Track Listing

1. From This Moment On
2. Kiss Me Honey Honey Kiss Me
3. Crazy Rhythm
4. Birth Of The Blues
5. Wayward Wind
6. As I Love You
7. Born To Sing The Blues
8. Gypsy In My Soul
9. There's Never Been A Night
10. Basin Street Blues
11. If I Had A Needle And Thread
12. Fire Down Below
13. Burn My Candle
14. Blues In The Night
15. Tonight My Heart Is Crying
16. Night And Day
17. Beale Street Blues
18. Love For Sale
19. Hands Across The Sea
20. Banana Boat Song
21. My Funny Valentine
22. If You Don't Love Me
23. How About You

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60904 in Music
• Released on: 2000-08-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .21 pounds
• Running time: 65 minutes

Customer Reviews

Shirley Bassey's early years: 1956-59
I refer you to the Amazon.com description of this item:
23 track budget-priced collection from the formidable voice that swooned audiences with 'Gold Finger' showcasing her diversity. Includes the hits: 'My Funny Valentine', 'Love For Sale', 'Basin Street Blues', 'Hands Across The Sea', 'Banana Boat Song' and more. 1997 release on the Spectrum label.

Indeed, Shirley Bassey might be best known for Bond themes and big ballads, but in her early years on the British Philips label, they had many more ideas than that. I very much doubt this compilation was released in order to 'showcase her diversity'. It's more likely the bigwigs at Mercury Records wanted to put out a cheapo CD of her recordings for that label, which they used to own. As for that list of hits, only Banana Boat Song was! The first two were singles but didn't chart. Basin Street Blues was an album and EP track only. Hands Across the Sea was b-side to As I Love You!

Anyway, after giving it some thought, I think this CD does showcase her diversity, and it does a pretty damn good job of it. There's everything here - standards (Cole Porter's Love For Sale, From This Moment On), blues (!), big ballads which later became her trademark (As I Love You, Hands Across The Sea), novelties (If I Had A Needle And Thread, Banana Boat Song) and pure sleaze (Burn My Candle, Fire Down Below).

The CD contains 23 tracks. Not bad, but it only fills up 60-odd minutes! There's more than enough to fill the CD, especially as this is the only such compilation of Shirley's early work currently available. The CD design is fairly nice I suppose. Sleeve note info is poor. The writer, Brian Gammidge, includes a lot of errors in his brief summing-up of her early years. The Wayward Wind wasn't an album track. Hands Across The Sea didn't chart - that's because it was b-side to her 4-week #1 As I Love You!

Sound quality leaves a LOT to be desired. It really does vary throughout the CD. A few sound great and it's good to have them on CD. Others sound like they were 'transferred from cassette to cd with a muslin sheet tied over the microphone' as another Shirley fan said of another, worse release, the Remember issue of "Never, Never, Never". And some tracks on this CD sound good in places, but there are terrible blips. If You Don't Love Me and Tonight My Heart She Is Crying spring to mind.

There are some brilliant tracks here and if you are a Shirley fan you MUST own this CD! It would be hard to pinpoint my favourites as there are so many. The Birth Of The Blues, As I Love You, Fire Down Below and Hands Across The Sea are probably the ones I'd choose if push came to shove. For these reasons I have given the CD five stars.

However, I am praying the Dame's early work will get the treatment it so richly deserves. There are at least 12 tracks from those years that are currently vinyl-only and need a CD release. Then there are the recordings that have been on CD, but only rare and out-of-print ones. The most glaring omission on this CD from those is "You, You Romeo". This brilliant little number was on the same release as "Fire Down Below" and even charted a place higher. So why isn't it here? Other early, great singles remain hard to find on CD. This CD contains five of the eight tracks from the 10" LP "Born To Sing The Blues". Shame those three are missing. A decent effort, Mercury, which could have been a lot better. Incidentally, Mercury no longer own the masters so we CAN hope another company will treat this work better!

I'd recommend this CD to anyone really - it does prove Shirley is more than a ballad and Bond theme singer and demonstrates the early promise she showed.

TRADITIONAL BASSEY MAGIC
One of Shirleys earliest, these songs are full of the magic which catapulted her into stardom. From the heavy blues melody of "Birth of the Blues" to the catchy almost funny "Needle and Thread". Every song leaves you desperate for another chorus as it carries you breathlessly along in the waves of the dramatic "Basin Street Blues" and the very sensual and daring "Fire Down Below". Every track is unique and different, some melancholic and some uplifting - but all very special and enough to charm even the most fussiest of Shirley's flock of queens.