That Mysterious Folkie
THE ‘RESIDENT INTELLECTUAL’ AT 2648 WEST GRAND
“Earl [Van Dyke] and I were discussing this a few nights ago,” noted Booker Bradshaw, “and I know that during Earl’s first tour in England, the Kinks sort of took him under tow, helping him with everything from sorting out the coins to selecting the good ales.”
This was one of the few public comments by one of the more intriguing Motown characters of the mid 1960s, made in response to an article (“The Tamla fans that hated us”) in a U.K. music weekly of the time, Record Mirror.
The Kinks were reportedly snubbed by Motown followers when they were visiting backstage at one of the concerts of the 1965 Tamla tour of England, Scotland and Wales. Sorry to learn of the incident, Bradshaw wrote to Record Mirror to reassure its readers (and the British group itself) that regardless “of how others may feel, the Motown performers like the Kinks personally and enjoy their music.”
Booker Bradshaw with Esther Edwards, Berry Gordy
He was well-positioned to comment. Bradshaw was an employee of Motown’s international department in Detroit, and served as business manager on board that ’65 package tour with Stevie Wonder, Martha & the Vandellas, the Miracles and the Supremes. He worked alongside Thomas “Beans” Bowles, handling the logistical and fiscal challenges of the company’s first such adventure across the Atlantic, and dealing with the many Brits with whom they interacted en route. Like the Kinks for Earl Van Dyke, he could sort out the currency and choose the best beer.
Yet there was more to Booker Talmadge Bradshaw, Jr. Born in 1940 in Richmond, Virginia, he was well-educated – at Harvard, no less – and won a two-year scholarship in 1962 to attend Britain’s highly-regarded Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. There, he performed with a repertory group, with acting roles in The Merchant of Venice and Othello.
And he was a folk singer.
As such, Bradshaw had appeared several times on Ted Mack’s The Original Amateur Hour television series in 1960. It’s also said that he befriended Joan Baez during his university years. After the RADA stint, he joined Motown circa July 1964 – although how he made that particular connection is unknown. In her Dreamgirl memoir, Mary Wilson refers to Bradshaw as one of Esther Edwards’ protégés, so it’s possible that he came into contact with Mrs. Edwards through her (or her husband’s) top-drawer social circle.
Also unknown is exactly how this 24-year-old musician/actor came to make an album of folk songs for Motown – a genre marginally popular in the record business at the best of times, and certainly one not associated with Hitsville. “Label president, Berry Gordy, Jr. is greatly enthused over the range of Bradshaw’s ethnic folk material,” declared a company press release in February 1965, adding that the album “marks Motown’s entry into the area of folk music.”
OPENING FOR THE SUPREMES
The “entry” never occurred, of course, as history has shown: no Bradshaw LP was ever released. Still, he had gone into the Snakepit during the closing weeks of 1964, recording what were thought to be a mix of traditional folk songs and his own material. Session logs indicate such titles as “It Was A Dream, Fisherman,” “Marianne,” “Chain On The Door” and “Carnival.”
Publishing sources shed no further light. Only seven songs appear to be registered with music rights organisations as Bradshaw compositions, and only one of them, “Three Cheers For The Red, White And Blue,” is shown as a Jobete Music copyright. (Since this is also the title of an early 20th century song, it may be that Jobete copyrighted Bradshaw’s arrangement.)
Booker Bradshaw (right) with Florence Ballard and visitor Clive Stone at Motown’s 1964 Christmas party
The singer had ample opportunity to rehearse and polish the material. In August 1964, he opened for the Supremes during their two-week stint at Detroit’s 20 Grand (ventriloquist Willie Tyler was also on the bill). The trio had just come off their now-historic “Caravan of Stars” tour for Dick Clark, and their club set included “Where Did Our Love Go” as it was topping the nation’s pop charts. Two months later, Bradshaw performed at another local nightspot, with “Three Cheers For The Red, White And Blue,” “It’s A Mighty Hard Road” and “Last Train To San Fernando” among the songs offered. Both that and his 20 Grand turn were put on tape by Motown.
