Sandie Shaw MBE (born Sandra Ann Goodrich; 26 February 1947) is a retired English pop singer. One of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s, she had three UK number one singles with “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me” (1964), “Long Live Love” (1965) and “Puppet on a String” (1967). With the latter, she became the first British entry to win the Eurovision Song Contest. She returned to the UK Top 40, for the first time in 15 years, with her 1984 cover of the Smiths song “Hand in Glove”. Shaw retired from the music industry in 2013.

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. However, for her second single Taylor gave her the Bacharach and David song “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me”, which had been a No. 49 US pop hit for singer Lou Johnson.  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.

“I’d Be Far Better Off Without You” was issued as the follow-up, but DJs preferred its B-side, “Girl Don’t Come”, also written by Andrews, and the sides were switched. “Girl Don’t Come” reached No. 3 in the UK and became her biggest US hit, reaching No. 42. 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”. The singles were produced by Taylor, Andrews and Shaw herself (though she was never credited), with help from Pye Records arranger Ken Woodman. Another potential follow-up, Les Reed and Gordon Mills’s “It’s Not Unusual,” was originally written for Shaw but never recorded after the singer on the demo, a then-unknown Tom Jones, impressed Shaw so much with his powerful interpretation of the song that she encouraged Jones to release the song himself; it became Jones’s breakout hit.

Shaw was a regular on popular British TV programmes of the time such as Top of the Pops, Ready Steady Go! and Thank Your Lucky Stars. She was seen as epitomising the “swinging Sixties”, and her trademark of performing barefoot endeared her to the public at large. 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.

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. It gave her a third UK No. 1 single, a record for a female at the time. “Puppet on a String” also became an international hit (though not in the US) and the largest-selling single of the year in Germany, qualifying for a gold disc for one million plus sales in the UK and Europe. 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.