sandie shaw

...we'll take it as read that everyone perusing this is somewhat familiar with sandies sixties joints, the pop/lounge/R&B ditties that constitute a mostly cool but fun listen when the mood takes one in that direction, but what may not be remembered by so many is her 'rock' outing that came about in 1969, an album of covers by artists such as dylan/donovan/stones/beatles and the newly emerging led zeppelin, all produced by sandie herself which must be considered a radical move for the times...
...the original 'essex girl' had broken loose from the mold that had kept her in check during the earlier six years of pop stardom and came out rocking (relatively speaking), ready for the new decade of 'new sounds', moving away from 'puppets and duponts'...the grooves are filled with a mixture of updated NOW SOUNDS courtesy of some funky keyboards and euro-prog saxaphones with some heavy clear drums underpining the whole shebang, the whole record is one finger popping experience from beginning to end...
...all the tunes come off top notch and for the time it certainly sounded different to her usual fare and it was surely different from the heavy slabs of sound that was happening, the blues rock bashers that were taking up space in the varying airwaves around the globe...speaking of heavy blues bashers, attention should be paid to sandies take on zeps 'your time is gonna come' and the stones 'sympathy...' for some existential bliss, and her version of the FAB4s 'love me do' is way HEP, plus the rest is just so good it's unproductive to single out tracks, lets just dig it for what it is, nothing less than brilliant...
...anyone with any reservations about hits that are re-recorded by the original stars for whatever purpose, be it for a cheap knock off exploitational supermarket release or some other way of grabbing the customers cash need to be aware that some of the hits featured on this sandie 'best of' from about the mid nineties contains some reworkings of a few 60s numbers though this time under sandies control and they sound fairly similar in content if not in spirit...after a few spins it all falls into place as the tunes both old and 'modern' (80s joints) jiggle and juggle in no particular chronological order, but it must be said that some of the eighties sounds and production do come off more cornball than ever these days but sandies incredible 'girl next door' vocals get through the songs with plenty of aplomb...looking back from this vantage point we see that sandie is the proto type for a good few singers of todays age, the carefree innocent / aware yin yang style and range make way for future warblings from many a songbird, both mainstream and indie (same thing) (a certain chrissie hinds from ohio via the NME comes immdiately to mind)...lulu and dusty were top belters in their day of R&B/soul rock but when it came to everydayness, a realness in the inflection of sound, a connection of touch its sandie who comes away with the honors that mark her out as a supreme being of POPness...
...recommended to all who need a fix from distant shaws...

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