Astrid’s Simply Bassey #95

Today I’d like to play a special request for Audrey, who asked me to
play “I Want To Know What Love Is”

Audrey recalled how she was in the front row the night Shirley sang
the song for the first time and remembers how wonderful it was, so
much so that it caused an immediate standing ovation.

I hope you enjoy listening to a 1993 live recording of this song Audrey.

I Want To Know What Love Is (1993 Live)

 

New Book

Miss Shirley Bassey

It appears that there is to be a new book published on the 2nd September.  It is written by John Williams.  I hope it will be a vast improvement on the previous two books that have been published about Shirley.  Neither were authorised and I doubt very much that this one is either.  Shirley has always refused to co-operate in the writing of them.

It is available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk and also from W H Smith.  This is what is written about it on the two websites.

Product Description

In 1954, Shirley Bassey was seventeen years old. She had just returned from an exploitative revue tour called ‘Hot from Harlem’. Depressed, disillusioned and four months’ pregnant, she decided that her dream of being a professional singer was over. A mere ten years later, she was one of the biggest stars in the world. She had sold more records than any other British singer of the day, and was poised to conquer America. Her latest hit, ‘Goldfinger’, was the theme tune to the year’s blockbuster film. No longer the two-bit jazz singer from Cardiff, she was by now an international sex siren, as glamorous and unreal as Bond himself. Miss Shirley Bassey explores this remarkable transformation, both of an individual and of the British society and British psyche that made it possible. From the vibrant, multicultural oasis of Tiger Bay in the Cardiff docklands through the club-lands of Soho and Las Vegas to New York’s Carnegie Hall, it is a journey from mere mortal to international icon. Along the way she would encounter homosexual husbands, predatory managers, newspaper scandals, and a range of friends and acquaintances from Sammy Davis Jr to Reggie Kray. John Williams draws on original research and interviews to provide a portrait of a young woman on the cusp of stardom, whose rise to fame was in many ways symbolic of a changing world. A biography in the style of David Peace’s The Damned Utd or Nick Tosches’ Dino, this is the story of a woman who set out to be extraordinary and – against all the odds – succeeded.