Ready, Steady, Go!
A NEW BOOK ON BRITAIN’S INFLUENTIAL MUSIC TV SHOW
Michael Lindsay-Hogg remembers going to wish good luck to Stevie Wonder before his appearance on the show. “His assistant held up two jackets,” explains the television director, “a blue and a red one. Stevie squinted behind his dark glasses and said, ‘The red one.’ I think he may have had limited perception if there was enough light in a room, although to all intents and purposes, he was blind.”
No, this isn’t another discussion of Wonder’s ability to see – I know, I know, there’s a conspiracy theory – but simply a recollection of a moment involving the musician in London, many moons ago. Just like Vicki Wickham’s memory of Diana Ross in similar circumstances: “We were paging Diana for a dress rehearsal and searched the whole studio, the canteen, the shops across the road. Eventually we found her curled up between two chairs by the side of the studio, absolutely dead to the world.”
Martha and Dusty: planning their duet on 1965’s The Sound of Motown
These are among the anecdotes in Andy Neill’s inviting new book, Ready Steady Go! The Weekend Starts Here, about Britain’s most influential music TV show of its generation. Many of Berry Gordy’s stars appeared on Ready Steady Go! during its remarkable 1963-66 run, helping to inject the music of Hitsville U.S.A. into the bloodstream of U.K. popular culture, where it remains to this day.
Neill’s book covers the circumstance and clout of Ready Steady Go! in comprehensive detail, both narratively and visually. Its LP-size format (yes, 12” x 12”) does justice to many photographs taken on-set and behind the scenes: of musicians and singers, of comperes and cameramen, of dancers and directors – performers all, of one kind or another. Among them: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Otis Redding, the Who, Tom Jones, the Dave Clark Five. And from Motown: Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Martha & the Vandellas, the Miracles, the Temptations, the Supremes and the Four Tops, among others.
The weekly, Friday-evening programme was a guiding light of contemporary fashion in “swinging London,” too, with viewers drawn to the clothes and style of presenter Cathy McGowan. She mirrored her young audience as it searched for heroes and heroines, and began to feel its economic and cultural power.
Of the images in the book, my personal favourite is that of Dusty Springfield and Martha Reeves, taken on March 18, 1965, at rehearsals for The Sound of Motown special made in London by the RSG! team. It subtly captures their youth, purpose and friendship, as well as the integration of two worlds. That they were already acquainted is well-known (the pair had met in New York in 1964) but the camera adds evidence, wordlessly, of their joie de vivre.
That same spirit is apparent on almost every page of this 268-page book, as Neill travels the chronology of RSG! from its inception at Associated-Rediffusion, one of the first firms to create programming for Britain’s commercial TV network. He casts light on those responsible for bringing the show to television, particularly Elkan Allan, Rediffusion’s so-called head of light entertainment, and those who shaped it, such as Wickham.
‘A NICE CHAT’
Neill interviewed scores of the participants, whether they were producing or appearing on the show, to ensure the depth and accuracy of this history. Some, in addition to their interviews, have contributed short, written recollections. “He was like 13 or 14 and he was playing the drums,” reminisces Mick Jagger about meeting Stevie Wonder on-set in 1963. “I had no idea he played the drums, but there he was banging away and he was good. And then we had a nice chat about playing harmonica, and he was a little kid, really.”
Booked for its 21st edition on December 27 that year, Wonder was the first Motown artist to play RSG! He had been appearing in concert in Paris, and was re-routed through London to take advantage of the promotional opportunity. But Motown was present on Ready Steady Go! from the very beginning: British band Brian Poole & the Tremeloes performed their remake of the Contours’ “Do You Love Me” on the first show, on August 9, 1963, just weeks before the single topped the U.K. charts. (One of the many virtues of the book is its week-by-week episode guide, listing those who appeared, and the records played.)
“I’d been brought up on Gilbert & Sullivan and South Pacific,” recalls Vicki Wickham, the young Briton with the “posh voice” whose initial RSG! job was to book the artists. “The first record I ever bought was ‘Rock Around The Clock’ but we didn’t have a television at home so I’d not seen things like [early U.K. rock & roll TV show] Oh Boy! I started a crash course, getting the music papers Disc, Record Mirror, NME, Melody Maker, listening to records, finding out who was who. I started going ’round the clubs to see what was happening and to get a feeling of the live scene.” Thus, she navigated the zeitgeist, later becoming the programme’s editor.
