SAD NEWS: ‘Trailblazing’ ITV legend d!es as tributes flood in
The star helped shape British music television.
Vicki Wickham, who shaped 1960s music television and managed Dusty Springfield, has died (Image: Getty)
ITV legend turned music manager Vicki Wickham died on Friday July 31, at the age of 87. She began her career working on the pioneering 1960s ITV music show Ready Steady Go!, which helped to launch some of the biggest names in pop, and she went on to manage British soul diva Dusty Springfield. At it’s peak the show garnered 14 million viewers a week. She was just 24 when she found herself in charge of a production team even younger than she was.
It was more youth-oriented and informal than its BBC rival Top of the Pops and featured the audience as dancers, and the interaction of artists and audience. Vicki began in the ITV typing pool, working up to become the new show’s tea girl, booker, writer, producer and finally the editor. Although she claimed not to even “know who The Beatles were” (they would later feature on the show), she found herself with her finger on the pulse of early 60s music culture and would tour the clubs giving out tickets for the show to the best dancers and trend!est dressers, even though she said she was clueless about fashion.
Her booking policy was to only feature artists she herself liked, and this included The Rolling Stones, The Who, Sandie Shaw and the Walker Brothers, and black acts such as Otis Redding, the Temptations and James Brown. This led her to produce The Sound of Motown, the first-ever black music show for British television. It featured the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas and Stevie Wonder, and Dusty Springfield presented it.
She had first met Dusty in 1963 and would become her lifelong friend. She managed her for 13 years until the singer’s death from cancer in early 1999.
Along with future Wham! Manager Simon Napier-Bell, she wrote the English lyrics to the star’s only British number one hit, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. It was adapted from the Italian song Io che non vivo senza te at Dusty’s request and would become the star’s signature track.
When Ready Steady Go! ended in December 1966, she worked with Brian Epstein, who was then the Beatles’ manager, to produce Sunday-night rock concerts at the Saville Theatre. A move to the US ensued in the 1970s. However, instead of breaking into American television, she ended up running the New York office of Track Records.
Vicki Wickham managed singing legend Dusty Springfield until the star’s death (Image: Getty)
This contributed to her move into artist management, and she took over the career of the feminist girl band LaBelle, best known for their hit Lady Marmalade. The band included the woman who would become her long-term partner, Nona Hendryx.
In 1999, she received a Music Industry Woman of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2013, she was appointed an OBE for services to music.
Tributes flooded in for the star as the news of her death became public. Writing on Facebook, one friend gushed: “An extraordinary woman who I first met in 1965 on the set of Ready Steady Go! with Nina Simone (as the founder of her British appreciation society). Over the years, Vicki Wickham and I forged a personal friendship that was precious…heartfelt condolences to Nona Hendryx and Vicki’s family and friends everywhere. May she rest peacefully.”
Another added: “Vicki was a trailblazer in so many ways – RIP. And condolences to Nona – another trailblazer in her own right!” Meanwhile, a third chimed in: “Sad news. One of the fascinating behind-the-scenes figures of the 1960s pop world and beyond.”
