DAVE MARSH (1950-2026)

Dave Marsh, who has died aged 76, was amongst the first music writers I befriended in New York where I was posted in 1973 and spent the better part of the next four years as Melody Maker’s man in the US. He and I bonded over our shared admiration for The Who, but I soon came to realise that he was no sycophant and that if he felt The Who were straying from the path of righteousness – as he saw it – then he’d be the first to take them to task. Indeed, any rock or soul act that he deemed had somehow betrayed whatever values and virtues rock music was duty bound to fulfil would feel the sharpness of his pen.

In this respect Dave held true to the old-fashioned values that I believe were shared by, amongst others, Dylan, Lennon, Townshend and Springsteen; that not only was there an intrinsic morality in rock music but that its best exponents were duty bound to uphold that morality. Like these stars, Dave believed that while rock music couldn’t save the planet it did have the power to improve our world. He was the enemy of overt commercialisation, of vanity, of greed, of tastelessness and of any act that disrespected or short-changed their fans. He made a few enemies along the way but he didn’t give a shit. 

Born in Michigan, Dave co-founded Creem magazine in Detroit where he worked alongside his close friend Lester Bangs. Between them they turned Creem into an opinionated ‘must-read’ for serious rock fans, covering metal, glam and punk, never afraid to write dismissive reviews of LPs they felt were under par, regardless of the act’s popularity or status. He went on to become an associate editor of Rolling Stone, the rock and pop columnist for Newsday and in the early 1980s launched Rock’n’Roll Confidential, a subscription-only fanzine-style pamphlet that exposed dubious practices in the music industry. I was an early subscriber and even contributed a few ideas.

Dave went on to write over 20 books. His first was Born To Run, the first substantial biography of Springsteen for which Omnibus Press acquired UK rights in 1981. He wrote a second book on Springsteen, entitled Glory Days, published in 1987, his connection to Springsteen enabled by his marriage to Barbara Carr, whom I first met as a publicist with Atlantic Records in New York and who went on to co-manage Springsteen with Jon Landau. 

Dave also wrote Before I Get Old, the second in a triumvirate of Who biographies that were published in the early eighties, alongside Richard Barnes’ Maximum R&B and my own Illustrated Biography. Many fans felt the book was too pro-Townshend, with scant attention paid to the other three members of the group, but Dave didn’t care; that was the way he saw it and the way he wanted to write it. When he came to the UK to research the book we visited a few old Who sites together, among them the Oldfield Hotel in Greenford where, in February of 1964 they billed themselves as The Who for the first time, and in May of that year were joined on stage by a drummer from the audience whose name was Keith Moon. Dave and I shared a couple of pints and, together, we closed our eyes and tried to imagine the scene that night. The Oldfield was demolished in 2001.

The Oldfield Hotel where Dave and I tried to imagine the night Keith played for The Who for the first time.

        In the 1990s, when I was involved in the reissue of upgraded CDs from The Who’s back catalogue, I commissioned Dave to write liner notes for The Who Sell Out. He delivered in spades, describing it as, “The Who’s consummate masterpiece, the one work that holds together as most tightly as concept and realisation. Sell Out is the most fun of any Who album, and the one whose spirit is most tightly linked to the glorious pop insanity that psychedelia and its aftermath destroyed forever.”

Among the many other books that Dave wrote were The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World’s Most Famous Rock’n’Roll Song, and biographies of Michael Jackson, Sam & Dave and George Clinton. His journalism was collected in Fortunate Son (1983) and his only book on the Beatles, The Beatles Second Album (2007), mercilessly skewered Dave Dexter, the clueless Capitol Records employee responsible for overseeing Beatles releases in America. Both Lennon and George Martin were also highly critical of Dexter, of whose work Dave described as “genuinely stupid”.

Many bands felt the sharp tip of Dave’s pen, among them Led Zeppelin – he was particularly critical of John Bonham’s drumming – Queen, Journey and, most notably, Kiss. Then again, he could be critical of his favourite band, The Who, writing of Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy in 1972: “They really let us down this time. I don’t know if anyone else resents it, but I do. Why reissue things for the second (third) time on an album when you have such an incredible backlog of material? C'mon Peter: who won't get fooled again?” I disagreed with him on that one and can recall an evening spent arguing with him over its merits at JPs bar on New York's Upper East Side. On another night in that same bar my friend Glen Colson and I joined a heated discussion involving Dave, Barbara, Jon Landau and Bruce, the topic ‘the greatest British hit singles’. 

        Wrote Bruce on his website today: “[Dave] was a true Rock’n’Roll Lifer. He was soulful, intelligent, heartfelt, opinionated, bruising and often fantastically argumentative. Watching Jon Landau and Dave drive each other crazy over some arcane piece if music would make my day.”

Dave had been ill for some time and I was told recently by a mutual friend that he was losing his sight. I hope to hell he never lost his hearing and that during his final days Barbara cranked up the speakers in their Connecticut home and played Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, Dave’s all-time favourite song, at top volume.

RIP old pal. 

VICKI WICKHAM (1939-2026)

Vicki Wickham, whose death aged 87 was announced at the weekend, was everywhere that mattered in music during the sixties and seventies, her finger always on the pulse, rushing around to meet someone, to be somewhere, to do something. Bursting with energy, she was the pioneering spirit behind Ready Steady Go!, where the weekend started, still the yardstick by which rock and pop on TV is measured. She more than anyone introduced the UK to the music of Tamla Motown, wrote for several music magazines, most notably Melody Maker, and managed successful acts. She was even the co-writer of the lyrics to a number one hit, her great pal Dusty Springfield’s ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’ in 1966. 

