1961 Shirley Bassey: Reach For The Stars/Climb Ev'ry Mountain

A double A side from Bassey with two songs linked by a common theme of striving upwards for something. Given her own rags to riches story then there's scope here for Bassey to invest large chunks of her own fire but alas, 'Reach For The Stars' is a drab swirl of a recording with a honk of a vocal that never scales the heights it aspires to before fizzling out like a cheap firework with a dud fuse. 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain' is a little more enjoyable thanks to its Rogers and Hammerstein pedigree, but Bassey barks that title like a command rather than an aspiration and it makes me feel more cowed than inspired - had she sung this in the film she'd have stopped those Nazi's dead in their tracks. Both songs have volume in spades but a dearth of subtlety or emotion, making this pretty much disposable.