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Dame Shirley Bassey(1937- ) is a Welsh singer now 75 years old. She found fame in the mid-1950s when I was a famous baseball player in a small town in Ontario inthe pee-wee and midget leagues. She was one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century as I went from childhood to late adulthood. She was born near where my father was born in Wales just as the Baha’i teaching Plan was about to be launched in 1937, a Plan I have been associated with in a wide variety of ways for nearly 60 years.
Bassey began her career in 1953, the same year as: the celebration of the centenary of the birth of Baha’u’llah’s revelation, the dedication of the Baha’i House of worship in Chicago, the launching of the Ten Year Crusade, and the year my mother joined the Baha’i Faith.
In the biopic I watched tonight(1) the role of Shirley Bassey was played by Ruth Negga, an Ethiopian-Irish(1982- ). My daughter-in-law(1980- ) is Ethiopian and for this reason, among others, I took an interest in Negga who won the IFTA best actress award for this performance as Bassey. This 70 minute biopic(1) on ABC1 was entitled Shirley.-Ron Price with thanks to BBC, 29 September 2011>ABC1TV, 15 April, 9:25-10:35 p.m.
It was impossible not to have
heard of this most popular of
singers Shirley Bassey…But,
until tonight, I must confess
I hardly knew her. Our time,
our world of entertainment, is
so mixed with a myriad forms
of culture and knowledge that
it is a veritable explosion. TV
has been on the periphery of my
life since the 1950s. I missed-out
on much that was popular in that
evening-time when, as the critic
of culture, Gore Vidal notes, we(1)
have laughing gas pumped into
billions of our lounge-rooms on
the planet. I was reading books,
marking & preparing lessons, as
well as sleeping and listening to
radio-news, going to meetings:
wall to wall people from the ‘50s
to those ‘90s. But I’m making up
for it now in these 2000s….A little
television is now on my agenda at
about two hours a day in my life’s
evening with 70 around the corner,
time’s winged-chariot running near
and old-age about to ring my neck
eventually as I go into one of those
holes for those who speak no more(2)
and watch no more TV, and sing no
more songs, Shirley: who knows?!!
1 Gore Vidal(1925- ) is arguably the finest essayist of the last half century. Newsweek called Vidal the best all-around American man of letters since Edmund Wilson(1895-1972) was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.
2 The Bab(1817-1850)
You don't hear too much from Shirley Bassey here in the States, sad as it to say. And it's been that way for the past few decades. AM radio concentrated on the two to three minute chart hits and FM radio took rock and roll a step further by the late 60's/early 70's. In my area there wasn't a station that had a full time jazz format until KADX came in around 1974.
By this time Shirley Bassey somehow escaped the public's listening ear. But I was familiar with her. She put out a number of lp's in the States on United Artist records in the 1960's and 1970's. By all rights her career should have flourished as one of the best songs from 1965 was released to couple with a powerhouse movie. And Shirley done the title track to the song! The title to the movie and the song? GOLDFINGER. And man did she belt that song out-yeaa!
As RonPrice stated earlier, her career started in the early 50's. I have a number of her recordings on 45 that somehow didn't get pressed in this country; standards such as "Love For Sale", "My Funny Valentine" and "Night And Day".
Well, off I go to ze ol' turntable to hear that brass intro to the song and that booming vocal!
"Goldfinger! He's the man. The man with the Midas touch!"
Last edited by DOUBLE H; 05-13-2012 at 11:51 PM..
Reason: spelling, addition
A Belated Thanks for your responses folks.-Ron Price, Australia
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A Belated Thanks
