My apologies for the lateness of this month’s Spotlight. I’m recovering from a cataract operation and although it was a huge success, am having a few problems reading and typing small print.
DIANA ROSS
First off, let’s recall the wonderful news of Diana Ross taking Brighton & Hove Pride by storm. (As an aside, I’m told she also had a cataract operation). I didn’t go because can’t handle huge crowds anymore but I do feel I was there in spirit thanks to all the comments and photos sent to me. It certainly was a spectacular and memorable evening for so many, particularly as she introduced a song that was self-composed for the event. The title was initially thought to be “Joy, Joy, Joy, Freedom” until she confirmed it was actually “BU” (Be You) which I’m guessing Diana hopes will be adopted as a new gay anthem due to its upbeat feel and positive, solid lyrics. The audience went wild as they sang along with her, thanks to the lyrics printed on the stage backdrop.
“I met so many new friends and saw some wonderful familiar faces. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to play in new places.” gushed the lady, while one fan, DT May wrote, “I think something special happened at Brighton & Hove Pride…For almost two hours on stage, Diana gave us everything we’ve loved about her for over sixty years. The soundtrack of our lives…the unforgettable memories. The explosive joy.” I really think that sums up what I’ve been told by so many of you.
Diana had flown in from Belgium, having performed at the Lokerse Festival, and from the Sussex city by the sea, she had no plans to put her feet up. She was set to begin the North American segment of her tour, starting in Rama, Ontario, followed by a series of concerts across the East Coast, before returning to the West Coast. Closing the tour in Reno, Nevada on 2 September, she will then take up a residency at The Wynn in Las Vegas during October. And this lady is eighty-two years young!
MARTHA REEVES
While Diana was tearing up the south of England, Martha Reeves was also attracting a huge amount of attention, not all welcome, I’m sorry to say. Following her recently singing the American national anthem at a Woman’s Professional Baseball League match in Springfield, where she appeared vocally lost: some folks blamed her manager for allowing her to go ahead, while others opined the support singers were tuneless (“I didn’t see them until I started singing,” said Martha). However, whatever the reason, Martha attracted a flood of snide publicity for her poor performance, then before you could say ‘Heatwave’ an unflattering video swept across social media. All I can say is, let’s not forget Martha Reeves is the ‘Queen of Motown’, a lifelong ambassador for the company, and carries with pride the blue and white ‘M’ flag. With the Vandellas, she’s provided the musical background for many thousands of us. So, I’d rather celebrate what she has given us over the years, with music we fell in love with; her ground breaking singles and her utmost pride in singing a Motown anthem in “Dancing In The Street”, so important to us all.
Having known her for several decades, I share her disappointment, yet with her, will rise above it all to welcome her new album “Searching” out this month, despite it not being available on vinyl over here. Part of those celebrations took place in the Ca’ Del Sole restaurant in Toluca, California, where a surprise party was held for her. Scherrie and Freda Payne were among the guests.
Meantime, Martha, now eighty-five years young, continues on her exhausting promotional trail taking in radio, television and print interviews, and meeting fans at album signing events. One of the radio stints was with Smokey Robinson on his Soul Town show on Sirius XM. She said “Smokey’s Lounge is a great way to talk and reminisce about the early days at Hitsville USA in front of a small live audience…Mickey Stevenson also dropped in. It was wonderful.” As I write this, the Eric Kupper remix of her first single “To Know You Is To Love You” has crashed the pop top twenty of the US Music Week chart, being available on all major streaming platforms.
Sadness is part of life and this month we lost two dear souls. The first was the remaining true and authentic Marvelette Ann Bogan, the other a musical pioneer and talent scout Vicki Wickham.
ANN BOGAN
Aged eighty-five, Ann Bogan died on 6 August. She joined The Marvelettes in 1967, replacing Gladys Horton, but her first Motown outing was fronting The Andantes on one of their rare recordings, “(Like A) Nightmare”, penned and produced by Holland, Dozier, Holland, released on VIP in 1964. A stalwart Northern Soul favourite. “Harvey Fuqua was friends with Ann and he brought her from Cleveland to record in Detroit. We needed a lead voice and she was a strong lead singer,” said Andante Marlene Barrow-Tate, when talking about the single. “(Motown) promised to record us on our own, but there was no real effort to put us out there or promote us. The song was recorded, but that was it. We were happy with it and it was a good sound that we had with Ann. It seemed a perfect fit but they wanted us to stay in the background.” (Taken from “Motown:From The Background – The Authorised Biography of The Andantes”)
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 17 March 1941, Ann also recorded a pair of singles that remained unreleased until they eventually drew breath on Motown compilations – “There Are Things” on “Baby I’ve Got It (More Motown Girls)” in 2018, and her original version of “Hold Me Oh My Darling” on “A Cellarful Of Motown! Volume 5”, 2020. Both are wrapped in Northern Soul love.
