Shirley Bassey
b. 8 January 1937, Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales. Her early jobs included work in a factory's wrapping and packing department, while playing work ing men's clubs at weekends. After touring the UK in revues and Variety, Lancashire comedian Al Read included her in his 1955 Christmas Show at London's Adelphi Theatre, and his revue, SUCH IS LIFE, which ran for a year. Her first hit, in 1957, was the calypso-styled Banana Boat Song, followed by Kiss Me Honey Honey, Kiss Me nearly two years later. With her powerful voice (she was sometimes called ‘Bassey the Belter’), the unique Bassey style and phrasing started to emerge in 1959 with As I Love You which topped the UK chart, and continued through to the mid-70s via such heart rending ballads as Lionel Bart's As Long As He Needs Me (Nancy's big song from OLIVER), You'll Never Know, I'll Get By, Reach For The Stars/’Climb Every Mountain’, What Now My Love, (I) Who Have Nothing, George Harrison's, Something, For All We Know, and an Italian hit with a new lyric by Norman Newell, Never, Never, Never. Her singles sales were such that, even into the '80s, her records had spent more weeks in the UK chart than those of any other female performer. Hit albums included SHIRLEY, SOMETHING, SOMETHING ELSE, NEVER NEVER NEVER, THE SHIRLEY BASSEY SINGLES ALBUM and 25TH ANNIVERSARY ALBUM. In 1962, she was accompanied on LET'S FACE THE MUSIC by top USA arranger/conductor Nelson Riddle. In live performances her rise to the top was swift and by the early '60s she was headlining in New York and Las Vegas. In 1964 Bassey had a big hit in the USA with Goldfinger, one of three songs she sang on the title sequences of James Bond movies. The others were Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker. In 1969, she moved her base to Switzerland but continued to play major concert halls throughout the world. The American Guild Of Variety Artists voted her Best Female Entertainer for 1976, and in the same year she celebrated 20 years as a recording artist with a 22-date British tour. In 1977, she received a Britannia Award for the Best Female Solo Singer In The Last 50 Years. 
In 1981, Bassey withdrew to her Swiss home and announced her semi-retirement, but continued to emerge occasionally throughout the '80s for television specials, concert tours, and a few albums including LOVE SONGS and I AM WHAT I AM. In one of pop's more unlikely collaborations, she was teamed with Yelloin 1987 for the single, The Rhythm Divine. In the '90s, with her provocative body language, ever more lavish gowns, and specialities such as Big Spender, Nobody Does It Like Me, Tonight and What Kind Of Fool Am I, together with more contemporary material, the Tigress Of Tiger Bay has shown herself to be a powerful and exciting performer. Her 1993 UK concert tour attracted favourable reviews, even from some hardened rock critics, and, in the same year, a new cabaret club was opened in Cardiff—named Bassey's