Latest news with #ShirleyBassey
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The incredible inspiration behind Queen Elizabeth's dazzling Diamond Jubilee concert outfit revealed by her former dresser
With half a million people packed into The Mall and millions more watching from home, Buckingham Palace became the dazzling backdrop to a historic concert celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. As pop legends took the stage to mark her remarkable 60-year reign, the palace was illuminated with stunning projections. The concert, which honoured each decade of the Queen's reign through music, featured a star-studded lineup, including Sir Cliff Richard, Elton John, Shirley Bassey and Kylie Minogue. Arriving partway through the event to cheers from the crowd, Elizabeth made a striking appearance in a gold lamé cocktail dress, designed by her long-time senior dresser, Angela Kelly. The look was inspired by the gilded figure of Victory that sits atop the Queen Victoria Memorial just outside Buckingham Palace. As Kelly explains in her book Dressing the Queen: 'The fact that the Queen was appearing on stage at a concert suggested a theatrical mood. 'For those of us working in Buckingham Palace the Queen Victoria Memorial is a familiar friend and it was the golden figure on top of the monument that gave me the idea for the colour of the Queen's dress.' The iconic monument was reimagined as a circular stage, setting the scene for a night of music that spanned Elizabeth's six-decade reign. Her dress - a period piece in itself - was crafted from fabric originally purchased overseas in 1961. It was richly trimmed with antique gold lace and embellished with Swarovski crystals to catch the light under the stage spotlights. In place of traditional jewellery, which was deemed too formal for the concert setting, an elaborate embroidered appliqué provided decorative flourish. Originally designed to drape down the left side of the gown, it was later moved to the right - at Elizabeth's request. Kelly recounts: 'At an earlier stage we had put it on the opposite shoulder; it was the Queen's decision to change it around, and absolutely right that we did.' The evening culminated in a dramatic moment when Her Late Majesty lit the final beacon on The Mall by plunging the Diamond Jubilee crystal into a ceremonial tube - triggering a breathtaking fireworks display that lit up the London skyline While Prince Philip was hospitalised with a bladder infection, other members of the Royal Family - including Prince William, Catherine and Prince Harry - joined in the lively performances, singing along and waving Union flags in rhythm with the music. Queen Elizabeth appeared visibly moved as Prince Charles delivered a heartfelt and humorous speech honouring his mother, joking that if the crowd cheered loudly enough, the Duke of Edinburgh might be able to hear it from his hospital bed. The evening culminated in a dramatic moment when Her Late Majesty lit the final beacon on The Mall by plunging the Diamond Jubilee crystal into a ceremonial tube - triggering a breathtaking fireworks display that lit up the London skyline. The next day, the Royal Family attended a thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral, where the Queen addressed her family and the nation through a speech she had recorded in advance from her private chambers.
Telegraph
18-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Elton John calls Labour ‘absolute losers' over AI
Sir Elton John has called the Government 'absolute losers' over its plans to regulate AI. The singer, 78, described one Cabinet minister as a 'bit of a moron' for not forcing tech companies to disclose which content they are using to train artificial intelligence (AI) models. Hundreds of news and creative organisations, including The Telegraph, backed a campaign to make the AI development process more transparent. Sir Elton said the companies were 'committing theft, thievery, on a high scale'. Speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, he said he felt 'incredibly betrayed' by the Government and alluded to taking legal action. This week, ministers rejected an amendment to the Government's Data Bill, which was proposed by Baroness Kidron, to force companies to notify copyright holders if their work is used to train generative AI models. Creatives such as Robbie Williams and Dame Shirley Bassey have argued that without the 'transparency' clause, their content would effectively be stolen. Sir Elton warned that the Government is on course to 'rob young people of their legacy and their income', adding that Sir Keir Starmer and his Cabinet were 'just being absolute losers... about it'. He said the Prime Minister needed to 'wise up' and singled out Peter Kyle, the Tech Secretary, as 'a bit of a moron'. 'We'll fight it all the way,' he said, indicating that he and other artists would take legal action. Sir Elton continued: 'The House of Lords did a vote and it was more than two to one in our favour. 'The Government just looked at it as if to say, 'Hmm, well the old me can afford it'.' Mr Kyle had previously supported rules that would have required copyright holders to 'opt out' if they did not want their content to be used by AI. But the Government has softened its stance and said it would produce a policy proposal on how to manage AI within a year of the Data Bill being signed into law. Its opponents have said this means AI companies will be given carte blanch to use copyrighted content in the meantime without the owners knowing. Some tech companies have previously been found to have used pirated content from the internet to train AI services, which creatives believe will reduce the demand for human-generated music, books and art. Government softens stance Last week, Baroness Kidron's amendment passed in the House of Lords with a majority of 147 peers, marking a significant defeat for the Government. However, ministers stripped out the amendment when the bill returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday after arguing that it would place a financial burden on the Treasury. The Commons holds the exclusive right to allocate public funds in UK law. A Government spokesman said ministers want the creative industries and AI companies to 'flourish, which is why we're consulting on a package of measures that we hope will work for both sectors'. They added that it was 'equally important that we put in the groundwork now as we consider the next steps'. The spokesman continued: 'That is why we have committed to publishing a report and economic impact assessment – exploring the broad range of issues and options on all sides of the debate.'