However, prior to The Andantes, the future Marvelette sang with The Challengers on “Honey, Honey, Honey”, a Tri-Phi single, and with Harvey Fuqua, as Harvey and Ann, on “What Can You Do Now” for his own label. From Harvey, Ann found herself signed as a Marvelette, replacing Gladys Horton in 1968. Her stay there included recording three albums, “Sophisticated Soul”, “In Full Bloom” and “The Return Of The Marvelettes”, where the cover featured Wanda and two deliberately disguised ladies, later revealed as The Undisputed Truth’s Brenda Joyce Evans and Billie Rae Calvin. Naughty Motown for the deceit!
The story goes that the album was intended to be a solo Wanda Young release, produced by Smokey Robinson, because The Marvelettes had already disbanded. As it turned out, Wanda’s voice couldn’t carry the songs, so The Andantes were brought in, with the plan of marketing the result as The Marvelettes’ final release. However, when Katherine and Ann got wind of this they refused to have their pictures on the album’s cover, angrily citing that Motown was disrespecting them and the group. They were probably right in their thinking, a sad state affairs for the group who presented the company with its first number one single “Please Mr Postman” in 1961.
With Motown behind her, Ann was reunited with Harvey Fuqua to join his funk/soul group, New Birth, and later their subgroup, Love, Peace & Happiness. After this she retired from the business to look after her family.
VICKI WICKHAM. OBE
“Once Dusty and I heard that the Motortown Revue was definitely going to tour the UK, we plotted how to persuade the Ready, Steady, Go! producer Elkan Allan that it should be a tv special.” said Vicki Wickham. “It was a natural progression to do a special, The acts had been coming over and doing things, so it made a lot of sense. It was amazing to ger something like that together,” said Dusty Springfield.
Of course, the two were talking about “The Sound Of Motown” screened in April 1965. First to arrive in London were The Temptations, so Vicki and Dusty threw a welcoming party, whereupon David Ruffin returned the favour by giving Vicki her first joint: “I remember coughing myself silly and him laughing at me.” Three days later, Stevie Wonder (the ‘Little’ had been dropped) flew in, and both acts appeared on RSG! that night. So let’s talk further about Vicki’s connection with Motown.
Born 23 March 1939, Vicki had a packed life to be envied as her hard work saw her rubbing shoulders with music’s finest, ranging from James Brown, Marvin Gaye, to The Beatles, Sandie Shaw and Dusty. It was with the latter that Vicki was introduced to American artists, including Motown. “Dusty would appear at places like The Brooklyn Fox in New York, and she’d come back with a stack of records. She’d play me these wonderful Black R&B songs and I’d think ‘we really should get these artists for the show.’ I’d call up agents in London and ask ‘Are they coming to Britain?’ So they started bringing the acts over because of the power of ‘RSG!‘ in exposure and sales.” Prior to hiring acts for the TV show, she worked a variety of jobs before being hired by Elkan Allan who was working on a pilot music show, as his secretary with a promise that if “RSG!” took off, she would be offered a more creative role. Well, the rest is history.
Not only did Vicki persuade Dusty to host “RSG!” for three weeks between the end of her career with The Springfields and the release of her first solo single (“I’m not a natural interviewer, I just hid behind my beehive and read things off little cards”), but using a table napkin after dinner one evening with Simon Napier-Bell, they penned the lyrics to Dusty’s number one single, “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me”.
It was thanks to this innovated Friday night music programme that Vicki first met Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles: “Their performance of ballads like ‘Over The Rainbow’ and ‘Danny Boy’ really affected me so much that I had them back two weeks in a row, which we rarely did.” Long story short, Vicki moved to New York to manage the ladies, transforming their R&B styling into rock ‘n’ funk space age divas, with the resulting “Lady Marmalade” taking the world by storm in 1975. When they split up, she managed former member Nona Hendryx, whom she later married in 2011.
Vicki also managed other artists, although one of her best achievements in 1986 was steering the good ship Springfield in the direction of the Pet Shop Boys, a move that was to kickstart another successful career for the singer by introducing her to a younger audience, while delighting her older, loyal fan base. During 1999, Vicki went on record as saying, “I never had any idea what I wanted to do, so I was just in the right place at the right time.” That modest statement was magnified when, in June 2013, she was awarded an OBE for her Service to the Music Industry.
A year following her death in March 1999, Dusty’s friend Vicki with another mutual friend Penny Valentine scorched the singer’s legacy with “Dancing With Demons – The Authorised Biography of Dusty Springfield”. It was, in my opinion, a story that should never have been written, and having discussed this with a mutual friend of Dusty’s, was told, “She said that when she died there would be things written about her that would upset me. Dusty also knew who would write the book, but said it can’t hurt me as I won’t be there. She was right.”
Vicki Wickham OBE was a trailblazer, she was a determined woman in a predominantly male world, and she took chances with “RSG!” which was, on occasion, both controversial and fanatically addictive. She was a musical driving force who I only knew through email exchanges, but she will go down in music history as a pioneer of black music. On 31st July, Vicki succumbed to Lewy body disease (a type of dementia) in New York City. She was eighty-seven years young.
Our thoughts and condolences go to the friends and families of Ann Bogan and Vicki Wickham, particularly Nona, with our thanks for the music they brought into our lives.
Sharon Davis
(My sincere thanks to Nick Tedd for allowing me to use his fabulous picture of Diana Ross at Pride, while the other visuals are available across social media)
