in Britain in 1961, as did the single's flip side, Reach For the Stars (as if to illustrate the lopsided nature of her transatlantic appeal, Reach For the Stars only reached as high as #120 on the U.S. charts). It is interesting to hear Bassey dip into the bag of American popular standards from the musically halcyon 1940s and offer her versions of two songs that will forever be associated with Dick Haymes. You'll Never Know provided Haymes with his biggest hit, and helped to ensure the success of his solo career in 1943, I'll Get By (As Long As I Have You) was another number one success for Haymes the following year, but it had actually been recorded in '41 while Dick was occupying the male vocalist chair with the Harry James band. Bassey's sensitive reading of Tonight from the Bernstein-Sondheim classic West Side Story provides a return to the theatrical realm, and is another performance previously unreleased in the United States.

Bassey's beautiful recording of Ave Maria accomplished something truly remarkable in becoming a top forty U.K. success in 1962. A beautiful classic and a staple of innumerable holiday and religious albums, Ave Maria had not managed to stand on its own as a commercially successful single release since the bygone pre-World War I Days when Enrico Caruso and John McCormack were popular favourites as well as operatic titans, and found great favour with their own performances. What Now My Love? and I (Who Have Nothing) were two powerful songs of French and Italian origin, respectively, that found international popularity in the early '60s. Bassey's 1963 rendition of the latter tune, which rose to number six in the U.K., was overshadowed in the U.S. by a hit version from former Drifters' lead singer Ben E. King (seven years later the song was a top 20 hit in both the U.S. and Britain for Tom Jones). Gone is another performance previously unissued in the U.S., and for the uninitiated the title might conjure up in the mind's ear a bizarre aural image of Shirley Bassey covering Felin Husky's hugely popular country hit from 1957. This Gone is a completely unrelated, up-tempo tune that provided Joey Heatherton with a hit on MGM in 1972. The very pretty ballad My Special Dream was taken from a World War II film drama entitled The Victors, which brings us to a discussion of Bassey's other movie music, including an indelible performance that finally seduced the U.S. record buying public into providing Shirley with a major hit in America.

The producers of the James Bond film series did much to insure its popular success when they turned the musical reins over to composer John Barry, who'd first gained attention as the trumpet playing leader of an instrumental rock group known as the John Barry Seven. From his pulse-quickening arrangement of Monty Norman's James Bond Theme through a series of dynamic film soundtracks, Barry's contributions to the Bond series remain nearly as indelible as Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Barry's personal favorite among the Bond title songs comes from the third film, Goldfinger (1964). He shares a writing credit for the tune with the team of Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, and graciously notes that the song's overwhelming success was due in no small part to the singer behind it.

"Shirley Bassey was perfect casting," he has stated. "She brought such conviction to it." Bassey's memorable ode to one of the nastier Bond villains is included here in two incarnations, the mono single release which reached number 8 in the U.S., and the stereo version from the soundtrack LP that topped the U.S. album charts in '64. The tremendous popularity of Goldfinger in the U.S. sparked a demand for Bassey's services on Nevada's casino circuit where, unfortunately, many who had been previously unfamiliar with her work were nonplussed to discover she was black. "The reaction on some people's faces as incredible," she later ruefully recalled. "I guess they had heard Goldfinger and had never seen me and thought I was white. They weren't prepared for what they got."

Bassey revisited James Bond fans on two subsequent occasions, recording the title songs for Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Moonraker (1979). Diamonds has a sense of urgency and danger to it that is reminiscent of Goldfinger, while Moonraker takes a tender, romantic approach and is by far the most soothing of Shirley's Bond themes. If The Liquidator sounds like the title song from a Bond film you can't quite recall, that's because it was meant to. It is actually the title song from a 1966 tongue in cheek espionage thriller that featured Rod Taylor as a protagonist with the unlikely name of Boysie Oaks. The remaining film songs on this collection are the much recorded theme from Paramount's 1970 tearjerker Love Story, and 1971's For All We Know from the film Lovers & Other Strangers, which was a major hit in America for The Carpenters.

There are two more songs from the musical stage in this anthology, including another Lionel Bart tune, It's Yourself from Maggie May. It is interesting to listen to this tender song of yearning and remember that its composer was a few short years earlier churning out hits for British rockers like Tommy Steele (Rock With the Caveman) and Cliff Richard Livin' Doll). Big Spender is the standout, show-stopping number from Broadway's Sweet Charity, and it is fascinating to hear how Bassey implies in her vocal the bumps and grinds that accompanied the song's stage performance. Years earlier, the voluptuous rising young star had confessed to a reporter, "Marilyn Monroe can't help walking with a wiggle; I can't help singing with one." The lyrics to No Regrets and This Is My Life (La Vita) both present the central female character as a strong-willed, independent person, hinting at an emerging strain of feminism in pop music that reached its apotheosis with Helen Reddy's 1972 hit I Am Woman. Bassey masterfully projects a defiantly self-reliant image on both occasions, and it is a tribute to her versatility that she is equally convincing with the much more confused and lovelorn sentiments of Never, Never, Never, a top ten U.K. hit that enjoyed international popularity in 1973. The last remaining track to be discussed in this collection is Bassey's 1970 recording of George Harrison's Something, an almost obligatory performance for its time period. Much like The Beatles' Yesterday, the song seemingly exerted an overwhelming fascination for mainstream pop singers of the era, and was recorded by Sinatra; Perry Como; Tony Bennett and dozens of others, putting Bassey's sincere reading in very good company indeed.

Bassey has scaled back her professional activities in recent years, spending large amounts of her leisure time in Switzerland and Monte Carlo. She has hinted at a gradual retirement, but remains an international live performer of the first magnitude and it is frequent return visitor to New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall (where she recorded a memorable live album in 1973). Bassey also remains active and adventurous in the recording studio. In 1986 she contributed an LP track to an outing by the Swiss techno-pop group Yello, and in 1989 recorded an album recorded entirely in Spanish, La Mujer, which she promoted with an extensive tour of South America. Her latest project as of this writing is a collection of the nearly symphonic chow music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and surely this sweepingly grand material could never hope for an interpreter with a more finely honed flair for the dramatic. Shirley Bassey remains in a class by herself, an enviable position she has occupied in the entertainment world for nearly four decades. If you are a long-time fan, this collection should bring back many pleasant memories (as well as a few surprises, with five tracks making their U.S. debut and others appearing in stereo for the first time). If you are by chance a novitiate, feel free to pick any track at random and rest assured that you are no more than one listen away from becoming a believer.