Vicki Wickham, who helped shape pop music in the 1960s and beyond through her work on the landmark British TV show Ready, Steady, Go! and as the manager of Dusty Springfield and Labelle, has died. She was 87.
Wickham died Saturday in New York after an extended illness, her wife and longtime partner, Labelle singer Nona Hendryx, announced.
Airing on ITV from 1963-66, Ready, Steady, Go! was an influential showcase of the British beat boom, and as talent booker and later producer, Wickham helped introduce The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Cilla Black, Marianne Faithful, Donovan, The Kinks, The Animals and The Yardbirds to viewers, often providing their earliest, most significant national exposure.
Wickham also played a key role in bringing Motown to Britain. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, credited her with exposing artists including The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye and Martha and the Vandellas to U.K. viewers.
“The wonderful Vicki Wickham had convinced her boss to do a one-hour TV special,” Berry recalled in Andy Neill’s 2020 book, Ready, Steady, Go!: The Weekend Starts Here. “The Sound of Motown was a big moment for us because it brought our music and our artists to the U.K. national television audience for the first time.”
Wickham produced the first hourlong live U.K. TV show featuring a Black music artist, James Brown, with subsequent Ready, Steady, Go! installments showcasing Ike and Tina Turner, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles, later to become Labelle.
Vicki Heather Wickham was born on March 23, 1939, in Newbury, Berkshire, England. Her father, Steven, was a farmer and her mother, Stella, a nurse. She attended a Catholic girl’s school until age 11 and a private boarding school before completing her formal education at Langham Secretarial College in London.
She spent two years at the publishing house Cassell & Co. conducting photo research and preparing layouts, then joined BBC Radio as an assistant, working on documentaries.
Through a friend, she was introduced to TV producer Elkan Allan, who was developing a new music program that would become Ready, Steady, Go!
“My first job was booking the artists for the pilot and the first shows,” she said in Neill’s book. “I’d been brought up on Gilbert & Sullivan and South Pacific. The first record I ever bought was ‘Rock Around the Clock.’
“I started a crash course, getting the music papers — Disc, Record Mirror, N.M.E., Melody Maker — listening to records, finding out who was who.”
The Beatles appeared three times on Ready, Steady, Go! in 1963 and ’64 as Beatlemania swept the world.
Springfield was one of the program’s most frequent hosts and performers, and Wickham became the singer’s collaborator and manager, guiding her career through the late 1980s and remaining friends with her until her death in 1999.
With Simon Napier-Bell, she wrote the English lyrics to Springfield’s hit “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” adapted from the Italian song “Io che non vivo (senza te).” She also was instrumental in bringing The Pet Shop Boys and Springfield together in 1986 to record “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”
In 2000, she co-authored Springfield’s biography, Dancing With Demons.
During her years at Ready, Steady, Go!, Wickham contributed to the teen magazine Fabulous, writing profiles of pop stars and articles including “Vicki Wickham’s Pop Guide to London.” She also served as fashion consultant of the short-lived MOD magazine.
Moving to New York in the early 1970s, she took over the management of the American vocal trio Labelle. She encouraged the group’s Glam Rock Afro futuristic image, and under her guidance, Labelle — Patti LaBelle, Hendryx and Sarah Dash — recorded their 1974 album Nightbirds and the No. 1 hit “Lady Marmalade.”
Vicki Wickham and Nona Hendryx at their 2011 wedding.
Courtesy of Adrian Bryan-Brown
She wrote for Melody Maker, for whom she reviewed The Who’s performance of Tommy at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1970; managed other artists including Cameo, Morrissey, Rough Trade and Marc Almond; and produced BBC Radio documentaries about Nina Simone, Whitney Houston and George Michael.
In 2013, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and received the honor for her services to music from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace.
She and Hendryx first met in the 1960s, and they married in 2011. Survivors also include her cousins, Ellis John, David and Sam; and godchildren Issac, Tim and Nova.
Private family gatherings in remembrance of her will be held in New York and London, followed by a larger celebration of life. Donations in her honor can be made to Black Women Rock and/or to Nordoff Robbins charities.
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