Motortown Revue UK Tour, 1965

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published on 12 March 2017, by doc; latest edit: 10 December 2023

See also the following related pages:

• Motown’s 1962 Motortown Revue
• “Baby Love” and The Supremes in Amsterdam and London, October 1964

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1965 Motortown Revue UK Tour

(above) This photograph of members of the Motortown Revue UK Tour (aka the Tamla-Motown UK Tour) of March-April 1965 includes the Supremes, the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, and the Earl Van Dyke Sextet. Berry Gordy stands in the front row at left center, and his father at the far right.

It’s not clear to me whether the photo was take upon arrival at London Airport (later Heathrow) in London on 15 March 1965 or at the airport in the US just prior to departure. The latter possibility is suggested by comparing the darkness evident in the view through the windows behind them in this photo with the daylight apparent in the disembarking photos (see first gallery below). Notice the Tamla Motown and BOAC carry on bags, and the fact that most of the tour members appear to be dressed as they were when disembarking at London Airport that day, minus the overcoats. Martha Reeves is an exception in that she is wearing the fur coat and floppy hat seen in a couple of disembarking photos.

(above) Diana Ross and Martha Reeves at the Finsbury Park Astoria, 20 March 1965, from the article “Five London spots for Motown fans,” by Adam White, published on 7 March 2016 at TimeOut.com

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Excerpts from the post “Motown in our town: the 1965 Motortown Revue hits the UK,” by Rocknrollroutemaster, published on 8 April 2015:

It was 50 years ago today: The Motortown Revue landed at the Finsbury Park Astoria on Saturday 20 March 1965, on the first night of a package tour that took them around the UK. A 24 day trip visiting 21 theatres for two shows a night – plus a live TV special.

[T]he real reason for the tour was to launch the Tamla Motown label. Up to March 1965, there were no Tamla Motown releases in the UK because Tamla Motown didn’t exist. All those classic records from Mary Wells, Martha and the Vandellas and the Supremes came out on Stateside. The tour then was an important milestone in Motown’s international expansion and crucial in Motown breaking the UK, an ambitious label from Detroit, a booming city. And you would imagine there was a rabid audience for the music as this is 1964/5 and we were Mod-mad. Not to mention Motown’s huge influence on our own groups. The Stones did “Can I Get A Witness” and The Beatles sang three  Motown songs on With The Beatles – “Please Mr Postman,” “Money” and “You Really Got A Hold On Me.”

The first night of the tour was 20 March and two shows 6.40 and 9.10 at the Finsbury Park Astoria at 232 Seven Sisters Road N4, followed the next night with two at the Odeon Hammersmith [at] 6pm and 8pm. It then went off round England, Scotland and Wales to places like Bristol and Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Newcastle, Wolverhampton, 21 towns in 24 days. They all travelled together in a 52 seat coach on A roads. After a long trip to Bristol on the A4 – the M4 didn’t open fully till 1971 – Berry and the three Supremes opted to rent a limo for themselves for the rest of the tour. Everyone else stayed on the bus and bonded, including the Blue Flames. The Earl van Dyke Six went on first, followed by Martha & the Vandellas, a comedy spot by Northern comedian Tony Marsh before Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames, hit from a 3 year residency at the Flamingo Club’s Allnighter at 33 Wardour Street W1 closed the first half. After an interval, Earl van Dyke kicked things off again followed by Smokey & the Miracles, Little Stevie before the headliners The Supremes closed the show. On many nights the entire revue came back on and finished with a version of ‘Mickey’s Monkey’.

[T]he Motortown tour was a mixed critical success –  and a complete commercial disaster. Outside London, theatres were half full. The whole Mod thing was very London-centric so why any promoter thought they could attract 4,000 punters to then Stockton On Tees ABC or the Gaumont Theatre, Ipswich is beyond me.