Bradshaw was also well-regarded enough within the company to be designated as one of those interviewed by the Detroit Free Press in early 1965 for a major Motown feature. “The teenager spends 60 percent of the time feeling like an outsider,” he told the newspaper. “They feel bored or inadequate. This music is designed for them – it has nothing they don’t understand. This music – the folk music of the period – is exclusive with the teenagers.”
He continued, “Berry Gordy has a terrific sense of what this market wants. But that’s only 50 percent of it. He’s a songwriter who has something to say. Truth. It’s a salt-of-the-earth truth. It’s profound on a simple level.” Few other backroom staff at Motown would discuss its audience in that manner, and the Detroit Free Press called Bradshaw the firm’s “intellectual in residence,” while noting his Harvard and RADA credentials.
‘WELL-DRESSED, QUITE IVY’
On the day of the article’s publication, the Virginian was in London, discharging his duties with the Tamla tour. He was already popular with at least one Englishman. Clive Stone, a member of Dave Godin’s Tamla Motown Appreciation Society, had visited 2648 West Grand three months earlier, and Bradshaw gave him the tour. In his January 1965 report for the TMAS newsletter, Stone described his host as “one of the most likeable people I have ever met.”
Not everyone concurred. A colleague of Bradshaw’s on the U.K. roadshow remembered his grace, but added that he “had no role I could determine in the performances, nor in the management of the tour. He was well-dressed, quite Ivy. Polite and congenial, but out of sync with the crowd. And he seemed to vanish after the tour.”
Dr. M’Benga attends to Mr. Spock
From Motown, at least. By that autumn, Bradshaw was singing and playing to audiences at a travelling production of In White America, a provocative drama tracing the history of the American negro from slavery onwards. Next came an acting role in television’s Star Trek (as Dr. M’Benga, an officer and physician aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise) and the creation of original music for the Michigan production of And People All Around, a play exploring the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.
As the ’60s evolved into the ’70s, Bradshaw’s resumé added appearances in television’s Here’s Lucy, Julia, The F.B.I., The Name Of The Game and The Mod Squad. In 1973, he starred with Pam Grier in the blaxploitation movie, Coffy. Then he began writing for TV, including episodes of Planet Of The Apes, McMillan & Wife, Columbo, The Jeffersons, The Rockford Files and The Richard Pryor Show, and also earned voice roles for the likes of Showtime At The Apollo. Returning further to music, he hosted radio’s The Beat Goes On: A Salute To The Superstars Of Soul in 1987.
To a generation of Motown collectors, though, Booker Bradshaw’s best-known performance is likely that of interviewer – of the Supremes, for a rare 1965 promotional single which coupled their “The Only Time I’m Happy” with a 5:42 Q&A with Diana, Florence and Mary, recorded in New York. He is relentlessly upbeat, the questions bland (“Who are your favourite artists?”), although there’s a moment when Flo says, “We can’t leave out the British groups, we like the Beatles – all of ’em, everybody.”
If only Bradshaw had asked them about the Kinks…
Music notes: not one of Booker Bradshaw’s unreleased Motown recordings appears to have circulated among collectors, nor have his “live” performances (please advise if you know of any). His Supremes interview can be heard in The Complete Motown Singles’ 1965 edition, of course, and was previously included in Diana Ross & the Supremes’ 25th Anniversary set in 1986. A longer, unedited take of the interview appeared in 2011’s expanded edition of More Hits By The Supremes. Both versions are available on digital streaming services, too.
Picture notes: the above photo of Bradshaw with Flo Ballard and Clive Stone was part of the remarkable collection of Motown-related images found many years later by Stone’s widow, Sheila, and which subsequently became the foundation stone for Keith Rylatt’s essential book, Hitsville! The Birth of Tamla Motown, published in 2016 by Modus: The House of Soul. (My thanks to Keith, Dave Bonsall and Stuart Russell.) Also, the photo of Bradshaw with Esther Edwards and Berry Gordy was among those posted in 2020 on Soulful Detroit’s Motown Forum, thanks to Darin Sheffer.
Bio notes: Booker Bradshaw was born on May 21, 1940 in Richmond, Virginia, the son of a prominent local businessman. He died at age 62 in Los Angeles on April 1, 2003. With wife Viola, he had a daughter, Alaiyo.