Vicki Wickham

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Vicki Heather Wickham OBE (born 1939) is an English talent manager, entertainment producer, and songwriter. [1]

Contents

Career

Wickham was an assistant producer of the 1960s British television show Ready Steady Go! , and was fashion consultant for the short-lived The Mod's Monthly magazine, first issued in March 1964 by Albert Hand Publications, and edited by Mark Burns. [2] [3] However she is probably best known as the manager of well-known pop/soul acts Dusty Springfield and Labelle. [4]

Wickham co-wrote (with Simon Napier-Bell) the English lyrics to Springfield's only British No. 1 hit, "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me", adapted from the Italian song "Io che non vivo senza te". With Penny Valentine, she co-wrote Dancing with Demons: The Authorised Biography of Dusty Springfield. [5]

Wickham is gay, but has said that her sexuality was never a problem, stating that she "wasn't out in the 60s. I didn't know what I was, really. Everyone knew I was gay, but we were so unpolitically conscious". [1] In 2012 she told BBC radio listeners: "I found somebody in 1970 and have been with her ever since. I wouldn't swap it for the world." [6]

Her long-term partner is the musician Nona Hendryx. [7]

Awards

Wickham was given a Music Industry "Woman of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award" in 1999, [8] and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours List, for services to music. [9]

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References

  1. 1 2 Sullivan, Caroline (29 November 1999). "Ready, Vicki, Go". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 16 January 2017.
  2. "You can't keep up with the mods". tintrunk.blogspot.com.au. 23 November 2009. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  3. "Burns, Mark: The Mods Monthly". cultjones.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  4. "Belles of the Ball" Archived 21 April 2009 at archive.today , Dustin Fitzharris, Bay Windows, 29 October 2008
  5. "Ellen, Barbara: 'You don't have to say you love me'". The Guardian. 3 September 2000. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  6. "The Reunion: 60s Girl Singers". BBC Radio 4. 19 August 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  7. Cashmere, Paul (16 June 2013). "Vicki Wickham Awarded OBE". Noise11.com. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  8. Dancing with Demons. Hodder & Stoughton. 2001. ISBN   9780340766743 . Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  9. "No. 60534". The London Gazette (Supplement). 15 June 2013. p. 14.

Bibliography