Search - Shirley Bassey :: Shirley / Let's Face the Music

Brassy Balladeering at its Best

The Quiet Reviewer | San Diego, CA | 07/08/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Like a fair number of people, I only really knew Shirley Bassey from those James Bond title songs like "Goldfinger" she did in the early 1970s. So I was somewhat surprised to see this compilation of two Bassey albums from the early 1960s which featured mostly standards; the deciding factor in my purchase was the "Let's Face the Music" album, which feature arrangements by the great Nelson Riddle. I must also admit I was expecting mostly up-tempo numbers, and was surprised to discover that most of the songs on this CD are ballads.



Still, this is a great CD to listen to. Bassey's brassy voice works well and does a lot to cut the overtly sentimental factor of many ballad albums, as does her slight accent. Bassey doesn't dig very deeply into the lyrics she is singing, but her voice is thrilling enough that it takes a while to notice this--and by then, you've stopped caring a whole lot. Not to say that there aren't some really good interpretations here: "So in Love," "Too Late Now," and "I Get a Kick Out of You" are superb, as is the little-heard "All at Once."



What holds this CD back from the five star rating? For the most part, it is the arrangements. The first twelve numbers feature competent but not exciting work by one Geoff Love: pretty much your standard saxes-and-strings nightclub style charts, with the occasional bizarre touch (chirping crickets on "In the Still of the Night" and a completely unnecessary choir on "I'm in the Mood for Love"). The Nelson Riddle arranged tracks don't feature his best work and sound surprisingly generic at times (one wonders if he toned down his signature sound since he was working with a London studio orchestra rather than the Los Angeles studio musicians he usually recorded with). To top it all off, EMI has left two of the tracks from "Let's Face the Music" off the CD to keep the running time under 80 minutes.



But for those who like a little vocal heft to their ballads, this is a very good and highly enjoyable CD."