In 1971, on my first visit to New York, by then Vicki’s adopted home town, she steered me into a situation that enabled me to see The Who on US soil for the first time, and we remained good friends ever since, most especially after I moved to New York to become Melody Maker’s US editor in 1973 and remained in the city for three years. Partly this was because Vicki was an early supporter of The Who, occasionally part of their extended entourage and, for a period in the 1970s, headed Track Records New York office. She first encountered the group at the Marquee Club in 1965, and very quickly befriended their co-manager Kit Lambert. Shortly after its release in May 1965, The Who’s second single, ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’ became RSG!’s theme tune. 

        “Vicki, bounding from the control room [at RSG!] to the studio, beaming, laughing and enthusiastic, tall and beautiful, but a little scruffy with it, like a highland pony,” wrote Pete Townshend in Andy Neill’s definitive book on RSG! “She [and RSG! director Michael Lindsay-Hogg] both conveyed the sense that we were, all of us, breaking every rule of television. I felt they were breaking societal rules as well, and of course that is now a given.”

        “Of all the groups on Ready Steady Go!, The Who most typified what the show was all about,” Vicki told US writer Dave Marsh for his Who biography Before I Get Old. “RSG! was instant pop music. It was every trend before it happened, and things came and went super-fast. It was about youth and their dreams and aspirations and had nothing to do with thinking about tomorrow… The Who was all of that.”

        Vicki was born on 23 March 1939 in Newbury, Berkshire, and raised in the village of Inkpen, the only child of a farmer and nurse. At 18, she moved to London to attend Langham Secretarial College. Her first job was with publishing house Cassell & Co in the City. A succession of dead-end jobs followed before she found work as a production assistant on BBC Radio Light Entertainment. She worked on all types of programmes ranging from Roundabout, Easy Beat, Jazz Club and Saturday Club to semi-feature documentaries. Two years later she switched to ITV, to Associated-Rediffusion, becoming secretary to Elkan Allan who would become the producer of RSG! and it was while Allan was dictating a letter about what would become RSG! that Vicki piped up and demanded to become involved.

        Involved she most certainly became. Music mad, switched on and out at clubs all night, Vicki befriended all the groups that appeared on the show, The Beatles and Rolling Stones among them, and she was an early and uber-enthusiastic promoter of black music. In 1965, she was instrumental in putting together an RSG! offshoot special featuring several Tamla Motown acts, The Supremes, Martha & The Vandellas, The Temptations and The Miracles. “The wonderful Vicky Wickham had convinced her boss to do a one-hour TV special,” said Motown founder Berry Gordy. “The Sound Of Motown was a big moment for us because it brought our music and artists to the UK’s national TV audiences for the first time.”

        Vicki’s crusade to promote black acts continued until the show went off the air, with Wilson Pickett, Irma Thomas, the Exciters, Arthur Alexander and Don Covay also appearing. When Doris Troy arrived in London, not only was she immediately booked but Vicki threw a welcoming party for her at Blaise’s club in South Kensington where Vicki first caught sight of the all-female group that were to play an important role in her future. This was Patti LaBelle and The Bluebelles whom she would book for RSG! and go on to manage. Nona Hendryx from the group became Vicki’s lifelong partner. 

        In the meantime Vicki wrote for several music magazines, starting with Fabulous, then Disc & Music Echo and finally MM. Covering The Who’s prestigious performance of Tommy live at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in 1969, she wrote in MM: “At the end of the first show, over the incessant clapping, cries for more, shouting and applause coming through the back-stage speakers, I heard Pete say to Kit Lambert as he went back out for an encore: ‘You really book us on some bum gigs, man!’

        “They then did another twenty minutes, climaxed by Pete banging his guitar down on stage. It broke and he hurled it into the audience. Later some very small girl was hugging it like a baby as she made for the subway homeward bound!

        “The Who's performance on both shows was superb. I haven't seen them perform for some time and although I hadn't forgotten how dynamic they were, they topped all memories. Roger, his bare chest glistening, has come through as having a great body, and taken over and surpassed where Jim Morrison left off image-wise. At times he's like an angel, the lights haloing his hair against the background: then like a devil, meanly throwing the mike towards the audience, up in the air, almost to Pete and then back to neatly catch it. And Pete, in his white boiler-suit, attacking his guitar. He leaps feet above the stage, lands and goes down on his knees, to emphasise a passage. But perhaps it's Keith who steals the stage. He's everywhere. He's all over his massive drum-kit, contorting, leaping, his sticks soaring, twirling high in the air and being caught to thunderous applause. He ‘mimes’ behind Pete, he pours with sweat, he enjoys himself, and his drumming is out of sight. And then there's John. At first hardly noticeable, dressed entirely in black merging with the shadows of the amps, but as you listen the bass comes pounding through. Four people — the most exciting group in the world.”

        I wish I’d been there. 

        Vicki went on to manage Dusty Springfield and she co-wrote a Dusty biography Dancing With Demons with Penny Valentine, published in 2012. At various times she also managed Holly Johnson, Marc Almond and, very briefly, Morrissey. In 2013, Vicki was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to music. 

        RIP Vicki. 

(Some of the information in this post was gleaned from Ready Steady Go! – The Weekend Starts Here by Andy Neill, published by BMG in 2020. The photograph at the top of this post was scanned from Rock's Back Pages website, where many of her music press articles can be found.)