Customer Reviews

Sandie Shaw Supplement

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After her misfire with standards on "Love Me, Please Love Me" in 1967, Sandie wisely recorded more contemporary material for "The Sandie Shaw Supplement", her next album release in 1968. Her management sensed rightly that songs like "Route 66" and the Stones' "Satisfaction" would display her voice at its feisty best without testing its limits. That, if anything, should have been a strong hint as to the direction she should have taken once her run of bippety boppety hits had come to an end. Thankfully, she followed her instincts in 1969 with the forgotten until recently rehabilitated CD reissue of "Reviewing The Situation", a hugely underated album that may be the earliest precursor to her 80s collaboration as a rock artiste with the Smiths. But that's another story altogether.

Back to "The Sandie Shaw Supplement". Her choice of songs, though varied and interesting, wasn't entirely flawless. Sandie didn't have the sensibility or the stylistic versatility to cover Simon & Garfunkel. "Scarborough Fair" is a pretty flat deadpan affair. The Bee Gees' "Words" is fine until an embarrassing wobble midway through the song. "Remember Me", not one of Chris Andrews' better tunes, sung light and breathy, only accentuates the thinness of Sandie's voice. Elsewhere, Sandie succeeds much better in conjuring her usual brand of pop magic on safe pop numbers by Brill Building composers like "Right To Cry", "Same Things" and "Change Of Heart".

But nobody, nobody could have envisaged that Sandie would actually save her two best performances for the last on the original "Supplement" album. "Aranjuez Mon Amour" is simply exquisite, quite the most beautiful thing Sandie has ever recorded. Sandie always sounded good in French but here she outdoes herself. "What Now My Love", on the other hand, is the kind of song one normally associates with big brassy cabaret/night club singers like Shirley Bassey, not Sandie Shaw, so it's a double treat that we should get a no-holds-barred, bravura performance with great phrasing and all from Sandie that should prove if nothing else that once in awhile, she is capable of putting out as devastating a big ballad performance as the likes of Bassey et al.

Again, this RPM package comes complete with rare pics and sleevenotes featuring memorabilia that should warm the cockles of any true fan's heart. The best of the 8 singles sides that are included as bonus tracks is "Together", one of Sandie's best post-Puppet singles that should have been a huge hit had it not been pulled after only three weeks in the shops to make way for the rush release of "Those Were The Days" in competition with the Mary Hopkin version. Musical snobbery aside, the much derided "Monsieur Dupont", Sandie's last big hit, is undisputably a great pop song.

"The Sandie Shaw Supplement" may not be strictly essential for anyone other than the hard core fan but it's a late 60s transitional album that is well worth owning, if you can find a copy.

Despite the rush recording job done at the time, this remains a really satisfying example of Shaw's work. No British female singer of the era [Dusty/Lulu/Petula/Cilla/Marianne] showed worse taste in choosing recording material than did Sandie Shaw and her astonishingly inconsistent brilliant/inept producer/songwriter friend Chris Andrews. Dreadful interpretations of horrible songs litter the Sandie Shaw catalog, making the gems shine all the brighter. This album succeeds for its straightforward material and interpretations of songs by Carol King, Mick Jagger and other acclaimed writers of the day, and because of a real kick-@$$ version of [Get Your Kicks On] Route 66. Shaw's version of Mary Hopkin's mega-hit "Those Were The Days" was dumped on Britain's record stores with some bizarre hallucination that it would overtake and conquer the Mary Hopkin version, which had a major head start time-wise and the backing of Beatle Paul McCartney to boot. Sadly, one of Sandie's best recordings, the Harry Nilsson penned "Together" was yanked from the record stores just weeks after its release in favor of "Those Were The Days". "Together" is not included here, but with a wonderful Beatle-esque lush pop arrangement, this terrific work by the late Harry Nilsson, is worth the search to find it.