Nobody Does It Like Me

Chronique

Nobody Does It Like Me is an appropriate album title for the queen diva, Shirley Bassey, this 1974 release being another in-the-pocket delight. Producer Martin Rushent, who would take the Human League to the top of the charts in 1982, is here in an engineering capacity and the sound is somewhat different from her '60s albums and even the double-live disc from the year before. M. Randall's "Leave a Little Room" starts things off, and the feel is more geared toward the '70s adult contemporary audiophile than the cabaret circuit. Sure, it's the same instrumentation and voice her fans adore, but the music is pulled back somewhat; "When You Smile" is ready for radio, the orchestration not in your face. "All That Love Went to Waste" from the motion picture A Touch of Class finds sweeping strings and dynamic horns playing off of Bassey's intuitive phrasings. Bernard Ighner composes and duets with Bassey on "Davey," the approach Melissa Manchester would take a few years later for her tune "Whenever I Call You Friend," which Kenny Loggins hit with. Even the song selection seems positioned to get the artist a piece of that 1970s radio play that Helen Reddy, Anne Murray, and Barry Manilow were so successful conquering. Paul Anka's "I'm Not Anyone" is a seemingly perfect vehicle for just that. But where the Anne Murrays and Helen Reddys weren't known for belting tunes out, the pop music radio did embrace back then was not the operatic style Jane Olivor and others were issuing. Bassey pulls back nicely on "Morning in Your Eyes," but it still has too much elegance for programmers to latch onto. "The Trouble With Hello Is Goodbye" is traditional Bassey, subtle and overpowering all at once. The title track, "Nobody Does It Like Me," is from the Broadway musical Seesaw, and it breaks out of the soft rock of most of the album, delivering a snazzy number that, truly, few can do like Bassey: "I got a big loud mouth/I'm always talking much too free/If you go for tacky manners/Better stay away from me." The lower volume level is noticeable when "I'm Nothing Without You" follows that tour de force, its "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" strings and feel coming back to the mission of this record. And that mission is accomplished with the closing track. Just as Bassey recorded a superb version of Bobby Hebb's "Sunny," she re-interprets Stevie Wonder's song with the same flavor, "You Are the Sunshine of My Life." It oozes with classy adult pop majesty, understated vocals, and bubbling instrumentation. Totally wonderful. This rendition should have been a huge American radio hit and is the frosting on the cake.

© Joe Viglione /TiVo