Fact #118500

Mark Volman (vocalist, The Turtles) : : We were an overnight success after three years. We were immediately slung out on the road. That first year we did about 280 days of touring. We did a Dick Clark Caravan Of Stars immediately, six months long tour with Peter And Gordon, Tom Jones. We were immediately pulled out of high school and flung into an entirely different world. So, it was an immediate change. The seriousness of the music industry was upon us in terms of having hit songs, record company needs for us in terms of having those hit songs. It was a really important thing and up until then, everything had been pretty much a hobby, even though we were pretty serious about it.
(Source : interview at http://www.classicbands.com/TurtlesInterview.html)

Tom Jones : It was murder. All these different acts in the same bloody bus, and there were no couches, just regular seats. Peter And Gordon were the only other British people.

Peter Asher : The tour was sponsored by Dr Pepper, a foul concoction, so the only thing you could drink on the bus was this cooler of Dr Pepper.

Gordon Waller : We had to be seen drinking it on stage. We had to bound on stage and shout, 'Hey kids, this stuff is great.' In fact, we both hated the taste of it. So every night I got our roadie, Keith, to empty the bottle and replace it with a double scotch and coke which looked exatly the same. I never told Peter about that.

Peter Asher : The atmosphere on the bus was incredibly good, a real camaraderie, but it was incredibly crowded, and there were three clear camps. Black American acts, white American acts and English acts. I could impress the white Americans with tales of how I Want To Hold Your Hand was written in my house, but the black ones were something else. They were as street wise as Gordon and I were wet behind the ears.

Tom Jones : The best part of it was, people would get out their guitars and start singing songs, but the country is so big, after so many hours on a bus, arriving just in time to do a show, then back on the bus all through the night. I thought, God, if this is showbusiness in America, you can keep it.

Peter Asher : You only stayed in a hotel every second night. Dick Clark was a very shrewd businessman and he arranged dates so that every second night you'd be driving to the next date through the night, and arrive in the hotel first thing in the morning. We'd all troop off the bus and have to sit around in the lobby for a couple of hours until they'd let us into the rooms.

This was at the peak of our success, so we started out headlining but, later on, when It's Not Unusual went to No1, Tom Jones became the headliner.

Dick Clark : The star of the tour was usually a white teen idol. That was the performer who'd get the most screams and probably the highest pay. In those days, they got $2,500 a week.

Peter Asher : It was odd, because you only ever did three or four numbers and then the next act trooped on.

Tom Jones : And going through the Southern States, every time you stopped you had to make sure that a white person got off to go into the truck stop because if one of the black people went in there they'd shoot them.
(Source : Sylvie Simmons interview in Mojo, October 1999)

Dick Clark : For most of us from the semi-integrated world of the North, it was scary. The shocking part was to walk outside the bus and go into a theatre where the blacks sat downstairs or upstairs or on one side or in separate shows. To have to eat in a Greyhound bus terminal, live in different hotels.

Tom Jones : You had to be careful who you were talking to when you were walking around in daylight. Shirley (Owens) the lead singer of The Shirelles, and I were talking away in this hotel and all of a sudden she marched off. Later, I said, 'What's up with you?' And she said, 'Didn't you see those people in the lobby? They were staring at us. We were touching. You can't do that in the South. They wouldn't only hang me, they'd hang you as well. Nigger-lover they would call you.'
(Source : Sylvie Simmons interview in Mojo, October 1999)

Dick Clark : You can't live and eat and sleep next to people in a bus for that long and not begin to feel, 'These are my people. We are together.'

Peter Asher : Once, the bus made a food stop at some little town in the South. I was friendly with one of The Shirelles and decided to lunch with her. She was reluctant, but I was naïve enough to think nothing of it. Of course, as soon as we went in, all these huge trucker types started glaring at us in a terrifying way. I just hadn't realised how strong the race thing was. But we got fed,and we were lucky enough to get out without anything serious happening.

Tom Jones : We were in this truck stop and they started having a go at Mel Carter and he couldn't contain himself. The cops just ran in, grabbed him and flung him in a paddy wagon. I said to this cop, 'You can't just come in here just grab somebody and throw him in. You didn't even ask any questions.' And he said, 'You gonna stay out of this, boy?' And I said, 'No, I'm not going to stay out of this. I'm British.' And the cop put his left hand on my chest, his right hand on his gun and I started seeing it come out in slow motion, and he said, 'I'm gonna ask you one more time. You gonna stay out of this?'

And I said, 'Yessir!' My legs were shaking. There was nothing I could do. He would have shot me. I thought, 'My mother's going to pick up the paper and read, 'Tom Jones Shot In Mississippi'. Jesus, these people are mad. So that was my first fucking trip to America.
(Source : Sylvie Simmons interview in Mojo, October 1999)

Peter Asher : The Drifters were big into poker, played all the time, and we got drawn into the games with them, but we never won. And neither did they. Ronnie Dove always won.

At the end of the tour we had a huge party to celebrate and I remember we all had to dress up and perform as one of the other acts. So Gordon, me and Tom Jones put on spangly dresses and we became The Shirelles for one night only.