Adam White

West Grand Blog

 

Let’s Hear It For…Ed Sullivan!

HELPING MOTOWN TO MAKE ITS MARK IN THE MAINSTREAM

 

“Supremes To Viet Nam in September, memos Motown prez Berry Gordy.”

“Diana (Supremes) Ross prefers Bob Ellis.”

“Mike Roshkind, Motown v.p., inked $1 million Gen’l Foods deal for Jackson 5.”

“Berry Gordy, Motown boss, prefers Marjorie Wallace, former Miss World.”

David, Diana share tips on The Ed Sullivan Show

      Welcome to the Ed Sullivan show. No, not the longest-running prime-time variety programme in the history of American television, but his regular gossip column for the New York Daily News, which ran for even longer.

“Motown’s Chris Clark a smash hit at Vegas Frontier. She’s a Kim Novak look-a-like.”

“British singer Kiki Dee first white girl vocalist signed by Motown Records. Ron Miller will pen her first song.”

“Miss Black America Pageant at the Garden tonight. (Motown’s Berry Gordy Jr. donated $5,000 prize.)”

      As evidenced above, Motown’s musical (and corporate) talent made regular appearances in Sullivan’s showbiz/sports/society chatter for the Gotham newspaper during the late 1960s and early ’70s, especially as the Hitsville stars became regulars on Sunday night’s The Ed Sullivan Show. (His column was tagged “Little Old New York,” and in later years subtitled “Men and Maids and Stuff,” part of which would draw frowns today.)

      In retrospect, Sullivan’s remarkable life as a smart journalist and civil-rights proponent has taken a back seat to his television show’s enduring popularity – although the fact that he put black America into the nation’s living rooms almost every Sunday night made him, obviously, a pioneer of desegregation. The Supremes, in particular, were in the forefront of this caravan via their (count ’em) 16 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show between 1964 and 1971.

‘THE PRIDE OF BEING BLACK’

      “I, too, could be well-spoken, tall, majestic, an emissary of black folks, who also came from the projects,” declared Whoopi Goldberg four years ago, recalling how the Supremes’ frequent TV presence inspired her, as it did many other young women of colour. “They were unapologetic and brave. I look back and wonder if they had any idea that they taught me and a new generation the pride of being black. Diana, Mary, and Flo…my heroes.”

      Berry Gordy has long acknowledged the value of Sullivan’s platform to reach tens of millions of Americans, shaping and fulfilling his young stars, while bringing black entertainers firmly into the mainstream of popular culture. The idiosyncratic showman had been doing this for years before the existence of Hitsville U.S.A., of course, with prime-time slots for W.C. Handy, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat “King” Cole, Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis Jr., Nina Simone, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and many more.

The Jackson 5 with Ed and Diana

      All this even as CBS-TV, host network for The Ed Sullivan Show, received angry letters from viewers when the host shook hands with Cole, kissed Pearl Bailey on the cheek on-air, or was affectionate towards Sarah Vaughan. Or when advertisers threatened to pull their sponsorship because of the negativism the integrated broadcast stirred in southern states.

      Much of the programme’s history and influence has been documented over the decades, but it receives attention once more in Sunday Best, a new documentary produced by (among others) Sullivan’s granddaughter, Margo Precht Speciale, and directed by Sacha Jenkins. Among its facilitators as an executive producer is Kerry Gordy, the lawyerly son of Berry Gordy Jr. and Raynoma (“Miss Ray”) Singleton. Naturally, Kerry’s father appears in the movie.

      Sunday Best was premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York last month, but has not yet been widely seen or distributed, nor have critics appeared to offer their opinion. It’s reasonable to assume that its makers are currently negotiating for further shop windows at home and, perhaps, abroad.

      Alongside Kerry Gordy as executive producers are Andrew and Josh Salt, whose SOFA Entertainment acquired The Ed Sullivan Show from the late TV host’s family in 1990 and has made much of its content available since then in physical and digital form. In 2011, a deal between SOFA and Universal Music Enterprises yielded several DVD releases featuring Motown acts’ performances for Sullivan.

1.8 BILLION VIEWS

      Three years ago, a bounty of digitally restored clips from the show officially arrived online via YouTube, Apple Music and other platforms. Universal Music was once more involved, and the initial videos included footage of Diana Ross & the Supremes, the Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Four Tops, and Gladys Knight & the Pips.

      As of this writing, The Ed Sullivan Show clips have surpassed 1.8 billion views across all online channels – with the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” alone surpassing 72.6 million streams – and last month, Universal Music joined in celebrating the 75th anniversary of the programme’s debut. (It began on June 20, 1948, as Toast of the Town, to be later renamed The Ed Sullivan Show.) New videos are updated to the show’s official YouTube channel and www.edsullivan.com.

