IMMIGRANTS NOT WELCOME; circa 1965 ...

[jsmith]

It seems that it wasn't good for people trying to enter the US & UK even back in 1965 ...

[thanxal]

Xenophobia, mob fear, and hysteria know no historical bounds.

[jsmith]

From the start of the R&R era right through to 1964, the US just about had things all their own way; pop music wise. It was US artists that dominated record sales right around the world. At the time, UK acts experienced very little commercial success in the US and so were no opposition to American pop / R&B acts. BUT after the Beatles broke thru in the States in December 63 & particularly after the group had been on the Ed Sullivan show, all things British became the new big thing there [[music, fashion, cars, accent, films, etc.).
This caused massive problems for the US immigration service, who pressurised by the US music biz to help US singers / musicians, banned lots of UK acts from visiting the US for promotional purposes or to play live gigs. Not liking this situation, the UK government responded by banning many US acts from entering the UK. With countries all around the world now booking more & more UK acts and 45's by British acts topping the charts everywhere, US officials could see they were onto a big loser.
HOWEVER, before sense prevailed, some US music people stepped forward to back up the Brits [[& so, give support to their acts who wanted to go to the UK to perform) -- Motown seemed to be up front in that respect. In the end sense prevailed & a DEAL was arrived at. For each UK act allowed into the US, a US act had to be allowed to come to the UK.
This agreement worked well for UK R&B / soul fans as most insipid US pop acts were now dead in the water here. The answer for US record companies, who had UK acts on their books via licensing agreements, was to team one of their soul acts with one of their UK pop acts and thus meet the terms of the US / UK working agreement. So many American soul acts came over here to play British mod / soul clubs while acts such as the Hollies, Searchers, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Dave Clark Five, Freddie & the Dreamers + Herman's Hermits went the other way.

Lots of acts that we Brits loved [[via their live performances or their records) were immigrants into the UK.
They arrived here from different countries & in different ways ....
The likes of Geno Washington, Sonny Childe [[R B Greaves) & more were over here in the US military ... P P Arnold, Jimmy Thomas, Rosetta Hightower & more jumped ship from American acts touring here & stayed. Jimmy Ruffin, Edwin Starr, Sheila Ferguson, the guys in the Fantastics & Drifters + the gals in the Flirtations liked the UK better than the US and so settled here.
Jimmy James, Jimmy Cliff, Errol Dixon & more had started his music career in the Caribbean & relocated here to develop it further. Sharon Tandy had a similar route to the UK. Starting her singing / recording career in South Africa, she relocated to the UK to take her career to a higher level. Later entrants to the UK music scene were the children of Caribbean or African immigrants who entered the UK music biz here when they grew up.
Of course, there was also the likes of Jimi Hendrix who only found success after relocating to advance his career in the UK. Lots of Brits went the other way and based themselves in the US.
Lots of Caribbean singers / musicians heard that many 'black Brits' weren't treated too well after moving here, so they started to look elsewhere. Lots headed up to Canada to advance their music careers. Others based themselves in New York, Miami and the like in the US. So the musical mixing has been both ways and has benefited the music created in both countries [[+ Canada).

[Graham Jarvis]

The black artists in the UK had great records & labels, especially in the 6T's.
I always liked Errol Dixon and the UK Mod group loved him. Sadly he passed away in Jan 2023. Thought you might enjoy this albeit not Motown. [Both sides]



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ICNM_54Ygs

[Boogiedown]

this is a fascinating subject. thank you jsmith for the letter and a further explanation.


.....we know Motown wasn't keen on having competition even within the confines of their home turf of Detroit and as such at times intentionally acquired said competition as a way of quashing.


So conversely, why on earth is Motown so concerned about increasing the competition that results from popularizing acts out of England??

Perhaps their concerns aren't so lofty as first laid out in their letter .....[or to ask it this way, did George Fame get to eventually do a tour in the US that was connected in any way with Motown once sense prevailed?]

[motony]

I remember Georgie Fame touring here but not with any Motown acts. He had a couple of hits here if I remember correctly, "Say Yeh, Yeh" was one.

[jsmith]

Georgie Fame had been to the fore in pushing R&B in the UK from 1963. His band played at early R&B allnighters @ London's Flamingo Club & mod allnighters @ the Scene Club. They also did lots of shows at USAF bases back then [[Mildenhall USAF + Chicksands USAF bases). GI's would ask to sing with them at US bases and Georgie would let some of them. Those GI's then started to attend niter sessions @ the Flamingo themselves and would get up on stage and sing. That led to a number of them being hired to front UK soul bands. Georgie always loved R&B / soul numbers and his act was mainly covers of such songs. He'd cut his own version of many for inclusion on his LP releases. But his record company insisted on lifting some of them for 45 release, so Georgie fell out with them [[he wanted the original US version to have the 45 market to themselves).

[jsmith]

Georgie doing one of his cover songs ...

[lefty]

Jsmith: where was this original letter published? It is really interesting.

There is a much longer history of difficulties in international exchanges between musicians from the U.S. and UK. Even the Beatles had issues working in the States, the Kinks were banned, etc. Although it is definitely about xenophobia in part, it is also a matter of unions fighting with one another and governments being strict about performer visas. It is still an issue. Tried recently to bring a performer from Africa to the U.S.? Good luck...

[jsmith]

Motown sent the letter to all US music mags ... think it was RECORD WORLD that published it.

[motony]

LOL, our Southern Border is wide open, thousands are pouring across every day.