Welcome to the weekly Reminiscings of Youth where I present some of the memorable non-kayo kyoku songs of my childhood, youth and perhaps young adulthood. This week, we're going back into the 007 file which has gotten three entries thus far and today is No.4 which involves the third entry in the franchise, the 1964 "Goldfinger".
First off, let me say that I still have a great love for the first two movies, "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love", but it's been said that with "Goldfinger", the James Bond movie formula was finally realized. The romancing and the coolness/dark humour of Bond were always there but from this movie, we finally got to see the secret gadgets, the testy exchanges between Q and Bond, and a villain that cast his dark shadow throughout the entire movie.
Plus, we got the first sung Bond song in the opening credit sequence, a nifty one with some of the scenes of what we were going to view projected onto a model painted in gold. According to the Wikipedia article for the song, the theme went through some sturm und drang among the production folks but for everyone paying for the experience, Shirley Bassey hit it out of the park and it's been the gold standard (no pun intended) for all of the Bond themes to follow.
Written and composed by John Barry, Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, the song had all of what a 007 movie needed: class, swagger, intrigue and danger. And when I finally got to see the movie on ABC (until Roger Moore's final appearance as 007, "A View to a Kill", I'd never seen a Bond flick on the big screen), I enjoyed hearing the thrilling orchestral reprise of the theme in certain key scenes. The song extended Auric's already hefty presence even further.
Once again according to the Wikipedia article, the theme managed to sell over a million records in the United States, hitting No. 8 on Billboard, and reaching the Top 10 in a number of European nations. It even hit No. 1 in Japan.
Let's go with the 6th annual Japan Record Awards in 1964.
Best New Artist: Harumi Miyako -- Anko Tsubaki wa Koi no Hana （アンコ椿は恋の花）
Best Performance: Yoko Kishi -- Yoake no Uta （夜明けのうた）
Special Award: Haruo Minami -- Tokyo Gorin Ondo （東京五輪音頭）
Mieko Hirota and Hatsumi Shibata are two of the precious few old singers that would have had a chance of doing a respectable cover of Shirley Bassey songs.
ReplyDeleteI know that Hirota did a lot of covers of the jazz standards so perhaps she may have also covered Bassey but I have yet to find anything like that on YouTube. Incredible talent within a teenager.
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