in France released as
Love Story
United Artists France: UAG 29149
On the 1999 EMI re-release on CD there are two additional bonus tracks:
This album has been re-released on CD 1999 completely digitally remastered from EMI.
Review from the "Billboard" magazine for week ending July 24th, 1971:
Sleevenote (CD)
by Chris White
(This is the sleevenote of the 1999 EMI digitally remastered re-release
of the album on CD.)
SHIRLEY BASSEY
If Shirley Bassey's 1970 landmark album Something had marked a new
adventurous turning point in her recording career thus far, then her 1971
follow-up album Something Else continued the musical tradition.
Shirley had already been a major british singing star since the late Fifties, and the Sixties had seen her become an international artist thanks to such hits as the million-selling Goldfinger in 1964. The Seventies however were to see her develop into a fully fledged international superstar, with best selling records, and headlining television, concert and cabaret, around the world.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is now possible to see the Something and Something Else albums were responsible for paving the way to this worldwide success.
Something Else was released in May 1971 and, like it's predecessor Something, immediately leapt into the UK album chart, climbing to number 7 and spending over two months in the Top 50. Unlike the Something album, Something Else had not had the benefit of a Top 10 hit single to promote it. However Shirley's passionate reading of (Where Do I Begin) Love Story had reached the Top 40 and spent over two months in the British charts (albeit overtaken by Andy Williams' Top 10 version).
Nonetheless, Something Else earned Shirley Bassey gold discs around the world and is still considered to be one of the finest albums of her recording career. It once again teamed her with the formidable musical team of prducer Noel Rogers and arranger/director Johnny Harris, and featured 12 scintillating contemporary recordings which ideally showcased Shirley's unique singing style.
Apart from the film theme (Where Do I Begin) Love Story, Something Else also included two other movie songs, Pieces Of Dreams, composed by Michel Legrand, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman (who earlier had been responsible for the classic Windmills Of Your Mind), and the electrifying Till Love Touches Your Life.
Shirley also revived two very-underrated songs from the mid-Sixties. American fold singer's Buffy Sainte-Marie's Until It's Time For You To Go had originally been a minor hit for The Four Pennies in 1965 while under-stated ballad Excuse Me had been released as a single by Kiki Dee around the same time, although failing to make the charts. Indeed, the latter song was reputed to be Shirley's favourite song on the album.
More contemporary ballads like It's Impossible (which had been a major hit for Perry Como) and Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water were also included on Something Else. Shirley also brought her unique vocal touch to Breakfast In Bed (originally introduced by Dusty Springfield on the Dusty In Memphis album) and the bump-and-grind-styled I'd Like To Hate Myself In The Morning (originally written by John Meyer for Judy Garland).
Completing the album were Easy Thing To Do, What's Done Is Done and I'm Not There, all performed in great style and graced by Johnny Harris' usual imaginative musical arrangements.
This is Something Else's first-time release on compact disc, and is a long overdue re-instatement into the EMI catalogue. Bassey fans will also be pleased to note the inclusion of two bonus tracks, recorded during the Something Else sessions but not included on the eventual album.
For The Love Of Him was originally the B-side of (Where Do I Begin) Love Story, while Vehicle, recorded in February 1971, remained unreleased for many years until it's eventual inclusion on the 1994 boxed set, Bassey: The EMI/UA Years. This is its first-time release outside of that set.
Something Else marks Shirley Bassey at her very best and still sounds as great as when we first heard the album back in 1971!