While the account by Rocknrollroutemaster and other reports suggest that attendance shrank and the enthusiastic welcome received by the Revue upon arrival in London vanished abruptly after it left the capitol following the first two dates, in the BBC Four Legends TV series episode The Motown Invasion (see below), a documentary largely about the tour, music executive and Radio Luxembourg DJ Tony Hall indicates that a half empty house greeted the Revue at the very first concert, at the Finsbury Park Astoria in London on 20 March. Recalling the night, he says:

The most depressing thing of all about the opening concert was the fact that the theater was half empty. I thought it was so sad. And those of us who were there had to cheer and clap about ten times louder than usual, just to try to make up for it.

The second pair of shows, at the Hammersmith Odeon on 21 March, might not have done much better in terms of audience size. In her accounts of the tour, Mary Wilson suggests that audience sizes were small throughout the duration of the tour, and names the Hammersmith Odeon specifically. In the documentary, Mary Wilson says (bold added):

No one came. We were so excited — we’d come to the Hammersmith, or wherever we were, and the audience was like half-filled. No one was out there. So that’s why we called it the ghost tour.

From Dreamgirl and Supreme Faith: My Life as a Supreme, by Mary Wilson (2000), pp. 160-161:

Though the Supremes had made a real splash in England just six months before, the [1965 UK] Revue as a whole didn’t fare quite so well…There were avid Motown fans all over England and the Continent, but it was clear that reporters in the smaller towns really didn’t understand what the music was all about. And, for the first time in as long as many of us could remember, we were playing to half-filled houses.

The final word, by Wilson, on the small audiences encountered during tour, from the documentary:

We just thought it was going to be a sell out, you know, and this and that, and each time, we would go to a different town and a different theater and it was the same. It really never got better. But night after night, looking out into the audience and seeing a half-empty house, England was a big disappointment (laughs).

(above) Front page advertisement in the 5 March 1965 issue of the New Musical Express for the 1965 Motortown (Tamla-Motown) UK Tour

Adam White, a former Billboard editor-in-chief, co-authored the book Motown: The Sound of Young America (2016) with former Motown sales chief Barney Ales. In an article titled “Dancing in the streets of Britain,” by White, published in The Independent (Independent.co.uk), on 31 March 2005, the author says that the performers and musicians sang and played their hearts out during the 1965 Motown Revue UK Tour, “while striving valiantly not to be dispirited by a low audience turnout, the inclement weather and the difference in food (and toilet paper) that came with the territory.” The first tour date outside of London, at Colston Hall in Bristol, happened to be in White’s home city. He attended the first of the two shows at a cost of £4.

White also appears in The Motown Invasion. In the documentary, he praises the thrilling and consummate artistry of the acts in the Revue, and recalls that the opportunity to see the Motortown Revue in the provinces in early 1965 was such an improbable and extraordinary event that it was for him a “religious experience.” However, with respect to the attendance at the first Colston Hall show, in gauging the proportion of occupied seats, White says:

I just remember looking behind me in back and seeing row and row of empty seats, so…I would have said, if Colston Hall’s capacity was 2,000, there were three or four hundred people, at most, in that hall.

BBC Four Legends TV series episode The Motown Invasion — original broadcast: 20 February 2009

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When Motown Came to Britain documentary — TV special; original broadcast: 1 January 2023 (BBC Two)

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(below) Motortown Revue arrival at London Airport (later Heathrow Airport), 15 March 1965

The Supremes

• (below, clockwise)
  • 1. and 2. — The Miracles, Berry Gordy, two children (Gordy’s?), Earl Van Dyke, and others (possibly including other members of the Earl Van Dyke Sextet)
    • 1 – Getty Images editorial # 462097145
    • 2 – Getty Images editorial # 3424376
  • 3. and 4. — Martha and the Vandellas, with Berry Gordy’s father behind them

(above and below) Photos featuring members of the three recording artist vocal groups involved in the 1965 Motortown Revue UK Tour, plus the Temptations, assembled at the London landmark Marble Arch, and on steps beside the landmark, taken on 15 March 1965, shortly after the Revue’s arrival in London that day. In the above photo, the artists stand in the following order (left to right):

top row – The Miracles: Smokey Robinson, Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, Pete Moore
middle row – The Temptations: David Ruffin (shades), Melvin Franklin, Otis Williams, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams
bottom row – The Supremes: Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross; Martha and The Vandellas: Betty Kelly, Rosalind Ashford, Martha Reeves

