Music industry legend Vicki Wickham has been awarded the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in the UK.
Vicki was the producer of Ready Steady Go!, the iconic British music television show which created the media platform in the 60s for acts like The Beatles and Rolling Stones to perform on British television.
Ms Wickham managed the career of Dusty Springfield and later Labelle.
Dusty had a string of hits in the 60s including ‘I Only Want To Be With You’, ‘Stay Awhile’, ‘Wishin’ and Hopin’, ‘Goin’ Back’ and the classic ‘I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself’.
Together with her friend Simon Napier-Bell, who managed The Yardbirds at the time, they took the Italian song ‘Lo Che Non Vivo (Zenza Te) and wrote the English lyric to what became Springfield’s first number one hit ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’.
The song reached no. 1 in the UK, no. 2 in Australia and no. 4 in the USA. Four years later, in 1970, Elvis Presley covered it and a hit all over again.
Vicki is overjoyed by the honor. “O.B.E., it really is HUGE for me – something that I have never thought about, didn’t enter my world remotely and still doesn’t! It’s a bit like when I was a kid tipping Cornflakes out of the box to get to the toy that was at the bottom,” she said upon hearing the news.
She said her mother would love to have seen her achievement but she has long-term partner, soul star Nona Hendryx to share the moment with. “(It’s) Incredible, mostly ‘cos my Mum would have been so thrilled and already bought a new hat to come ‘and get it’ with me! (But Nona will keep up our side!) I feel somewhere between astounded, astonished, excited (‘cos we get to see inside the Palace) and not at all sure ‘why me’ …. thanks to everyone who helped make this happen”.
Vicki says she still has one more thing to aim for but maybe not in this life. “I’ll go for “Dame” in my next life,” she says.
Congrats to our good friend Vicki Wickham, O.B.E. on her award today.
