Early life and career Sandra Ann Goodrich was born and brought up in
Dagenham, then in
Essex, England. She attended Robert Clack Technical School in Becontree Heath, Dagenham. On leaving school, she worked at the nearby
Ford Dagenham factory and did some part-time modelling before coming second as a singer in a local talent contest. As a prize, she appeared at a charity concert in London, where her potential was spotted by singer
Adam Faith. He introduced her to his manager,
Eve Taylor, who won her a contract with
Pye Records in 1964 and gave her the stage name of "Sandie Shaw". Taylor teamed Shaw with songwriter
Chris Andrews, who wrote her first single, "As Long as You're Happy Baby", which failed to make the charts. Shaw's version rose to No. 1 in the
UK Singles Chart in the autumn of 1964, and also charted in the United States at No. 52 on the
Billboard Hot 100 early the following year. It was followed by further hits in the UK including "I'll Stop at Nothing", "
Long Live Love", her second UK No. 1 in 1965, and "
Message Understood". She was often described as "the barefoot pop princess of the 1960s". She also recorded most of her hit singles in Italian, French, German and Spanish, boosting her popularity in Europe. Shaw also released several original albums in the 1960s:
Sandie (1965);
Me (1965);
Puppet on a String (1967);
Love Me, Please Love Me (1967);
The Sandie Shaw Supplement (1968) and
Reviewing the Situation (1969). These albums generally consisted of Andrews-penned songs mixed with
cover versions of songs made popular by other musicians. in 1967. By 1967 Shaw's record sales were declining and her manager decided she should move more towards cabaret. She was invited by the BBC to represent the UK in that year's
Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. She had reservations as she felt it would destroy her credibility, but performed five songs on
The Rolf Harris Show, with the public voting that the one that should represent the country was the
Bill Martin/
Phil Coulter composition "
Puppet on a String". Although she disliked the song and thought it was unrepresentative of her material, the song won the contest by a near-record margin of votes, and made Shaw the first person to win the contest for the UK. Globally, the single achieved sales in excess of 4 million, making it the biggest selling winning Eurovision track to date. Some estimates suggest this makes the track the biggest selling single by a British female artist of all time. Her Eurovision success almost did not happen; the BBC wanted to drop her because she had been the "other woman" in a divorce case. Fashion had become another of Shaw's trademarks, and in 1968 she began the Sandie Shaw fashion label, selling her own brand of clothing and shoes and jewellery. In the same year she hosted her own TV show,
The Sandie Shaw Supplement, and issued an LP of the same title. Shaw was to have made her film debut in ''
Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter'', but she walked out of the production before filming began. Her last UK Top 10 hit (her eighth in total) came in the form of 1969's "
Monsieur Dupont," originally sung by German artist
Manuela with German lyrics. By her own choice, Shaw left the music business and took work in a central London restaurant as a waitress, but in 1977, she released two singles on the
CBS label and the following year began a lifelong commitment to
Sōka Gakkai Buddhism. Her second husband,
Nik Powell, introduced her to
BEF. She recorded a version of "
Anyone Who Had a Heart" for their
Music of Quality And Distinction album on the
Virgin label, which brought her back into the public eye.
Chrissie Hynde of
the Pretenders invited Shaw to perform a
duet rendition of "Girl Don't Come" at a Pretenders performance, and the two women began a long-term friendship. The following year Shaw wrote and recorded an album,
Choose Life, to publicise the World Peace Exposition in London in March 1983. Later in the year, a new phase in her career began after she received a letter from "two incurable Sandie Shaw fans" – singer
Morrissey and lead guitarist
Johnny Marr of the Smiths – telling her that "The Sandie Shaw legend cannot be over yet – there is more to be done." Shaw's husband was a friend of
Geoff Travis of
Rough Trade Records, the label to which the Smiths were signed, and she agreed to record some of their songs. In April 1984, her version of "
Hand in Glove" (
the Smiths' first single) was released and peaked just inside the UK Top 30. In 1998 she was invited to join the
Royal Society of Musicians as an Honorary Professor of Music. Shaw also embarked on a successful legal battle to establish ownership of her entire recording catalogue and began working with contemporary acts and producers, reworking much of her 1960s and 1980s material. In 2003, Shaw licensed her recording catalogue worldwide to
EMI, continued to develop her Arts Clinic and began executive coaching and mentoring. Meanwhile, EMI released compilations of her French and Italian recordings, and the following year released similar compilations in Spanish and German. Newly remastered versions of
Reviewing the Situation and
Hello Angel also were issued with bonus tracks, and toward the end of the year a 4-CD
box set entitled
Nothing Comes Easy was released. Also in 2003, actress
Ashley Williams portrayed Shaw on an episode of the American television series
American Dreams, performing "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" on
American Bandstand. During this decade, she reneged on previous declarations of hatred for the Eurovision Song Contest and announced that she was proud of her Eurovision past on the BBC show
Making Your Mind Up. She also briefly sat in for
Brian Matthew on his long-running
BBC Radio 2 Saturday morning show
Sounds of the 60s in December 2006. On 26 February 2007, in honour of her 60th birthday, Shaw released a new version of "Puppet on a String" on her website. The re-tooled version, called "Puppet's Got a Brand New String," had a complete overhaul in sound and vocals under the supervision of her friend
Howard Jones and mixer Andy Gray. The
schlager style of the song was replaced with a calmer melody. In April 2010, Shaw appeared on the UK
ITV television programme
Loose Women and stated that she was returning to recording and would be singing the
theme song to the British film,
Made in Dagenham. She also took the opportunity to criticise the Eurovision Song Contest, saying that it was bad when she did it, but had now got even worse. In August 2010, she appeared at Vintage, a festival on the
Goodwood estate in
West Sussex, as a special guest of
Wayne Hemingway (
Red or Dead) who organised the event. As well as hosting her own main stage set, with numerous female guest singers, she also performed cameos on other stages, including singing "
Downtown" with composer
Tony Hatch and an orchestra in the cabaret tent. On Boxing Day 2010, she appeared on
BBC Radio 4's
Desert Island Discs. Her choices included "
Remember (Walking in the Sand)" by
the Shangri-Las, "
Barefootin'" by
Georgie Fame and "
Here Comes the Sun by
the Beatles. She was
Jools Holland's special guest on his 2011 Tour. On New Year's Eve in 2011 Shaw performed on
BBC Two's
Hootenanny backed by
Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. In August 2012 she was a guest, alongside singers
Petula Clark,
Helen Shapiro and
Jackie Trent, and producer and manager
Vicki Wickham, on the BBC Radio 4 programme
The Reunion. Shaw was appointed
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the
2017 Birthday Honours for services to music. ==Personal life==