Variations of the above order in other photos in the gallery below:

• on the steps
  • middle row: In some photos, the positions of Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams are reversed.
  • top row: In some photos, Pete Moore has moved down a couple of steps and stands beside Eddie Kendricks at the far right of the second row. In one photo, Smokey Robinson is almost completely obscured by Otis Williams.
  • In the photos featuring only the members of The Supremes and Martha and The Vandellas, the order of the women is the same as in the photos featuring the members of all four groups.
• in front of the gate (l. to r.)
  • Rosalind Ashford, Betty Kelly, Martha Reeves, Claudette Rogers Robinson, Eddie Kendricks, David Ruffin (partially obscured behind Kendricks), Smokey Robinson, Pete Moore, Otis Williams, Bobby Rogers, Melvin Franklin, Ronnie White, Paul Williams, Florence Ballard, Diana Ross, Mary Wilson
    • This photo of the four groups together taken in front of the gate is the only one in the present gallery in which Claudette Rogers Robinson is included.
  • In the photo of The Supremes only, the order is (l. to r.) Florence Ballard, Diana Ross, Mary Wilson.

(above) In this 2013 photo of Marble Arch, you can see the raised rest area to the right, with its benches and sets of four steps, where the members of the Motortown Revue UK Tour had posed 48 years earlier for the series of photos above. While in London the group stayed at The Cumberland Hotel, which is the large building beyond and to the right of the arch in this photo.

(below) Group photos taken at the Cumberland Hotel, London, presumably during the period 15-22 March 1965, before the beginning of the coach portion of the UK Tour

(below) Motortown Revue members on the sidewalks of London, and possibly elsewhere in the UK, during the 1965 UK tour (l. to r.):

• 1.-2. The Supremes with members of the Temptations Melvin Franklin and Eddie Kendricks, in London, possibly on their way to or from a photo shoot at Marble Arch on 15 March 1965, the day of their arrival. They were staying at the Cumberland Hotel, which is just across Oxford Street from Marble Arch.
• 3. The Supremes
• 4. The Supremes on pier
• 5. The Supremes with bobby
• 6. Martha and the Vandellas

(below, 9/26/2020 update) Here are some additional images of the Supremes on the streets of London during the 1965 Motortown Revue UK tour that I found recently. All images in this gallery are from the Bentley Image Bank, Bentley Historical Library, an image collection at the University of Michigan Library Digital Collections website.

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Stop! In the Name of Love (Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Edward Holland, Jr.) (Holland–Dozier–Holland)

The Supremes — Live TV studio performance for the Ready Steady Go! special The Sound of Motown (Season 2, Episode 35) — taped at Rediffusion Television Studios on 18 March 1965; originally broadcast on 28 April 1965

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(below) Images from the set of the Ready Steady Go! television special The Sound of Motown

(below) Members of the 1965 Motortown Revue UK Tour, plus the Temptations, photographed during the 19 March 1965 special showcase at EMI House to mark the launch of the UK Tamla Motown label. The two Alamy.com photos, dated 24 March 1965 at the source, seem to have been incorrectly dated by Alamy.

Embed from Getty Images

 

The Motown Encyclopedia (2014) by Graham Betts, contains the following itinerary on page 408*:

20 March – Astoria, Finsbury Park (6.40 & 9.10)
21 March – Odeon, Hammersmith (6.00 & 8.00)
22 March – Day off
23 March – Colston Hall, Bristol (6.30 & 8.45)
24 March – Capital, Cardiff (6.00 & 8.30)
25 March – Odeon, Birmingham (6.45 & 9.00)
26 March – ABC, Kingston (6.45 & 9.00)
27 March – Winter Gardens, Bournemouth (6.00 & 8.30)
28 March – Odeon, Leicester (5.40 & 8.00)
29 March – Day off
30 March – Odeon, Manchester (6.15 & 8.45)
31 March – Odeon, Leeds (6.20 & 8.40)
1 April – Odeon, Glasgow (6.40 & 9.00)
2 April – ABC, Stockton (6.15 & 8.30)
3 April – City Hall, Newcastle (6.30 & 8.45)
4 April – Empire, Liverpool (5.40 & 8.00)
5 April – Day off
6 April – ABC, Luton (6.30 & 8.45)
7 April – ABC, Chester (6.15 & 8.30)
8 April – City Hall, Sheffield (6.20 & 8.50)
9 April – ABC, Wigan (6.20 & 8.35)
10 April – Gaumont, Wolverhampton (6.30 & 8.40)
11 April – Gaumont, Ipswich (5.30 & 8.00)
12 April – Guildhall, Portsmouth (6.30 & 8.30)

