David Bowie is (part 8): 'I'd rather stay here'

Original UK cover

At the beginning of 1970 Bowie's half-brother Terry who had been having schizophrenic episodes for a while had been admitted to Cane Hill, a mental asylum not far from Beckenham. Bowie's aunt Pat later criticised Bowie for abandoning his half-brother although there seems to have been little he could have done for him. Nevertheless Bowie appeared to feel guilty, perhaps a form of 'survivor's guilt' that Terry had inherited the madness that afflicted their mother's family while he had not.

In any case it was the inspiration for one of the best tracks on his next album, The Man Who Sold the World, namely 'All the Madmen'. Bowie describes Cane Hill 'a mansion cold and grey', 'high' and on the 'far side of town'. He also sings, 'I'd rather stay here with all the madmen' (including Terry), than remain on the outside with all 'the sad men'.

The Man Who Sold the World has a hard-edged, heavy rock sound that propells Bowie's songs into new dimensions. There has been discussion about how much this was down to Bowie and how much this was down to guitarist Mick Ronson and bassist/producer Tony Visconti who did a lot of the work arranging the songs while Bowie was elsewhere. I prefer to think of it as a dialectical relationship. Bowie inspired Ronson/Visconti to come up with the arrangements that in turn inspired Bowie to deliver his side of the bargain. This is borne out by the fact that when Ronson/Visconti when on to form 'Ronno' shortly afterwards the results were less than impressive. This album, however, is a classic, Bowie's first truly great album.

 

The Man Who Sold The World
All songs written and composed by David Bowie

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	'The Width of a Circle'	8:05
2.	'All the Madmen'	5:38
3.	'Black Country Rock'	3:32
4.	'After All'	3:52

Side two
No.	Title	Length
5.	'Running Gun Blues'	3:11
6.	'Saviour Machine'	4:25
7.	'She Shook Me Cold'	4:13
8.	'The Man Who Sold the World'	3:55
9.	'The Supermen'	3:38

   

Original US cover (with Cane Hill in the background)

In late 1970 it seemed as though all the pieces were finally dropping into place for David Bowie. However, over the next few months everyone except his girlfriend Angie would desert him. First it was producer and bassist Tony Visconti. Visconti decided he needed to spend time with his other up-and-coming artist: Marc Bolan. Bolan had just shortened the name of his band to T-Rex and Visconti produced his next single and album. 'