SHEENA EASTON (UK)

Born: 27 April 1959
Birth name: Sheena Shirley Orr

She was born in Bellshill, a town a few miles west of Glasgow in Scotland. She was the youngest of 6 children and her father, a steel mill worker, died when she was just 6. Brought up by her mother, she had initially not considered a music career until she heard Barbra Streisand singing the opening theme to 1973 film ‘The Way We Were’. She began to dream of having the same effect on people that Streisand had had on her. After leaving school she trained as a speech and drama teacher at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music And Drama. While studying she spent her evenings singing in local clubs as part of a band called Something Else. In 1979 she married a guy called Sandi Easton and, despite divorcing 8 months later, she kept her new surname. Around that time, one of her tutors at the Academy recommended that she audition for a show the BBC were planning called ‘The Big Time’. The show aimed to plot the rise of a relatively unknown singer to what they hoped would be pop stardom. Sheena was the one selected for the show, but was told by Marion Massey, who was manager to Dusty Springfield and Lulu at the time, that she would not make it as a star. Massey was proved wrong soon after the show was aired. EMI signed Sheena and she released ‘Modern Girl’, her first single. The song would initially get to 56 in the UK. The follow up single, ‘9 To 5’ made it to number 3 and this prompted a re-release of ‘Modern Girl’ which went to 8 this time around. In 1981, ‘9 to 5’ was released in the US going under the title ‘Morning Train (9 to 5)’ to avoid confusion with the Dolly Parton song ‘9 to 5’ which had been a hit the year before. ‘Morning Train’ would top the US charts for 2 weeks and remains her only US chart topper. At the time, she was only the 3^rd solo British female artist to top the US charts with Petula Clark and Lulu being the previous two. She would go on to see a total of 18 UK Chart hits (best peak of 3 with ‘9 to 5’) and 21 US Hot 100 hits (best peak of 1 with ‘Morning Train (9 to 5)’).

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
28-Nov-1980	9 to 5	11	8
31-Jul-1981	For Your Eyes Only	7	7
08-Mar-1985	Strut	18	10
		Total hits	3
		Total weeks	25

Biggest climber awards	2
Star rater climbs	3
Biggest fallers	0
Weeks with oldest in the charts	0
Longest run in the charts (weeks)	10
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts	0
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)	181
Top 30 points ranking	=474
Top 20 points ranking	=622
Top 30 points	362
Top 20 points	133

‘For Your Eyes Only’ was from the James Bond film of the same name. It was 1 of 5 official Bond Themes to charts (1 of 6 if you include the theme from the unofficial 1967 version of ‘Casino Royale’).