Telegraph
12-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Tech firms must tell newspapers when they use material to train AI, under Lords plan
Tech companies will be required to tell musicians, artists and newspapers when they use their material to train AI models under an amendment backed by the House of Lords. The Government suffered a defeat on Monday from peers who argued that its Data Bill did not do enough to protect creatives from 'theft' by AI firms. The amendment, which will now return to MPs for consideration, would force tech companies to strike licensing deals with content creators to use their work or face legal action. The debate came after more than 400 artists and industry groups, including Sir Elton John, Robbie Williams and Shirley Bassey, signed a letter urging Sir Keir Starmer to do more to protect the arts. Lord Black, who is the deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group, said the 'centuries-old right' to copyright protection was in danger because the Government is 'legalising theft' and allowing AI to 'plunder someone else's work and profit from it'. During the House of Lords debate, he argued that AI posed an 'existential threat' to a free press, by allowing companies to steal news companies' content to train their models. He said: 'AI has the capacity utterly to destroy independent news organisations because it feasts off millions of articles written by journalists without any attribution or payment, destroying the business model that makes the free press possible. 'Without action this day, news will die in the cold darkness of cyberspace where no legal framework exists – the advertising which supports it taken by the platforms, its content stolen by AI. There will be only a husk left.' News organisations are especially at risk of copyright violations by tech companies, many of which are looking to develop their own AI news services. Several of the UK's largest news companies, including The Telegraph, signed the letter to Sir Keir urging him to introduce a requirement for tech companies to inform the creators of content they have used. 'Threat to democracy' Lord Black added: 'The term 'existential threat' is bandied around too much. But this is not crying wolf. 'Unless we introduce transparency, control over content and fair remuneration within a dynamic licensing market, the threat to free media is genuinely existential. As a consequence the threat to democracy itself is also genuinely existential.' The amendment, by Baroness Kidron, would require AI companies to publish details of copyrighted material they use to train models, and make it accessible to content owners upon request. Ministers have effectively abandoned earlier plans that would have given AI companies the power to train their models on copyrighted content unless the owner 'opted out'. Peter Kyle, the Science Secretary, is now considering a new licence-based model. The latest version of the Data Bill requires ministers to draw up a policy on AI and copyright within a year. However, the signatories of the letter argue that the process will take too long, and they will be forced to 'give our work away at the behest of a handful of powerful overseas tech companies' if ministers do not act sooner. The open letter by the artists published on Saturday urged the Government to 'put transparency at the heart of the copyright regime'. It was also signed by Tom Jones, Eric Clapton, Dua Lipa, Lord Lloyd Webber and members of Coldplay. The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology has said it will consult on a 'package of measures that we hope will work for both sectors' and that 'no changes will be considered unless we are completely satisfied they work for creators'. But Baroness Kidron said that transparency was required so the Government could enforce existing copyright legislation, telling peers: 'We do not need to change copyright law. 'We need transparency so that we can enforce copyright law, because what you cannot see, you cannot enforce.' She added: 'If this Bill does not protect copyright now, by the time they work out their policy there will be little to save.' Baroness Jones, a Labour Lords minister, said the Government would not support the transparency requirement and that it would not be a 'silver bullet' to prevent copyright violations against creatives. During Monday's debate, peers also backed an amendment put forward by the Conservatives, which would require public bodies to record sex data rather than gender data. The party argued that 'confusion' among police officers, nurses and prison officers had often led to them recording gender data rather than sex data. The amendment was backed by gender critical feminist campaigners, who said the current rules do not allow patients to know the sex of their doctor, only their gender. It is likely to be defeated by Labour MPs when it returns to the Commons in the coming weeks.
