Moon-raking it in: Shirley Bassey signs £500,000 deal

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Moon-raking it in: Shirley Bassey signs £500,000 deal

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Moon-raking it in: Dame Shirley Bassey signs £500,000 deal to record just one album
By Simon Cable
Last updated at 11:46 PM on 30th June 2009

At the age of 72 her heyday was some 40 years ago.

But Dame Shirley Bassey is clearly hoping that history might be about to repeat itself after signing a lucrative new record deal.

The singer has put pen to paper on a deal that will see her earn £500,000 to record just one album.
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The deal is with Geffen Records, owned by music giants Universal, and whose roster includes acts such as Guns and Roses and Snoop Doggy Dogg.

She will record around 12 'contemporary songs' and the as yet untitled album will be released in November.

She has already begun writing for the album which is being produced by David Arnold, the man behind the soundtracks for numerous James Bond films.

The singer is perhaps best known for providing the theme songs to Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker.

Their success has helped Dame Shirley sell 135million records and she remains Britain's most successful female artist of all time.

It will be the first collection of new songs from Dame Shirley for more than a decade and follows her performance at Glastonbury in 2007.

Although many of her biggest hits were notched up in the 1960s and 1970s, she has proven a hit with younger audiences in recent years.

In 1997 she scored a notable hit with dance group Propellerheads on History Repeating.
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In 2005, the American hip-hop artist Kanye West sampled her vocals from Diamonds Are Forever for his hit Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone.

Two years later she covered the American pop singer Pink's hit Get The Party Started.

She went on to perform at Glastonbury in 2007, pulling one of the festival’s biggest audiences with rousing performances of her James Bond theme song Goldfinger and her classic 1970s hit Big Spender.

A music industry insider said: 'Music bosses became very excited after seeing the reaction she got at Glastonbury. The young people there were enjoying her music just as much as the older ones.

'There is a feeling that if she makes more music people will buy it and those in the industry think this is going to be huge.

'They are not put off by her age, she has lost none of her charisma or talent. She is being paid half a million and they feel it's worth every penny.'

Arnold said of the collaboration: 'There is a whole generation out there which has never sat in front of an amazing singer like Dame Shirley Bassey and experienced the power, the performance and the commitment that she has.

'Hopefully this album will introduce that audience to her as well as bringing her many fans along with them.

'There are not that many truly great singers in the world and Dame Shirley Bassey is one of them. She is still here, still relevant and still quite brilliant.'

In June 2008, the singer was forced to pull out of a concert in honour of Nelson Mandela following an emergency stomach operation.

News that she will be releasing a new album follows the success of a host of other older performers in recent years.

Sting and the Police received rave reviews during their comeback tour in 2007, while Eighties band Spandau Ballet have announced plans to begin touring again, 20 years after they split.
This story can be found at Moon-raking it in
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"Those were the days when we still associated Bond with suave, old school actors such as Sean Connery and Roger Moore,"
"Daniel didn't have a hint of suave about him," - Patsy Palmer
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