(below) posters, or signs, advertising the following shows:

• 23 March – Colston Hall, Bristol (6.30 & 8.45)
• 27 March – Winter Gardens, Bournemouth (6.00 & 8.30)
• 31 March – Odeon, Leeds (6.20 & 8.40)
• 12 April – Guildhall, Portsmouth (6.30 & 8.30)

Timeline

In addition to the above itinerary of the UK tour, I’ve assembled the following timeline, with some dates still being tentative:

• 12-14 March 1965(?) — According to @blue_whippet, citing the book Motown: The History by Sharon Davis, in the soulfuldetroit.com forum thread Tamla Motown European Revue March/April 1965 – A Question, Stevie Wonder arrived three days earlier the rest of the Motortown Revue UK Tour party. In a comment on this page dated Jun 20, 2017 @ 11:40:03, @blue_whippet confirms my question regarding the title of the cited book, and then adds that both Stevie Wonder and the Temptations arrived in London on 12 April 1965, three days before the others, citing another source. He says:

  Yes I can confirm the book cited is correct – Motown: The History by Sharon Davis. In fact that early arrival date is corroborated in the excellent book Hitsville! The Birth Of Tamla Motown, by Keith Rylatt. On page 114, it states ‘both the Tempations and Stevie Wonder arrived on 12 March for pre-tour promotional visits’.

  This explains why neither Wonder nor the Temptations are found among those members of the tour seen in photographs disembarking at London Airport on 15 March, or in the group photo with the “Tamla-Motown UK Tour” banner evidently taken at London Airport that day. The Temptations are not part of the UK tour, though they are present with members of the touring party for the following events during the period 15-19 March, prior to the start of the road tour:

  • photo session at Marble Arch, 15 March
  • taping of the Ready Steady Go! television special The Sound of Motown, 18 March
  • launch of Tamla Motown label at EMI House, probably 19 March (see above)

