Pathe-Marconi Red Carpets Motown in France, Promoting Gordy’s Acts and New Tamla-Motown Label
PARIS — Pathe–Marconi pulled out all stops this week to launch the Tamla-Motown sound in France.
The European premiere of the T-M show was a sell-out concert at the Paris Olympia Theater which featured most of the Berry Gordy Jr. team–the Supremes, the Miracles, Martha and the Vendettas, Stevie Wonder and the Earl Van Dyke
Sextet.
To this concert Pathe-Marconi summoned their representatives in Holland, Sweden, West Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway and Denmark. Organization costs for this pilgrimage and the lavish midnight cocktail party that followed the concert amounted to some $4,000.
It was Pathe-Marconi’s biggest promotion since the acquisition of the Capitol label 10 years ago. Advance publicity for the launching of the Tamla-Motown label included special point-of-sale record displays and 50 huge posters—total area 12,000 square yards–at strategic points throughout Paris. There were also display advertisements in France’s paper, France Soir.
Said Pathe-Marconi pressman, M. Boullen: “The launching of the Tamla-Motown label here comes at a time when French record buyers are becoming more inclined to accept lyrics in English. There is now a very noticeable tendency for them to prefer the original record, in English, to the French language cover version.”
Enthusiastic Crowd
The Tamla team got an enthusiastic reception from the French audience and Berry Gordy Jr. told Billboard afterwards he was well satisfied with the reaction.
In a short speech at the cocktail party, Gordy said that his company always tried to put quality first and recalled that last year Tamla-Motown put out 65 singles, of which 44 got into the American charts.
First releases of the label in France include disks by the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Earl Van Dyke. Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells, the Miracles, the Velvelettes, the Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Contours and Brenda Holloway.
Berry Gordy also announced that Tamla-Motown had signed French singer Richard Anthony. END
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Credit source information (as published): Billboard, May 1, 1965
