Birthday Concert

Performer: Shirley Bassey
Distributor: Allegro Corporation (Dist

Notes: Recorded live at Castle Howard, England on July 19th, 1997 and Althorp Park, England on July 26th, 1997. THE BIRTHDAY CONCERT was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. Contains 25 tracks. Contains 24 track. The brassy '60s belter Shirley Bassey, Britain's delayed answer to Lena Horne, recently celebrated her 60th birthday with a series of outdoor concerts, of which THE BIRTHDAY CONCERT draws from two. "Goldfinger," a smash hit in 1965, isn't included here but she performs her other big, bad James Bond theme "Diamonds Are Forever" with suitable brio. Bassey's speciality is a slightly menacing Euro power ballad, with her primo version of Lieber & Stoller's adapted Italian hit "I (Who Have Nothing)" a choice example. Bassey is also a large enough musical personality to straddle the parallel worlds of Broadway and rock with ease. The Beatles' "Something" and "Hey Jude" actually benefit from her outsize approach and Foreigner's " I Wanna Know What Love Is" was pretty "outsized" to begin with. To bring matters further up to date, a disco-inflected version of Chris Rea's "La Passionne" reveals this all-out entertainer to be a proto-Grace Jones, sharing the same stern, declamatory style, but strangely satisfying in the end. THE DIAMOND COLLECTION is the expanded two-disc British edition of a special concert released in the US as the single-disc THE BIRTHDAY CONCERT. This concert, recorded in London in 1997 to celebrate Welsh cabaret star Shirley Bassey's 60th birthday, is a wonderful retrospective celebration of this underrated singer's career. Bassey's booming voice--she was occasionally known as "Brassy Bassey"--was the key to her choice of material. At her best with sassy tunes like "Nobody Does it Like Me," "Big Spender," and "The Lady Is a Tramp," Bassey is also skilled with torch songs and ballads like "What Now My Love" and "Never Never Never." THE DIAMOND COLLECTION is a lot of fun; it also includes Bassey's signature song, "Goldfinger."

The only singer to perform multiple theme songs of James Bond movies, Welsh vocalist Shirley Bassey provided the brassy purr heard during the eternally sexy opening credits to DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, MOONRAKER, and, most famously, GOLDFINGER. Her diverse career, which began in the mid-1950s, extended into the new millennium and saw her perform and collaborate with a diverse list of artists including Swiss electro combo Yellow, U.K. techno act the Propellerheads, and singer-songwriter Chris Rea. Bassey is one of England's most beloved pop performers and a bona fide diva worldwide.

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