The Guardian
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
She's got the Midas touch: Shirley Bassey songs – ranked!
Shirley Bassey apparently hated this Bond theme, protesting that the lyrics were nonsensical. She never performed it live. It's certainly not up to previous standards, but the disco version that accompanies the film's end credits is worth hearing – better than her attempt to rejig This Is My Life for the 70s dancefloor. Classic early Shirley in that it's both sexy and powerful, a combination that the writer Bob Stanley once brilliantly suggested evoked 'the hardest girl in the school taking a shine to you and repeatedly slamming you against her locker door'. That's exactly what the chorus of You, You Romeo sounds like. Another should-have-been-a-hit culled from Bassey's stock of latterday covers: Slave to the Rhythm's commanding tone suits her voice perfectly. She first recorded it in the mid-90s, but the 2007 version is the one, its production far less indebted to Trevor Horn's original, its breakbeat pilfered from Primal Scream's Loaded. Anyone who felt Bassey was underserved working with British bandleaders and orchestras had their prayers answered by her sixth album, Let's Face the Music, recorded with New Jersey arranger Nelson Riddle and his orchestra while they were touring the UK. As Long As He Needs Me was the big hit, but this is the killer cut: luscious and pillow-soft. It was bested in the UK singles chart by Andy Williams' original soundtrack recording, but Bassey's take on the theme from the film Love Story may be the definitive version. She is certainly more intense in her approach to the song than Williams was, cutting against the super-slick easy listening arrangement. It was inevitable that the 90s easy listening revival would burnish Bassey's career: it resulted in her biggest hit single in decades, a collaboration with big beat duo Propellerheads. Big beat wasn't a subgenre noted for subtlety, but History Repeating is impressively respectful in its updating of Bassey's sound. It's a strong song that fits her perfectly. Bassey's debut single was a succès de scandale, banned by the BBC. Its hymning of 'straight and simple sex' was remarkably frank for the mid-50s, and amplified by the 19-year-old singer's innocent delivery. She later claimed, not entirely convincingly, that she simply hadn't understood the lyrics. Of all Bassey's recent(ish) attempts to tap into modern pop culture, her 2009 album The Performance is the best. Written by James Dean Bradfield and Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers, The Girl from Tiger Bay is a particularly majestic song, worth it just to hear her confidently essay a lyric about situationism as if that were the most normal thing in the world. The album Something, big on rock covers, was a concerted effort to make Bassey more contemporary. Rediscovered during the 90s easy listening revival, her version of Blood Sweat and Tears' 1969 hit is great: funky and commanding enough to make you wish she'd tried this approach more often. One of Bassey's weirder hits: a version of the Carpenters' song clearly influenced by the string-bedecked reggae singles that populated the British charts in the early 70s. Whether Shirl was a quiet admirer of the skinheads' soundtrack of choice remains unknown, but she sails through it with aplomb. Bassey apparently wasn't keen on Nobody Does It Like Me, an album she recorded in LA. But this is a wonderful, overlooked track, a kind of MOR/soft soul crossover that sets her voice against Motown stalwart James Jamerson's incredible bass playing and a sumptuous arrangement by Barry White collaborator Gene Page. A collaboration with Swiss electronic duo Yello, co-written by the Associates' Billy MacKenzie, The Rhythm Divine appeared at a commercial low point in Bassey's recording career. It's a wonderful song that sets her voice amid moody electronics to glamorous effect – a reminder of what she could do, given the right partners. Her cover of the George Harrison-penned Something was a hit, but the best example of Bassey tackling contemporary rock was her CinemaScope rendition of the Doors' breakthrough single. Rediscovered by DJs in the 90s, it's just fantastic, drenched in strings that aid her transformation of the song from slow burn into high drama. Bassey had a line in repurposing Italian-language ballads for an anglophone audience, as on the show-stopping This Is My Life. Never, Never, Never, meanwhile, began life as Grande, Grande, Grande. You can see why it pricked her interest: the melody is beautiful, the key changes dramatic, and she sings the hell out of it. The great Shirley Bassey deep cut. Goodness knows how she came across Jezahel – it was a single by an Italian prog band called Delirium – but her version is incredible, her voice soaring over a subtly funky backing, punctuated by thrilling blasts of brass. It was sampled on Public Enemy's Harder Than You Think. Restrained isn't the first adjective that springs to mind when considering Bassey's voice – one critic approvingly compared her to a flamethrower – but her version of Till, a ballad originally recorded by