USO arranged Tours of UK / European USA military bases

[Roburt]

I touched on this subject in the 1960's UK Soul Clubs thread. But I need to take it further. 

The USO -- American United Services Organisation -- was set up to make US servicemen stationed abroad feel happier. Many were young men on their own, miles from home, in a strange country & feeling lonely. AFN radio was set up to bring them familiar entertainment but they still had many hours of 'down time'.

In the 1960's / 70's 100's of US bases existed across Europe (in Germany, Spain, UK, Greenland, etc.), so there were 1000's of troops who needed entertaining. Many were black guys, some of these in near active combat areas (Germany in the 60's, the threat from over the Berlin Wall, etc.) Further afield there were more active combat zones (Viet Nam, etc) and the USO also organised entertainment out there (but that's mainly beyond the scope of this thread).

ANYWAY, with big US bases around London + in Norfolk, Suffolk & Oxfordshire, there were lots of guys needing to be distracted from their daily miliary grind. So the USO organised tours to entertain them. Movie stars, famous sportsmen, dancers (female ones being very popular) and singers were brought over to put on shows on the US bases.

Over 10 years ago, I gained access to the local US bases in Norfolk's ON-BASE NEWSPAPERS via (I think) the Norwich Library or Norwich Uni's on-line service. Thus, I was able to look through these monthly publications and check for news of who was visiting the UK and which UK based they would be performing at. This facility no longer appears to be available THOUGH I guess the actual publications are still held in Norwich.

With Trump now running things in the US, he intends to scale down the US military's role in Europe, so I guess even more US based will be closed than has been the case in the last 30 years. So if we lose the bases, the USO will no longer arrange tours for US singers of UK bases. As it is, at present it's quite hard to get hold of info on who (from the soul field) toured over in Germany and the UK. It would be good if folk who have any info on such shows on British US bases would contribute their knowledge to this thread. Bases that were the most active with regard to such shows were (to my knowledge) Upper Heyford, Lakenheath & Mildenhall.

I know the likes of Kenny Hamber played shows at all 3 of these bases and many other soul stars did shows in the UK and in Germany. I just don't know who & when they undertook these tours. I seem to recall a few soul singers undertaking normal UK tours in the 60's being asked to add a couple of shows @ British US bases to their itineraries (Lee Dorsey springs to mind).   

MORE FAMOUSLY, certain big stars tours did get a fair bit of publicity, but these were shows staged in the UK. James Brown did a tour of Viet Nam bases. Joey Heatherton also did such tours (which went down well). A less famous do-wop group also got publicity coz a couple of their members refused to go on their proposed tour in Viet Nam -- this was the Dozier Boys. Lola Falana also toured in Viet Nam, as did another black do-wop group who accompanied Marilyn Monroe on her far east tour (lots of pics of this exist but the name of the group wasn't stated -- I used to know who they were but my mind is like a sieve these days). DJ Georgie Woods also got involved at one point. A couple of gospel groups were hired by the USO to do shows on bases in the mid 60's but when checking these turned out to be insipid white Christian groups -- seems those employed at the USO had a 'white bias' back then.

Anyway, I'm attaching a few pics to illustrate this topic, hope I get some input from others on this topic ...  

[Roburt]

A few related videos ... 

Disc Jockey selects and plays record at AFN (American Forces Network) studio in B...

this one is a film version I guess ... 

 

[Roburt]

It's very hard to track down info on which soul acts played UK USA military bases. With Viet Nam being much better reported, that's an easier task. Just some of those that played for troops in Viet Nam were ...

Barbara McNair, Rosie Greer, Teresa Graves, Toni Washington, the Ink Spots, Anita Bryant, Jackie DeShannon and more ...  as already stated Joey Heatherton, the Dozier Boys & Lola Falana played shows there too.  

Edited 19 hours ago by Roburt

[Roburt]

I found a couple of mentions of singers playing USA military bases in Germany, none at present for UK shows. But these happened on a regular basis at places like Upper Heyford, Lakenheath & Mildenhall. It seems that such visits are still going on these days as well.

 

[Roburt]

QUOTE from my 1st post on this thread ... seems those employed at the USO had a 'white bias' back then.

THIS IS BACKED UP by this from James Brown about his trip to Viet Nam to entertain the troops ... James Brown says that it was Bob Hope himself, interestingly enough, who would clinch the Vietnam tour at the May, 1968 State Dinner:  “[He] told some of the USO people, ‘If you’re going to get anybody to perform for the troops, James Brown is the man.”  . . . The sad joke at the time was that “Armed Forces Radio Network offered two kinds of music:  country and western.”

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Roburt