“A Girl in a Million, Just Like a Million”

Abstract

Sandie Shaw’s singing was inconsistent: often breathy, out of tune, and uncertain. Reception of her performances reveals that, to listeners and critics, these qualities made her seem like an ordinary girl navigating the path to adulthood. For Shaw, ordinariness was a selling point, a crucial part of her performing persona. This chapter examines what it meant for Sandie Shaw to sound “ordinary,” and how the sound of ordinariness was part of a performance of whiteness. The chapter opens with discussion of the sound of Shaw’s voice in the context of adolescent vocal change and the conflicting implications of emotional expression. This discussion then informs readings of a series of episodes in Shaw’s career: her early career appearance on the TV program Shindig!, her 1967 Eurovision performances and the controversy regarding her respectability that informed them, her 1968 TV program The Sandie Shaw Supplement, and, finally, her 1969 self-produced cover record Reviewing the Situation.