Shirlie Holliman

Shirlie Holliman
Shirlie Holliman on the left as Pepsi & Shirlie (2011).
Background information
Born	(1962-04-18) 18 April 1962 (age 55) Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom
Genres	Pop
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	1981–91, 2000,
Labels	Innervision Records Epic Records Columbia Records (US & Canada)
Associated acts	Wham!, Pepsi & Shirlie

Shirlie Holliman (born 18 April 1962), is an English former pop singer, who found fame in the 1980s with Wham! and as part of the duo Pepsi & Shirlie.

Shirlie Holliman was one of five children born and raised on a council estate in Bushey, near Watford. Hertfordshire, Holliman intended to train as a horse riding instructor, but after she developed hay fever at age 18 and with nothing else to do, her then boyfriend Andrew Ridgeley suggested she come and dance while he and his friend George Michael's band played a local gig.

Holliman was never a band member of what became Wham!, but like her friend Dee C. Lee, was paid on a per performance basis as a backing singer, and continued to live with her parents. After Lee left to join The Style Council and later marry its lead singer Paul Weller, she was replaced by "Pepsi" DeMacque, and this duo performed on all the Wham! songs and concerts. As George Michael desired to create music targeted to a more sophisticated audience than Wham!'s primarily teenage fan base, the announcement of Wham!'s break-up was made in the spring of 1986, with a grand finale concert at Wembley Stadium on 28 June 1986, called The Final.

During their Wham! career, Holliman and DeMacque decided to form their own act, named Pepsi & Shirlie. Created immediately after the Wembley concert with an upbeat and more pop genre sound, they had two UK Top Ten hits: "Heartache", which was produced by Phil Fearon and Tambi Fernando, reaching #2 in the UK Singles Chart behind the #1 hit of George Michael and Aretha Franklin's I knew you were waiting, and "Goodbye Stranger", produced by Tambi Fernando and Pete Hammond, which reached #9.