Sandie you grew up in Dagenham, what sort of a place was that?

It’s full of factories and the biggest factory is Fords. Everything was around Fords and you grew up to work there. So if you didn’t work there you’d get on a train and go up to Liverpool Street and work as an Essex girl. But it was an estate they made to move people out after the war, the people that were bombed out of London. My grandfather put all the electrics down for it. That was rather nice.

You were an only child, do you think that’s a good thing?

I collect only children because there is something different about an only child.

What is that?

One is that they do tend towards narcissism, why wouldn’t you if you’ve got two parents and all their attention, dreams and hopes are based on you. There are the downsides to it - if you don’t deliver you can be a bit of a disappointment and when they get older you’re the only one that’s maybe looking after them. And also you tend to be incredibly responsible, you have no younger siblings in order to be a kid with, so you’re a grown up from the word go really.

What were your mum and dad like?

I was closer to my dad than I was to my mum. They were just ordinary people really. You know that kind of fifties thing, I call it the fifties thing, the kind of people that kept all their paper bags in a drawer, and never threw anything like that away. I have that in me and everybody takes the mickey out of me. When things broke you didn’t throw them away, your dad took them down to the workshop to be welded back together again. So I spent a lot of time down my dad’s workshop watching him weld, I thought it was so sexy.

Were they musical people then?

No, not really, my family had a very much an Eastend/Irish influence, where it’s all like entertain yourself. We had those Irish nights on a Friday night with the bands and stuff.

Any night’s Irish night though, isn’t it?

We used to go down the Irish social clubs on Friday nights and I was always taken with them when I was very, very tiny. I used to go to sleep on the coats in the cloakroom. And earlier on in the evening, if I played my cards right, I would get my Aunty Jen and my Uncle Arthur to take me round waltzing with me on their arms. I used to love doing that.

So when did you realise then that you had this talent for singing?

I used to sing quite early on when I was at school. I used to get up and have a ‘laff’. I used to go to dance halls when I was 12,13,14 and if ever there was a chance to go and sing with the band I would. That was the way to get the boys to look at you, you see. So they’d be a crowd of us girls and they’d say “Go on Sand, if you go up and sing then all the boys will look at us and we’ll get a dance.” But the thing is I never got a dance because I’d be up there singing, the girls would say “Oh that’s Sandie, that’s our friend.” So they’d get a dance and I’d be left on my own at the end of the evening. I should have known then that I was doing it wrong, but I didn’t find out for a long time.

Had you any idea then getting up with the band, or was it “Oh I’ll just get up and sing a few songs because I can sing in tune”. Had you any aspiration at all?

I just liked singing. I liked the feel of it. It’s incredibly free-ing, emotionally it’s very satisfying. There’s no other way of actually expressing it, those kind of emotions. It’s a very deep and very powerful thing.

When did you decide that you were going to have a career at this?

When I was about fifteen I decided I’d try. By the time I was sixteen I’d been up to London. I’d won a song contest and part of the winning of it was that I’d been put in a show in London. It was a charity show and there were a load of other people on like The Hollies and Adam Faith. I was the only girl in the show. I was a feminist even then. You had The Beatles and all those people and I thought there should be a girl doing this, and there wasn’t a girl doing it, like someone young, cool and groovy and everything else, so I thought I’d assume that role. I saw a gap in the market! So all the guys were out gagging on the side of the stage, but Adam Faith was the one with the business mind. He dragged me in to the dressing room and introduced me to his manager. I’d just started working for Fords in fact because I thought it would shut my parents up, I took a job because you had to put in to the family. So I took this job and I’d go in and pretend I had a period most of the time to get out of working because I hated it so much.

Was Adam Faith like a catalyst, like a turning point for you?

He introduced me to the woman who became my manager and then they both financed my first record, which seemed like a funny thing to do at the time but it was fantastic for me because they financed it and passed on their ownership to me. It means that I’ve always owned my recordings and I’m the only female artist (from that era) that does; I’m just reaping the benefits now because all of my songs have come together in one huge catalogue and I’m in the throws of remarketing it all and doing a new record contract

All of a sudden then there was no shoes just barefeet.

I’ve always done that since I was a little girl. I’ve always been uncomfortable in shoes basically.
It was never meant to be a focal point it was just something that I did that captured people’s imagination. I can understand why now because it seemed so natural to me, part of what and who I am, my natural place is on the beach, funny that with a name like Sandie Shaw, is on the beach with no shoes on with sand between my toes. That’s the most natural place for me to be, and I love it when the sea just comes and tickles on your toes. That’s my favourite place to be. Whenever I want to escape to somewhere, when I’m stressed, that’s where I go.

You were born Sandra Goodrich

Yes good and rich - which is a big name to live up to.

Where does Sandie Shaw come from then?

It was my managers husband, he said “Sandie Goodrich isn’t a very good name, I don’t see it on posters.” So he said as a joke “Why not Sandie Shaw?” Thinking it was a pun. Eve was a bit thick and didn’t have the imagination to see that he was taking the mickey. She said “Oh yeah, that’s got a ring to it, Sandie Shaw will be fine.” And so I was just dubbed Sandie Shaw. You don’t think forward when you’re that age, you don’t think: “Is this the name that I’m going to have for the rest of my life?”

I’m just thinking about what you said a minute ago – that there was The Beatles, The Stones and that it was male dominated business at that time…

There were pluses to it in that you could easily manipulate your way around if you wanted to. I wasn’t terribly good at it when I was young.

You remember the saying, “If you can remember the sixties…”

“…you weren’t there.”

