Tamla Motown - Ready Steady Go!

 

Dave Godin (L) and Berry Gordy (R)

 

Born in Peckham, London the son of a milkman, Dave Godin spent his early childhood in Lambeth until he moved with his family to Bexleyheath when the activities of the Luftwaffe made their south London street uninhabitable. He won a scholarship to Dartford Grammar School and began collecting American R & B records and introduced school mate Mick Jagger to black music, witnessing the birth of the Rolling Stones. Ruth Brown's 'Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean', heard on a juke box in an ice-cream parlour, was his own introduction to the emotional directness of black music. After starting his working life as a junior in an advertising agency, he spent two years working in a hospital in lieu of national service. But music was assuming an increasing importance, and he knew he was not alone when his letter to Record Mirror, complaining about their failure to review a Bo Diddley LP, attracted correspondence from other R&B fans. "I suppose it's like being gay," he said. "Everybody thinks they're the only gay person in the world until they realise there's more out there." Dave had started the TMAS as a stab at raising the profile of Motown in this country, and he and his collaborators were evangelical in their publicity attempts for the label. By 1965 there were no more than 300 members of TMAS and periodically Dave would issue a magazine made at home containing text and B&W photographs which had a bright cover and, printed in the pre-computer era, was composed of colorful geometric shapes.

His column in a new magazine, Home Of The Blues, gave him a wider audience, but the seal of approval arrived in 1964, when Berry Gordy Jr, the founder of the fledgling Motown empire, flew him to Detroit, threw a star-studded party to welcome him, and offered him a job as the company's consultant in Britain. It was Dave who pressed Gordy to raise the label's profile by creating a Tamla Motown label, on which releases by the Supremes, Four Tops, Temptations and others gradually became a presence in the British charts. He told Gordy that they had too many labels so, cutting out every one, he put them all on a table where they eventually chose two of the words, Tamla and Motown and thus the new label was born. There is no such place in America as Tamla Motown, it was the creation of this English man. In time took up the offer of Berry Gordy to become Motown's consultant in the UK, setting up its distribution through EMI.

Dusty Springfield in rehearsal for 'The Sound Of Motown' TV special in London

 

On the 28th of April 1965, 'Ready Steady Go!, a Friday night live pop program aired by ITV, dedicated its entire episode to 'The Sound of Motown', spotlighting the likes of The Supremes, The Miracles, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Martha & the Vandellas. Motown artists had performed on the program prior to the special, starting with Little Stevie Wonder during December 1963. British singer Dusty Springfield, an early 'RSG! host, was an ardent Motown fan, and her enthusiasm had converted 'RSG!' producer Vicki Wickham into a fan as well. Vickie, a close friend of Springfield, had travelled with her and manager Vic Billings to Paris in December ’63 to see Stevie Wonder, Dionne Warwick and The Shirelles in concert. Impressed mostly by Stevie Wonder they managed to persuade him to appear on their show, which he did on the 27th of December, 1963. Dave Godin campaigned for Berry Gordy Jr. to bring the Motortown Review to the U.K. and while that initial trip was far from being a moneymaker, being very poorly attended, it afforded British music buyers their first glimpse of the purveyors of the fabulous sounds emanating from Detroit. It was a shame the RSG! show was only televised after the tour. Vickie Wickham and Elkan Allan had learned of the plans for the U.K. package tour and the idea of showcasing that talent in a spin-off TV special was attractive, but maybe not to the conservative management of Rediffusion. Elkan thought that if Dusty Springfield hosted it, it would be more palatable. Vickie Wickham recalls, "He said to me, ‘Will she? We can’t do it without her.' She said that Dusty would , even though she hadn't asked her.

When Dave's column 'Home Of The Blues' mutated into Blues And Soul, it became even more influential. Whether unearthing obscure waxings, exposing frauds or simply name checking ordinary fans, he imbued his prose with the flavour of true obsession. Each column ended with the rallying cry: "Keep the faith - right on now!" In 1967 he founded Soul City, a record shop which began in Deptford High Street and later moved to Monmouth Street in the west end of London. This developed into a record label on which he released such then-obscure soul classics as 'Go Now' by Bessie Banks, the original version of a song that gave the Moody Blues their first British hit. Affectionately referred to as the 'Godfather of R&B in the UK,'; the man who first uttered the term 'Deep Soul,' and the man who gave birth to the phrase 'Northern Soul' That term came about whilst Dave was running the Soul City store in London. Many of the store's visitors came from the North of the U.K. as football fans. Dave noticed that the styles of records the people were asking for varied from those requested by Southern buyers, so Dave placed them in certain cases. When someone asked for a record, who happened to come from the North of the U.K., Dave would ask his assistant to 'dig out the Northern Soul'. Thus the term was born.

Dave Godin passed away on Friday the 15th of October 2004 due to illness.