• 15 March — The Motortown Revue arrives in London, according to the following Getty Images photos, all dated 15 March 1965, of members disembarking at London Airport from a BOAC aircraft:
  • The Supremes
  • The Miracles, Berry Gordy, two children (Gordy’s?), and members of the Earl Van Dyke Sextet
    • 1 – Getty Images editorial # 462097145
    • 2 – Getty Images editorial # 3424376
  • Martha and the Vandellas, and Berry Gordy, Sr.
• 15 March — Group photos of the Supremes, Miracles, Temptations and Martha and the Vendellas are taken at Marble Arch, London, and on steps beside the landmark (see above).
• 15-17 March — Does the Revue perform shows in Rotterdam, South Holland and Hamburg, Germany on these days, prior to the taping of the Ready Steady Go! TV special on 18 March?* Do the Supremes visit Amsterdam at this time as suggested by some sources and photographic evidence? See the soulfuldetroit.com forum thread Tamla Motown European Revue March/April 1965 – A Question for a discussion of these and related questions. See also the following, from the article titled Motortown Revue In Paris: Complete concert on 3LP or 2CD, by Justyn Barnes, published on 18 January 2016 at superdeluxeedition.com:
  • The European Tour during March-April 1965 was the first time Berry Gordy Jr.’s roadshow had ventured outside of the United States. After dates in Hamburg and Rotterdam, the Revue hit the UK, playing every night bar three from 20 March until 12 April at venues all around England, plus Cardiff and Glasgow, finishing at Portsmouth Guild Hall.
• The 1965 timeline at the website Diana Ross and the Supremes Encyclopedic…Fan Site (dianarosssupremes.free.fr) indicates that a promotional tour of Rotterdam, South Holland and Hamburg, Germany, featuring concerts at each city, took place around the period 15-17 March 1965, and that an appearance by the Supremes on the TV show “Musik Aus Studio B” was most likely recorded while the group was in Hamburg during this brief tour.
• In the soulfuldetroit.com “A Question” thread cited above, @bobkayli speculates on the timing of European visits by the Revue, before, during, or after the UK tour:
  • Could be that the whole Revue except for the Temps went to Rotterdam/Hamburg to begin with and the Temps coming to London first and were joined by the rest in London later. I need to dig out my old music magazines from the era to see if they add anything (for example concert dates for the Temps). The Temps were certainly only present for the first part of the UK Tour as Otis Williams mentions in his book The Temptations. The UK tour dates didn’t leave a lot of time to travel to Rotterdam and Hamburg. The Rotterdam date could not have followed on from Paris. Berry Gordy mentions in his book that the entourage split after Paris when he and Diana stayed on in Paris to cement their relationship so to speak.
• 18 March — The Ready Steady Go! television special The Sound of Motown is taped at Rediffusion Studios on 18 March 1965, according to various sites.
• 19 March
  • launch of the Tamla Motown UK label, according to the following:
    • 45cat.com — the label’s first singles are released on this date
    • book Tamla Motown: The Stories Behind  the UK Singles, by Terry Wilson, via @blue_whippet [I’ve given the correct title of the book.], in the soulfuldetroit.com forum thread Tamla Motown European Revue March/April 1965 – A Question
  • Members of the 1965 Motortown Revue UK Tour, plus the Temptations, appear at EMI House to celebrate launching of the UK Tamla Motown label. I’ve tentatively dated the photos presumably taken at the launching, and displayed above, 19 March 1965, though the two b&w Alamy.com photos included indicate that the date was 24 March 1964. I suspect that Alamy.com has incorrectly dated the photos. The Revue performed two shows at Cardiff on 24 March 1965, and two shows each in Bristol and Birmingham on the 23rd and 25th, respectively. It’s unlikely that they made a quick side trip to London on the 24th.
• 20 March – Astoria, Finsbury Park — two shows, 6.40 & 9.10
• 21 March – Odeon, Hammersmith — two shows. 6.00 & 8.00
• 22 March — day off
• 22 or 23 March-12 April — duration of the UK coach tour (see itinerary above) — first shows were on 23 March at Colston Hall, Bristol (6.30 & 8.45)
• 5 April — A performance by the Supremes on the German TV show Musik aus Studio B (Google translation, English) of the song “Thank You Darling” is broadcast on 5 April 1965. Thanks for this information are due to @blue_whippet, who provided a pair of relevant and helpful links in a comment dated June 18, 2017. “Thank You Darling” (Busch, Scharfenberger) was recorded by the Supremes in German and released in April 1965 on the single (Germany) CBS 1839, b/w “Jonny und Joe,” the B-side being a German-lyric version of “Come See About Me” with words by Kurt Feltz. As noted above, the 1965 timeline at dianarosssupremes.free.fr indicates that the appearance by the Supremes on Musik Aus Studio B that was broadcast on April 5, 1965 was most likely recorded during the period 15-17 March 1965 while the group was in Hamburg during a promotional tour of Rotterdam, South Holland and Hamburg, Germany.
  