It’s been romanticised about a lot.

But it is kind of true about any kind of exciting time. And in your adolescence lots of those things are peak memory times aren’t they, everything was incredibly poignant and everything had incredible depth. The heartbreak was heartbreak – your heart did break, that’s what it felt like. That happened all the time not every now and then, but all the time. They were very, very intense times, however I can only remember patches and bits of it, and it’s mainly emotional patches. I was doing so much, had so much information to take in. Nobody went abroad in those days and to suddenly be stuck in a different culture... If I went to Italy with a band I’d go on my own – there I was, a big star on my own – because nobody else could help me, my manager didn’t speak the language and I’d had to learn by going on the TV shows and everything else. So I had to learn to deal with completely different cultures, I had to deal with the mafia, I’d get arrested, had to talk my way out of jail… It’s like a holiday experience now for these people, they go to Greece to get a taste of the other life, but to be not only immersed in it, but have no help and have to deal with it all the time, was just so much information for me to take in.

When you started having the hit records and everything started to take off, and given that you were young then, how did it change your sense of your self?

I think most people in the record industry, the film industry, the ‘celebrity’ thing have a false sense of self, a distorted sense of self, and I’ve never been comfortable with that ever. I have a rather grander view of the self, a much more altruistic view of the self. I’ve always been trying to get back to the true rather than to take on board false projections from other people. I just believe that they’re their business – if you want to project that on to me you enjoy it, that’s your fantasy, it belongs to you, I’m happy that you enjoy it. It has nothing to do with me.

How did your idea of success turn out? Was success everything you hoped it would be?

I had no idea what success was. I was young, 17,18, 19 that’s when I say I don’t think I grew up in Dagenham, I think began my growing up then but didn’t finish my growing up until I was in my 30s.

Because thinking of it now, you know the way when you meet a so-called celebrity or popstar and there’s a whole entourage around them, you say you’re manager couldn’t help you, you had to go off on your own if you were going anywhere…

Well the problem is not only do you have a false sense of self, but everybody around you does.

Will the real artist stand up? Sometimes you don’t know who the real artist is?

Well exactly, and they’re attracted to that vicarious way of experiencing it. There is a whole entourage of people behind and it’s not in their interests to guide that person back to their true self. It’s not in their interest because it’s their pay packet. I’ve always found that really disturbing and difficult to be around.

What point do you think you became tired of it all?

I’ve never become tired of it, not even disillusioned, what I felt is that one has to keep becoming, trying different things and being continually creative. If I’m in a situation which I think is stagnant, I’ll move to another situation where I find I can be more creative. I think what happens with women is you have a child. And as soon as you have a child then the rock ‘n’ roll life style becomes quite difficult to do. I wasn’t really a rock ‘n’ roller anyway, but the fact that you could just get on a plane and go somewhere, you can’t just do it, you have to start thinking of other ways of going about things,when you hit 24,25 and finding other ways of expressing things.

Was that more difficult then for other people than it was for you given that they would have had this fixed image of you?

When I was pregnant on Top of the Pops they’d only film me from the neck up. They would not film what I thought was my beautiful big belly, they wouldn’t do it. And now they have these pregnant celebrity photos on the front page of whatever in the nuddy. Things have changed an awful lot. The normal process of being a woman just wasn’t recognised then. It was stuck at being either a young girl or a mother, there was nothing that brought the two things together. So I didn’t do that, I went in to different things, I started painting, doing kids things, wrote a musical, just experimented a bit, because I could at the time. I’ve never actually become disillusioned with the music business because the music industry is so important, because music is so important for people, it hits the G Spot (God Spot) in peoples temporal lobes. It’s the one thing that just goes straight there and bypasses all the other defences. It’s almost like one of the new churches. One way that you can have a communal experience is by sharing a musical experience with a load of other people. I think that a sense of community is so incredibly important, people can feel so isolated and so alone nowadays, that’s why music is so important. I’ve never become disillusioned with the music industry because music gives us all that.

End of Part One

Sandie takes a break from the interview click to enlarge

Your Question and Answer

Nicola asks (assuming for some strange reason best known to herself that I am “well clever")

Q. Dear Sandie Shaw

I know that you're probably super busy
But can you give me some advice, because I want to be an A + R person, and I wanted to ask you since you're well clever

Thank You


A. Dear Nicola

It is difficult getting into the music business. It is even more difficult for women. Like the Houses of Parliament the working practices and hours are made around men's social groupings and needs. However, it is not impossible. You just have to be BETTER. Most women in the record industry are better than the men! Firstly you have to have a keen knowledge of what has sold in the past, what is selling now and a feel for what will sell in the future. You also have to start from the bottom. Do ANYTHING, I mean ANY JOB to get your foot in the door.NEVER allienate other women. Always show them respect and they will support you. Try a small regional company first. It's easier and you get noticed quicker. Be prepared to work for very little and do long hours to gain experience. Work on getting a CV that shows your devotion and loves for all genres of music.You have to go out a lot and see a lot of bands and give informed opinions but first just make the tea and answer the phone etc. Buy the Music Week directory and find a record, production or radio company near enough to you - dont go for London straight away The streets are paved with unemployed homeless people not gold. Let me know how you get on....


And here to brighten up your month is a photo of Amie modelling for the Mirror magazine. Isn’t she lovely? Well I am her mum!

click to enlarge




This month I've mostly been listening to The Bees, Zero 7 and Madonna's 'Ray of Light' again - has anybody heard her Bond Theme? (Is that ok Simon in Prague?)