FROM THE ARCHIVE 540 -1986-

In 1986 Shirley Bassey recorded a promo video for the British Tourist Board to promote tourists to come to London. The song There’s No Place Like London was released on a single by Towerbell with Born To Sing For ever on the B-side. Produced by Lynsey The Paul. In the video you can see Shirley’s daughter Sharon and her grandson Luke. Also a newspaper article from that year.

The song had been written for The British Tourist Board and the song was then offered to Shirley Bassey, and she made a music video to promote this song. On the single cover You can see some video screen shots. In the clip she was snapped in some of the popular tourist spots while she lip-synched the song.
Shirley Bassey has performed this song in many shows, and after her performance in “Live from the Piccadilly” 1986 for example she said about this song:
This great number was written by Miss Lynsey de Paul and Mister Gerard Kenny, and I had the pleasure of recording it for the tourist board to entice all the tourists back to jolly old London, because they deserted it there for a while. So let’s hope it did some good.

Miss Lynsey de Paul shall have been a friend of Shirley Bassey and offered the song to her. The singer and songwriter was born as Lynsey Rubin in England in 1951 – she changed her name in the early 1970’s. Some of her most successful songs have been “Sugar Me” and “Rock Bottom”

Rejected song for one of the 1976 BBC shows

Now that we saw the re-runs of the 1976 BBC Shows I have  something extra. Below you can watch Going Going Gone recorded for one of the 1976 BBC shows but unfortunately this great song was not shown on TV. Going Going Gone is from the fabulous Never Never Never album and written by John Barry. Below you can listen to a very special live version from the 1973 Royal Albert Hall concert. It was remastered for the never released 3 CD set that was meant to be released 11 years ago as a tribute for Dame Shirley Bassey’s 75th. birthday.  Read below how the track was remastered. From https://mint-audio-restoration.co.uk/bassey/

One more drastic repair was for the song ‘Going Going Gone’. When this was mixed the tape ran out just at the very end of the song and on the next reel the concert continued with no attempt made to repair this section. It was decided that we would like to keep the tracks, but the very last phrase “Going Going Gone” was missing. The multi track tapes are either hidden at the BBC somewhere or more likely no longer exist so I used a very small clip from another live performance of the song and with a little bit of digital trickery, EQ and tempo matching I was able to replace the missing few second and with the addition of some applause from elsewhere in the concert as Eric Morecambe would have said ‘you can’t see the join’. 

Lyrics:

Going, going gone
Love is going, going gone
There’s a limited supply
Better bid, better buy
While the sale is going on.

Going, going gone
Love is going, going gone
Price’s every day increase
Better grab every piece
You can lay your hands upon.

Going, going fast
Life is going, going fast
Theres no time to wheel and deal
Touch and taste, see and feel
What you miss could be your last.

Going going gone
Love is going going gone
Going once, going once
love is going going twice
Going twice going twice
This is it for paradise
Going once going twice
Love is going going gone.

Going going gone
Love is going going gone
Going once, going once
love is going going twice
Going twice going twice
This is it for paradise
Going once going twice
Love is going going gone.

Music by John barry
Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner

FROM THE ARCHIVE 539 -1985-

Today 5 random newspaper articles from 1985 plus a maxi single from that year from the UK

Dame Shirley Bassey at the Diamond Jubilee of Qeen Elizabeth -2012-

This year Queen Elizabeth is celebrating her platinum jubilee (70 years). There will be year-long Platinum Jubilee celebrations throughout the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and around the world as communities come together to celebrate The Queen’s historic reign.

Platinum Party at the Palace: The BBC will stage and broadcast a special live concert from Buckingham Palace that will bring together some of the world’s biggest entertainment stars to celebrate the most significant and joyous moments from The Queen’s seven decade reign. The major Platinum Jubilee celebrations will begin on Thursday, June 2, 2022, and will continue over the weekend until June 5 and of course we are all wondering if Dame Shirley Bassey will perform at this special event as she did on the Golden and the Diamond Jubilees.

 Here is Dame Shirley at the Diamond Jubilee! Looking and sounding fabulous. Unfortunately we only got one song: Diamonds Are Forever.

Dame Shirley Bassey meeting the Queen after the Jubilee Concert

And a video of Dame Shirley meeting the Queen after the show