‘Let’s hear it for…the girls’

      In recent times, Motown stars have told more than a few anecdotes about their Sullivan appearances, including Mary Wilson and Diana Ross – hardly a surprise, given the Supremes’ omnipresence. “We were booked for his show so often that I began to think of it as The Supremes Show,” Wilson wrote in her autobiography. “Strangely, because we travelled so much in those days, we rarely got to see ourselves on television, but when we did, we made mental notes about what looked good and what needed work.”

      Of the Jackson 5’s Sullivan debut, former Motown executive Suzanne de Passe recalled in Variety last year that “the reason Michael is wearing that purple hat…is because our luggage got lost and my cousin Tony Jones and I had to run down to the Village and buy them clothes for the show. We saw the purple hat on the shelf, ‘Oh, let’s take that, too,’ not realising it was going to become iconic.”

      The late Barney Ales, Motown’s sales supremo, felt the impact of acts being showcased by Sullivan. “Album sales picked up like crazy on a Monday – the Supremes, Stevie, Gladys, the Temps. You had to get on the show. Once you impressed him, once you made that, you knew you had a natural star.”

MEMORIES TO CHERISH

      After the Supremes, the Temptations accumulated the most Sunday-night performances, including a powerful turn by Paul Williams (“Don’t Look Back”) and a magnetic, melancholy take by Eddie Kendricks of his last recorded vocal with the group (“Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)”). Little wonder, then, that Otis Williams stopped by the SOFA Entertainment offices in Los Angeles last month. “I was able to hold a copy of The Temptations’ original recordings from our six appearances on the Sullivan show,” he declared on Instagram. “Those were great memories that I’ll always cherish.”

      Smokey Robinson had his own memory of the Miracles’ debut in March 1968, when Berry Gordy “critiqued, cautioned and cajoled us” during intense rehearsals. “This could be the difference between life and death,” said the Motown founder, according to the singer. “This could be the end of our friendship,” thought Robinson. And then: “Ed Sullivan – a mystery man if ever there was one – came to the mike while we waited in the wings. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘let’s have a warm welcome for a great group of guys from Detroit – Smokey and the Little Smokeys!’ ”

Otis enters SOFA territory

      With weekly viewers averaging in the tens of millions, a total of 11 Motown acts appeared on those one-hour, Sunday night broadcasts, airing from 8pm. In chronological order, they were Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, Martha & the Vandellas, Barbara McNair, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, the post-Ross Supremes, and the Jackson 5. Knight & the Pips delivered the last Motown turn, in February 1971. Later that spring, the show was cancelled. Three years on, Sullivan died – on a Sunday, of course.

      Each date by the Motown acts generally (but not always) featured a current or new single release and a Tin Pan Alley standard, the first of which was the Supremes’ performance in October 1965 of “You’re Nobody ’Til Somebody Loves You.” It was just a couple of months after the trio essayed the song at their Copacabana debut, which Sullivan attended. Indeed, his TV show was very much part of Gordy’s “supper club” strategy for his top talent, enabling their entry into the old-school mainstream of American showbiz while forging their unique identity with the rock & roll generation.

      Occasionally, Sullivan would leave the confines of the TV studio on Broadway. In November 1970, the Four Tops sang at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., entertaining military personnel back from Vietnam. In March that same year, Gladys Knight & the Pips performed before soldiers being treated at Fitzsimons General Army Hospital in Denver, their stab at “Hey Jude” encouraging a singalong from staff and the wounded.

      “One of the articles I read while doing research talked about how my grandfather’s legacy really transcended television,” Margo Precht Speciale recently told Forbes magazine about Sunday Best, “because he was able to use his platform to empower black entertainers. “And I don’t even think he realised it at the time because he was never a crusader, in those terms, he was more of a white ally who quietly did his thing and did what he believed in.”

      In conclusion, here follows a timeline of all the Motown artists who appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, with dates and songs. In most cases, this also includes a link to each performance, as offered online by www.edsullivan.com or its YouTube channel. Welcome to what the man of the moment often used to introduce as “a reeeeally big show”…

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969

1970

1971


Careful notes: dipping into The Ed Sullivan Show website to log all the Motown performances requires considerable time and attention, and raises the odd question (did the Four Tops really change their outfits within the same January 30, 1966 show?) or two. For help double-checking the Supremes’ many appearances, I’m grateful to George Solomon, among others. If you catch any anomalies or errors, please let me know. And by all means, do comment on which of the Motown clips are your particular favourite(s). There are plenty to pick from.

Adam White20 Comments