Shirley Bassey at the BBC

Oh she's very theatrical, really gets into character with every song.
She's growing on me.

Great voice.

I didn`t know that was on, I think she`s great, have done for over 60 years, since I was 14.

I ended up watching most of it.
It had just many many of performances at all different times during her life.
Even the one with Morecambe and Wise.

Oh.. rearrange the above into a rough semblance of a sentence, please!

Is the Morecombe and Wise the one where she loses her shoe? That one was funny. I love her singing Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever as I’m a Bond fan.

Yes, that's the one.
Did she cry during some of her performances, do you know?
She looked as if she was crying when she was singing 'This is my life.." if that's the right title.

I love the ‘thing’ she does with her hands.

She certainly gets very emotional at times - she might well have tears.

I’ve seen various performances on bbc channel 9, bbc IPlayer, and YouTube.

One weird one was from the 70s and I think it may have been her own TV show as she was announcing another female singer, the Eire thing was she appeared to be wearing a seethrough top without any bra. I think the TV quality probably didn’t make it obvious in the 70s whit it was originally on, but it was very obvious on a modern smart TV.

I liked her tv show performances; not sure they showed the bra one, but my eyesight is not that great.

They showed a duet between her and Neil Diamond from her show and it was beautiful.
I felt sure they must have had some romance between them.

Just searched the Shirley Bassey Show on YouTube and she had Charles Aznavour on and was giving him an extra big cuddle.

Perhaps she was just very tactile..
I found her quite mesmerising, although really she's before my time, in terms of the music that I remember from my teens..

I watched the Morecambe and Wise sketch too, and laughed like a drain. Exactly the same as when I first saw it!

But what I thought was interesting, was that she tended towards singing the consonants, whereas I recall seeing a program about improving your singing, where they advocated singing the vowels instead, as it sounds more classy.

I don't know whether this is true, but it is interesting to listen to singers and see/hear the difference.

Oh, I've never looked into anything like that.
Very interesting.
I'm always intrigued how music evokes such strong emotions, and how it varies from person to person.

I find her performances mesmerising too.

I also love watching live TV performances by Dusty Springfield from the 60s and 70s. She gets super emotional too. There is a James Bond link there too as she sang The Look of Love from the 1968 Casino Royale spoof with Peter Sellers.

Karen Carpenter from Carpenters is my favourite though, I could spend all my time watching her.

I find it strange that my tastes have gone from punk rock, down a long a winding road to actually enjoying gentle music.
Karen Carpenters voice is pure magic, so poignant and sweet.

I have always been mesmerised by her and much as I have not wanted to I have been drawn in by her. Never mind her tears, last night I was weeping in response to her emotional performances. Added to that DS who does not share my musical taste, nor I his, was riveted to the performance and actually said, 'Wow she can sing a bit!'

I think she really did have the 'X' factor.
I had goosebumps watching her last night.
I got really tired though and went to bed, so I never got to see 'Hey Big Spender'

I used to listen to orchestral classical music, then switched to post-punk and ‘indie’ music, then to German opera (Wagner), then to Bruchner, now to Carpenters which I suppose used to be described as ‘easy listening’.

I think there is an ultimate truth and purity in Karen Carpenter’s voice (which I know sounds a bit pompous). I think Richard Carpenter deserves a better press than he currently gets, because he chose the songs, and the words themselves are often very moving, so combing moving words with her voice I find sometimes mind-blowing.

They were each clever musicians.
That, supposedly contributed to Karens health problems, because she was unfulfilled as just the singer.
I'm only going by a programme I watched which featured Richard.

I do love Richard Carpenter’s orchestrations and think they showcase Karen’s voice to perfection. In comparison I found her solo album much weaker than any of their joint work.

Her voice was so effortlessly beautiful.
I can't stand all the warbling up and down that women and some men singers do nowadays.
It leaves me cold. It hurts my brain, almost.

In very recent interviews Richard comes across as very weird, but it clear he loved sister and regrets what happened, and wished they had spent more time in the studio rather than gruelling tours. She clearly had lots of emotional problems and was over sensitive to criticism about her appearance from critics, and he had addiction issues. Their mother spears to have been the ‘villain of the piece’ by always favouring Richard overKaren.

Another voice I love is John Denver.
His has a beautiful quality to it.. something really special.

She was the drummer of the group as well as singer originally, and it’s fantastic watching some of her early performances where she is drumming and singing. I think she could sort of hide behind the drums while singing, but when Richard decided it would be better to take her away from the drums and put her centre stage fronting the bands, that’s when she suffered more from self-consciousness and started taking notice about what critics said about her appearance.