• 13 April — The Motortown Revue appears at the Paris Olympia. According to the itinerary provided above, and to most sources, this is the last show of the tour. Ribowsky, p. 203, gives the wrong date, 15 April, for the show at the Paris Olympia, which is dated 13 April everywhere else.
• 13-15 April(?)– additional events in Paris involving the Motortown Revue members, according to @bobkayli in the soulfuldetroit.com thread cited above, who says:
  • On 13th/14th/15th April besides the concert there were a number of promotional events around Paris besides the Motortown Revue show at Olympia including a press launch of the French Tamla Motown label, Supremes photo sessions on the Champs Elysees, Trocadero and Bois de Boulogne as well as a Vandellas photo shoot at the Louvre as well as the Supremes almost being arrested for blocking the traffic on the Champs Elysees.
  • The 1965 timeline at dianarosssupremes.free.fr indicates that the incident on the Champs-Elysées involving the police occurred on 13 April, before the show at the Olympia, saying: During the day, they record a segment for the French TV show “Ni Figue, Ni Raisin” (the Supremes on the Champs Elysées causing a police intervention – show broadcast on French TV on May 24).
  • The dianarosssupremes.free.fr 1965 timeline also indicates that at least some of the Supremes were recording background vocals for various recordings from 15-19 April 1965, which suggests that they had returned to the US by April 15th.
• Like the above account by @bobkayli, the article Motortown Revue In Paris: Complete concert on 3LP or 2CD, by Justyn Barnes, published on 18 January 2016 at superdeluxeedition.com, indicates that the Motortown Revue members remained in Paris for at least a couple of days after the Olympia show on 13 April, saying:
  • The gig at Paris’s Olympia Theatre on 13 April 1965 was the last leg of the tour…The next couple of days saw the launch of the French Tamla Motown label and various photo shoots around Paris including one where The Supremes quite literally stopped the traffic on the Champs Elysees (they nearly got arrested).
• 14-16 (?) April
  • After departure of most members of the Tamla Motown Revue touring party, according to The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal, by Mark Ribowsky (2009 edition), p. 204, Berry Gordy and Diana Ross stay behind in Paris for an additional couple of days, though it’s not precisely clear on which day the others depart.
  • The dianarosssupremes.free.fr 1965 timeline indicates that at least some of the Supremes were recording background vocals for various recordings from 15-19 April 1965, presumably back in the US, and Diana Ross’s lead vocal for the Supremes’ first version of “(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave,” unreleased until 2017, was recorded on 18 April 1965.
  • On the other hand, a link provided by @blue_whippet in a comment dated June 18, 2017 leads to an article in the April 17, 1965 issue of Billboard magazine, where on p. 14 and p. 18 we read the following: “The Supremes are making their first tour of Germany. The U.S. group is appearing under auspices of CBS Schallplatten and Aberbach Musikverlage.” The phrase “are making their first tour of Germany” suggests that the tour was ongoing either at the time the article was written or on 17 April 1965 when the issue was published, but I’ve found no evidence elsewhere of such a tour encompassing that date.
• 28 April 1965 — The Ready Steady Go! television special The Sound of Motown is broadcast, after the Motortown Revue touring party has returned to the U.S. Ribowsky incorrectly claims that it was broadcast during the third week of the tour.

(below) The Supremes risk life and limb dancing in stop and go traffic on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris as they lip sync to “Where Did Our Love Go.” Diana Ross is very nearly struck in the right leg by a vehicle at 1:16. Toward the end of the clip a policeman instructs them to get off the street, finally pushing Mary Wilson by the shoulder, forcing her over the curb and into a pedestrian area, before grabbing her arm as if to arrest her.

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more Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images.
Embed from Getty Images.
Embed from Getty Images.Embed from Getty Images

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* There are only three days off in the UK tour itinerary from the Motown Encyclopedia, and the last date of the tour is one day after the Guildhall, Portsmouth shows, at the Olympia in Paris on 13 April. However, some sites refer to this tour as the Motortown or Tamla Motown European Tour of 1965, and various sources suggest that the revue also did shows in Rotterdam (Holland) and Hamburg (Germany). The 1965 timeline at the website Diana Ross and the Supremes Encyclopedic…Fan Site indicates that a promotional tour of Rotterdam, Holland and Hamburg, Germany, featuring concerts, took place during the dates 15-17 March 1965, and that an appearance by the Supremes on the TV show “Musik Aus Studio B” was recorded while the group was in Hamburg during this brief tour.

