Shirley Bassey

Mark Stein, who writes a piece about a popular song every week on his website, chose this week to write about what he thought was the best Bond song. He chose "Goldfinger" sung by Shirley Bassey. I knew the music was by John Barry but didn't know that the lyrics were by Anthony Newley and Leonard Bricusse. Bricusse and Newley had, of course, collaborated on "Stop the World I want to get Off" which ran in London for a long time.
It's a great number, a good film, probably the best of the Bond films, and it is magnificently belted out by Bassey.
I once tried to get an interview with Shirley Bassey for a newspaper but wasn't successful. The nearest I got to her in the respect of knowing someone who knew someone who knew her was that I was aquainted with a man who came to the same local as I used to go to: Eric - don't know his other name. Eric used to be a singer with Shirley Bassey in a club in Cardiff. She wasn't there long; she soon found fame in London and went on from there to hit it big. Eric stayed put.
I did write a review of a show she did in Cardiff when she was....O, in her forties or early dfifties and I remember mentioning that it was difficult for what were then called "coloured" people from Cardiff Docks area to make it in any art or sport. But there were two others, I remember writing, who did: Billie Boston and Joe Erskine.
I don't thing Boston would at that time have been able to play rugby for Cardiff - there was no colour bar as such but there was just the same. Billie Boston went North to play rugby league and was a tremendous success on the wing. Joe Erskine of course had some famous fights with the top boxers of the day.
Mark Stein says you can't pick a top Bond song that is not composed by John Barry and seemed on another occasion to suggest that you can't have a Bond title song without Shirley Bassey. I know what he means, good as some of the others are.