When Dusty Springfield, newly embarking on her solo career, took over as RSG! compere temporarily in late 1963, she and Wickham became fast friends. “Dusty would appear at places like the Brooklyn Fox in New York,” Wickham tells Neill, “and she’d come back with a stack of records. She’d play me these wonderful black R&B records from America, 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.”
Springfield and the Beatles were the first famous evangelists for Motown in Britain. When Ready Steady Go! learned of Detroit’s plans to send a tour package of its acts across the Atlantic, the team sought to build a one-off TV special around them. Wickham knew that a line-up of black talent would raise eyebrows with Associated-Rediffusion’s hierarchy, so it was suggested that Springfield serve as the star host. “Rediffusion was very conservative, run by ex-Royal Navy people,” Wickham told me for Motown: The Sound of Young America. “They almost rang the bell for tea. So how we got the Motown special past them, I don’t know.”
DION THE PRIMA DONNA
Neill’s book reflects much of the excitement of popular music, British and American, during the show’s three-and-a-half year reign. Superstars of that period blaze brightly throughout, but there are amusing sidelights, such as an all-American edition in October ’63 with Dee Dee Sharp, Timi Yuro, Trini Lopez, Brook Benton, Lesley Gore – and Dion DiMucci, who did one number, “Ruby Baby,” but not his scheduled second, “Donna The Prima Donna,” because he was upset by the audience. It seems the singer wanted them to stand and listen, not dance. In his place was swiftly organised a dance contest, using another version of “Do You Love Me,” by Sharp and Chubby Checker.
The Supremes perform on Ready Steady Go! in October 1965
Then, there’s The Sound of Motown. The book devotes six arresting pages of text and photos to the 45-minute special (which was the subject of this earlier WGB post), including reminiscences from Wickham, Reeves and Mary Wilson. It’s also satisfying to see author Neill pinpoint those involved with the planning and production, such as Michael Wield, the set builder; Clive Arrowsmith, who handled the graphics; and Malcolm Clare, who choreographed the six-strong dance team. The director was Rollo Gamble.
Springfield and Wickham threw a welcome party for the Temptations, the first of the Hitsville troupe to touch down in the U.K., on March 9, 1965. Seven days later, when everyone else – Earl Van Dyke’s band, Wonder, Martha & the Vandellas, the Supremes, the Miracles – had arrived, rehearsals began at Rediffusion’s Studio 5A in north London; the final production was taped on March 18 before a live audience. The Motown acts sang vocals to pre-recorded tracks, as did Springfield, who hosted another party after it was all over.
On April 28, The Sound of Motown was televised across the country’s commercial TV network, 16 days after the tour finished its two-shows-nightly circuit of 20 U.K. towns and cities. “It was unfortunate that the special could not have been broadcast before rather than after the tour,” writes Andy Neill, with typical British understatement.
Ready Steady Go! The Weekend Starts Here does justice to the energy and influence of its subject, and of its era. Motown took its righteous place in that timeline, as acknowledged in the book by Andrew Oldham, who discovered, then managed and produced the Rolling Stones. “It was the music that had the first and last word, followed closely by how it looked,” he declares about RSG! “You left your competitive suit hanging at home, but had you worn it, you’d have clocked that it was really all about American sounds – Motown, Stax, Atlantic, Spector.”
A half-century later, Berry Gordy and Vicki Wickham stepped into another London studio to celebrate The Sound Of Motown. Ironically, it was for a programme broadcast by the BBC – arch-rival of the TV network which made Ready Steady Go! into the beacon of music, fashion and style for a generation.
Music notes: accompanying the release of the book is a boxed set of ten, picture-sleeved vinyl singles, featuring hits by various stars who appeared on RSG! They include the Supremes (coupling “Baby Love” and “Stop! In The Name Of Love”) and Marvin Gaye (“How Sweet It Is” and “Can I Get A Witness”). Among the others are Wilson Pickett, the Kinks, the Walker Brothers and, of course, Dusty. The box comes with a 24-page booklet, drawing upon Neill’s text. And like his book, it’s from BMG.
TV notes: Ready Steady Go! The Weekend Starts Here records the fate suffered by tapes of the weekly programme – many were wiped for reuse at the time – and by those that remained, which were later bought by Dave Clark in partnership with EMI. The latter’s PMI video unit released the material on VHS during the 1980s, including The Sound of Motown, but it has never been on DVD. Two years ago, BMG acquired the RSG! assets, its brand name included. If the company has plans for the renewed availability of the show’s footage, it has announced nothing specific yet.