Music legend Dame Shirley Bassey has been approached by the organisers of Glastonbury to perform at this year's famed music festival.
The surprising news comes hot on the heels of the announcement that the indomitable Welsh singer, who turned 70 last month, is to release her first new recording in a decade. The singer, who has sung three Bond theme tunes, had more than 31 hits in the UK singles chart and is Britain's most successful female chart artist of all time, is set to release The Living Tree in May. The song has already been the subject of great interest, with the track being listened to over 100,000 times on Shirley's website.
And the story of how Shirley came across the song is in itself quite remarkable. When rock band Never The Bride discovered that the hotel where they were staying in Monaco in 2005 was also where Dame Shirley, who lives in the principality, used the gym, the band members took action. Persuading a concierge to drop a copy of their CD - which contains the track The Living Tree - into Shirley's pigeonhole, with a note asking the singer to listen to the disc, the band were stunned when a few weeks later Shirley's management company got in touch and said that Shirley wanted to record a version of the song.
Whether the music legend will belt it out in front of Galstonbury audiences is still up in the air, however. "There has been talk of it, but we are not making any comments as yet," said a spokeswoman, adding "Nothing is ever ruled out." If she does decide to sing at the festival, Shirley would join fellow musical legends Tom Jones and Rod Stewart in making their music known to a younger generation of fans.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
