Getting Ready for Great Britain
COTTON SHIRTS AND CHARMIN; ‘NOTHING FANCY OR FRILLY’
“It is wise to carefully plan your wardrobe and personal equipment so as not to overburden yourself unnecessarily. Today’s helpful hint for happy travellers is: TRAVEL LIGHT – MOST AMERICANS TAKE TOO MUCH CLOTHING.”
Such was one of the advisories from the U.S. travel agency which was hired to organise the itinerary and bookings for the Tamla Motown tour of the United Kingdom, 60 years ago this spring. Now, to be sure, this is among the most examined events in Hitsville history via newspapers, music magazines, radio and TV documentaries, fanzines, books and websites. Still, in a history so rich, there’s always more to know.
Like this further extract from the five-page pre-tour memo, which was internally distributed on February 24, 1965 by Esther Edwards, then head of Motown’s international department:
Trying to keep warm: the Supremes and Martha & the Vandellas in London, March 13, 1965 (photo: Alamy)
“Please remember (1) Europeans in general dress conservatively and simply (2) nights are cool and wraps are generally needed (3) it rains a lot (4) you will walk and be out of doors a great deal.”
True enough. One of the iconic photographs from that visit captures a number of the acts – the Supremes, the Miracles, Martha & the Vandellas, the Temptations – in front of Marble Arch in central London, bundled up in winter coats. They appear cold and windswept, but cheerful.
“Your everyday costume should be simple, conservative and durable,” added the travel tips note. “Plan your wardrobe around one colour. Fancy or frilly clothes (ruffles, pleats, etc.) do not travel well. Do not skimp on shoes.”
And then there were personal needs, such as make-up, medical items, deodorant, travel alarm clock, band aids and so on. “Toilet paper,” it observed, “is not really necessary unless you are absolutely devoted to Delsey.”
The Supremes’ Mary Wilson certainly took issue with the last point. “The one thing we found, and we all discovered this when we got there, was that the toilet tissue was extremely hard,” she once said, laughing. “It was what we used to call wax paper here in America, and we could not figure out why.”
Added the Temptations’ Otis Williams, “Melvin [Franklin] had us dying when we first went out there. The toilet paper was like wax paper, so when we went back for the second time, he said, ‘Man, I brought me some Charmin.” Subsequently, Williams said he noticed what was available in the U.K. became “more refined.”
‘THEY DON’T EVEN KNOCK’
Regarding clothing, the February memo advised the male contingent to take two suits, “at least one dark in color,” and “wear one suit, pack one.” Six cotton shirts were recommended, or three wash and wear. Also, a bathrobe.
Again, Mary Wilson recalled why the last item was advisable. “One thing which the guys always talked about on the tour, and that was that the [hotel] maids would always come in on them when they were in the nude. That was really kind of strange, because that frightened them, they were not used to that. It was like, ‘Every time I take my clothes off, they come in the door, they don’t even knock, they just walk on in!’ ”
Ted Hull, Stevie Wonder and Hamilton Bohannon in London, 1966
Oddly, the Edwards-distributed recommendations made no mention of food. “Ronnie [White] and I used to talk about that all the time,” said Pete Moore of the Miracles. “It was really hard for us to get used to the food. Then what was really extraordinary for me in England was 12 o’clock – teatime! Everything stops, man. Us being kids from America, we couldn’t get used to that. I wanted to go get a hamburger!”
Tony Newton, who played bass on the tour with Earl Van Dyke’s sextet, felt the same. “It wasn’t no days of McDonald’s, so you couldn’t stop and get refreshed, you just had to bear it.” (Britain’s first McDonald’s opened in 1974.)
“All Americans love lots of ice,” continued Mary Wilson. “And we could never find ice. We could not stand hot beer, so there were cultural differences that were often in our discussions.” But the onetime Supreme found at least one attraction. “We fell in love with fish and chips – and eating fish and chips out of a newspaper was so great. In fact, I remember going back there some years later and you couldn’t find a place that served fish and chips out of newspaper. Like, what happened?”
The 21-date Motown roadshow was promoted by the Harold Davison Agency, which had designated Tony Marsh as compere and Malcolm Cook as road manager. In the latter’s 2011 memoir, Cook’s Tours, he remembered that Stevie Wonder had a “rather unusual habit in that he seemed to eat backwards. I don’t mean he shoved food into the back of his neck, but he would start with dessert, then work his way through steak and fries, and finish with soup – which I suppose isn’t such a bad idea when you think about it.”