On undated and questionably dated photographs reportedly taken in Rotterdam, Hamburg, and Amsterdam, March-April 1965:

• Alamy.com has two different edits of what appear to be the same photograph, supposedly taken in Rotterdam in April 1965, that shows the Supremes, the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, and Stevie Wonder performing on stage in an ensemble number, probably the show’s finale.
• Alamy.com has several photographs which, they claim, show the Supremes in Hamburg in 1965. Links to four photos at Alamy.com of the Supremes, apparently taken at the Hotel Atlantic Kempinski in Hamburg c. March 1965, were provided here on 8 November 2019 and working fine, but less than 24 hours later each of the links was getting redirected, and I’ve been unable to locate the images elsewhere on the site. It looks like the images were quickly removed from the site within hours of my linking to them here. In the four photos that I refer to, Diana Ross appears to be wearing the same dress that she wore at Marble Arch on 15 March 1965 (but a different fur; see images from the Marble Arch photo session above), though the other two members of the Supremes are dressed differently than they did at Marble Arch.

Some as yet unanswered questions:

1. Other than Paris, what European cities did members of the 1965 Motortown ‘UK-European’ perform in, or visit for other reasons, and when — whether before, after, or between UK appearances? If the tour, or some of its members, appeared in Rotterdam and Hamburg, as various notices and reports suggest, supported to some degree by photographic evidence, then when did these visits occur? Did the visits occur before the UK tour, during the UK tour (on days off), or following the UK tour and the 13 April Paris show at the Olympia?
2. A performance by the Supremes on the German TV show Musik aus Studio B (Google translation: English) of the song “Thank You Darling” is broadcast on 5 April 1965. Was it performed fully live or to playback during the broadcast on 5 April, which was one of the three off days from the UK tour, taped on that date, or taped on an earlier date (see the Timeline above)?
3. On which date or dates did the touring party depart to return to the US? The fact that, according to the 1965 timeline at dianarosssupremes.free.fr, at least some of the Supremes were recording background vocals for various recordings from 15-19 April 1965 suggests that Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard had returned to the US on or before 14 April.

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Selected resources:

books:

• Motown: The History, by Sharon Davis (1988)
• Dreamgirl and Supreme Faith: My Life as a Supreme, by Mary Wilson (2000)
• Motown: The Golden Years, by Bill Dahl, with photographs by Weldon A. McDougal III (2001)
• Marvin Gaye, My Brother, by Frankie Gaye (2003)
• Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power, by Gerald Posner (2009)
• The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal, by Mark Ribowsky (2009 edition)
• Motown Encyclopedia, by Graham Betts (2014)
• The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1963, by Ed Ward (2016)
• Hitsville! The Birth of Tamla Motown, by Keith Rylatt (2016) – Amazon
  • 11 November 2016 announcement of book publishing in soul-source.co.uk forum thread
  • 14 November 2016 announcement of book “launch” in soul-source.co.uk article
• Motown: The Sound of Young America, by Adam White and Barney Ales (2016)

documentary:

• Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music – Episode 3 of 6: “The Sound Of Young America”
  • part 1
  • part 2
  • part 3
  • part 4
  • part 5
  • part 6
• Legends: The Motown Invasion (BBC Four TV series episode); airdate: 20 February 2009

articles and web pages:

• “Dancing in the streets of Britain,” by Adam White, published in The Independent (Independent.co.uk), 31 March 2005
• “Motown in our town: the 1965 Motortown Revue hits the UK,” published at Rocknrollroutemaster.com, 8 April 2015
• Five London spots for Motown fans, by Adam White, published on 7 March 2016 at TimeOut.com
• Motown: The Sound of Young America – in pictures, published at The Observer on 29 March 2016
• Motortown Revue In Paris: Complete concert on 3LP or 2CD, by Justyn Barnes, published on 18 January 2016 at superdeluxeedition.com
• soulfuldetroit.com forum thread Tamla Motown European Revue March/April 1965 – A Question, started by @blue-whippet on 23 March 2013 (03-23-2013)
• soul-source.co.uk “All About the Soul” forum thread titled TAMLA MOTOWN 1965 TOUR, started by @thierry on 2 May 2016
• Motown: Six Months That Shook The World, by Jason Draper, published on 11 January 2016 at udiscovermusic.com
• 1965 timeline at the website Diana Ross and the Supremes Encyclopedic…Fan Site
• Concerts Wiki
  • The Supremes
  • Martha and the Vandellas