Percy Faith, is all about restraint. There's an affecting tenderness to her delivery, and the results are beautiful. More so than any of her Bond themes, This Is My Life is the archetypical Bassey belter: lavishly orchestrated musical melodrama, with a lyric so filled with defiance – 'and I don't give a damn for lost emotions!' – it requires a voice that communicates believable passion without slipping into histrionics. It's hard to imagine anyone singing it better. In the musical Sweet Charity, Big Spender is slow, almost creepy, sung by blank-eyed 'dance hostesses'. Bassey sped it up, making its come-ons more straightforward and forthright. There's ice in her voice – this is still a transactional proposition – but when she offers you a 'good time', you know you're going to get one. Co-lyricist Anthony Newley was supposed to sing Goldfinger, but declined because the song was 'weird'. Enter Bassey, whose performance was so full-throttle she was forced to remove her bra midway through the recording session. Her vocal has power, conviction and a faint but detectable sense of camp: no wonder it became her signature song. By 1971, the shine was starting to tarnish on the Bond franchise, and employing Bassey for the theme song was a deliberate attempt to hark back to its heyday – but Diamonds Are Forever caught John Barry and Don Black at the peak of their powers. Barry's melody is stunning, with an arrangement that is atmospheric to the point of being almost eerie, and Black's lyrics are a fabulously cynical melding of eroticism and materialism. Always good with songs that suggested wealth had more value than love, Bassey was the perfect fit: she sounds utterly authoritative, as if bitter experience has led her to mean every word. A new compilation, Dame Shirley Bassey: The Singer (Classic and Undiscovered Gems from the EMI/UA Years 1962-79), is released 18 April on Strawberry
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Review: 'Becoming Led Zeppelin' brings riffage and volume but little in the way of fresh insight
There's pummeling hard rock, yes, and then there's the nuclear-grade explosion of Shirley Bassey performing the theme to 'Goldfinger' — a whole separate beast. In one of pop music's oddest confluences, future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones sat in on that 1964 recording session, years before the band came together. The two musicians remember Bassey's command with smiles on their faces in the new documentary 'Becoming Led Zeppelin,' still blown away. It's a charming moment in a profile that could have used more of them. In retrospect, it makes sense that backing Bassey would prove formative: So much of Led Zeppelin was about power, poise and drama (or melodrama, if you think of the first album's overwrought 'Babe I'm Going to Leave You'). And putting those elements together into a controlled, disciplined package is what the group would do better than any other before it — and most others since. Unfortunately, that same level of control has resulted in a timid, far-from-revelatory film, authorized by the three surviving Zeppelin vets and graced by their presence in new interviews that give off the faint scent of impatience: Can we get on with it? Drummer John Bonham, who died in 1980, is represented by recently unearthed audio, also stubbornly uninsightful. Read more: The 27 best movie theaters in Los Angeles Why are these guys so boring? It's a mystery that won't be probed by director Bernard MacMahon and co-writer Allison McGourty, who tick off the usual gigs and recording anecdotes on the rise to fame with a then-this-happened dutifulness. (Performance footage is fun but "Becoming Led Zeppelin" may in fact have more fudged overdubs than "The Song Remains the Same.") Meanwhile, if ever a project called out for some historical context and a few talking heads to speak to Led Zeppelin's revolutionary hugeness — something that could be lost on today's audiences — it's this one. But no other voices have been allowed, a mistake. Instead, an intriguing portrait emerges of Page as shrewd Svengali, flying to New York City in 1968 with a completed, self-financed album under his arm to negotiate with Atlantic Records potentate Ahmet Ertegun personally, along with muscle Peter Grant. No singles, the riff-wrangler insisted. Take it or leave it. Oh, for a feature-length documentary on just this business trip alone: "Selling Led Zeppelin." Only a hardened viewer with no sense of fun (or ears) will find this music a drag. Almost every track of the band's first two full-lengths is a miracle and you can hear the rules of metal being forged in songs like 'Communication Breakdown' and 'Whole Lotta Love.' (Seeing the film in deafening Imax is certainly the way to go.) But as any superfan will tell you, 'Becoming Led Zeppelin' ends when things are just about to get interesting: a pivot to acoustic folk, a plunge into drug abuse and bad decisions — and even more terrific music. None of that danger comes through here. Sign up for Indie Focus, a weekly newsletter about movies and what's going on in the wild world of cinema. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
