Vicki Wickham

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

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 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]

References

  1. ^ a b 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

  • Valentine, Penny; Wickham, Vicki (April 2000). Dancing with Demons: The Authorised Biography of Dusty Springfield. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. p. 320. ISBN 9780340766736