DRINKING BEER TOGETHER
Another first-hand witness was Ted Hull, Wonder’s tutor and road manager. In his memoir, The Wonder Years, he, too, was candid about the tour’s shortcomings. “We quickly realised that the highways back home were a breeze compared to the gruelling effort of getting around England. With no expressways, even a hundred-mile trip could take the better part of a day. Food, when we could find it along the route, was less than mediocre.”
But drinking was another matter entirely. “Tony Marsh took me on the English pub tour,” said Pete Moore. “He took me to all the famous pubs through England. It was just him and I, no other members of the group, and I got a chance to meet all these English gentlemen…and we were drinking beer together. This was the most extraordinary experience that I’ve ever had, thanks to Tony. I got drunk quite a bit before it was over.”
The first show outside London at Bristol’s (since renamed) Colston Hall
So perhaps it was just as well that the travel memorandum had advised its recipients to have accident and health insurance: “You should definitely secure same before leaving the United States.” Also, the agency recommended, “it is essential that you ‘stick to the group.’ This will not always be easy, for not everyone’s taste and habits are the same, and by the time you have been together for a few weeks, you may tend to get rather tired of being regimented.
“However, please remember that we don’t want to ‘regiment’ you any more than you want to be ‘regimented.’ ” It continued, “We have tried to make the program as varied as possible, and also to allow enough free time for you to indulge in your individual interests, browse around, shop, etc.”
Ted Hull certainly appreciated a break or two in the schedule. “I saw a chance to take Stevie on an excursion,” he wrote in The Wonder Years. “Next thing I knew, Martha was coming along. So was Van [Gordon] Sauter, a reporter from the Detroit Free Press who was covering part of our tour. The two days travelling through the gorgeous English countryside turned out to be more pleasant than I’d anticipated, though I never relaxed to the point of having fun.”
Fun? “Tony Marsh was a hell of a prankster,” Pete Moore admitted. “I think we were on the way to Birmingham, and we were riding down the countryside. We looked through the [tour bus] window and about 1,000 yards down the road, there were three guys in the middle of the highway, standing at parade rest with rifles. And we said, ‘Wow, what’s going on?’ We didn’t know what to think. And when we got closer, the guy in the centre was Tony. That’s the kind of stuff he was doing. We just had a ball.”
Then there was going home. “The United States requires that all returning travellers be vaccinated against smallpox within three years prior to the date of re-entry,” read the information bulletin, reminding recipients to get their “shot” from their family doctor before departure for the U.K.
The Motown entourage had to fly from Detroit to New York for the outgoing journey to London – and in economy. “You will be far more comfortable on your longer flights if you do not wear tight-fitting clothing,” the memo concluded. “Also carry a plastic shoehorn in your flight bag. It is extremely handy when time comes to put the shoes back on after you have been sitting for six or seven hours.”
Making sure their music makers travelled light (with or without toilet paper) but equipped with a shoehorn and a bathrobe? Now that’s a whole other side of “artist development” at Motown.
Source notes: the above recollections by the late Mary Wilson and Pete Moore, as well as Tony Newton, originate from The Motown Invasion, a BBC Radio 2 documentary first broadcast in 2005 to mark the 40th anniversary of the tour. The interviews were done by Paul Sexton, who produced the two-part show, and it was presented by yours truly. A more recent TV retrospective about the roadshow was 2023’s When Motown Came To Britain, also aired by the BBC.
Music notes: the original live album from the 1965 Tamla Motown tour was recorded not in the U.K. but at the Olympia in Paris, the night after the roadshow’s final gig in England. (That must have been quite an adventure: everyone travelling at pace across the English Channel, checking into Paris hotels, and then getting to the venue to perform — all in less than 24 hours.) The LP was released in November that year, and today can be heard on streaming services. In 2016, Universal Music issued CD and vinyl versions of Recorded Live! Motortown Revue In Paris with additional material from the concert: a total of 12 previously-unreleased tracks by all the acts, and new liner notes of (ahem) mine. In the U.K., you can find both the 3LP set here at Amazon and the 2CD set here. This expanded edition does not appear to be available via digital service providers.