RIGHT: Detroit A Go Go guests reenacting the "protest march" from 1964
Soul singer Tommy Good only had one Motown single release, but he recorded a couple of dozen tracks during his short time at Hitsville U.S.A., some of them exceptional.
A Detroit native, Good came to Motown in 1963. Today he is best-known for a fake grassroots campaign Motown mounted to promote his one and only single, the label organizing a “protest march” ostensibly made up of Tommy’s fans on Hitsville demanding they release his record, after which Motown “acquiesced to public demand.” It was all nonsense, but Tommy played along gamely.
Tommy Good performing on the Hitsville U.S.A. porch in 1964 and 2022
Some 58 years later, Motown Museum partnered with Detroit A-Go-Go, a group of music enthusiasts from the United Kingdom, to honor the cultural impact of Tommy Good’s 1964 protest! This historic event in record promotion was reenacted by our traveling fans on Rocket Plaza at Motown Museum and Tommy Good himself serenading the crowd by singing “Honey Lane” (the original recording had backup vocals performed by The Temptations) on the steps of Studio A.
Motown alumni including composer Paul Riser, The Andantes’ Louvain Demps and Jackie Hicks, and musician McKinley Jackson later joined Tommy and our Detroit A-Go-Go guests for Meet & Greets—sharing personal Motown memories with fans and media inside Hitsville Next.
Tommy Good fans crowd the steps of Hitsville U.S.A. to see the performance (1964 and 2022)
The Detroit News