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While the Beatles were cutting a swath across America and conquering the US pop charts during the mid-1960s British Invasion, another important musical phenomenon was taking place across the Atlantic-the Motown Invasion of Britain. While American teenagers were avidly consuming the Beatles' records, British teenagers were discovering Berry Gordy's Motown Revue and forming a fan base for a genre now known as "British Soul." This devotion to black American artists such as Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye, and Aretha Franklin influenced the careers of British artists including Lulu, Tom Jones, and Annie Lennox. The first and perhaps best-known British artist in this long line of "blue-eyed soul" vocalists was the late Dusty Springfield (1939-1999).
Springfield was the most important figure in facilitating the Motown Invasion. In addition to covering many Motown hits herself, she gave the Suprêmes, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, and many other groups their first television exposure in the LTK. The Motown stars' appearance on Springfield's television special The Sounds of Motown in 1965 was as significant as the Beatles' landmark 1965 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, which catapulted them into the commercial stratosphere. The Sounds of Motown was conceived and hosted by Springfield for the express purpose of igniting the careers of the Detroit singers in European markets. Through Springfield's advocacy, these Detroit artists were transported into the Europop spotlight.1
During The Sounds of Motown, audiences in Britain and across the globe were able to see the singers performing live the songs they had been hearing on their radios - songs such as "Dancin' in the Streets" by Martha and the Vandellas, "Stop in the Name of Love" by the Suprêmes, and "Just My Imagination" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The show allowed British and BBC audiences to view an image of African Americans who modeled a hopeful postcolonial vision for the African diaspora. "Detroit" represented the social and political attainment of black, middleclass urbanites who were rockin' and rollin,' but who also stood in stark contrast to other contemporary images of African Americans that Europeans were likely to have seen: television news footage of black civil rights protesters in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia as they were assaulted by police, harassed by White Citizens' Councils, and stalked by the Ku...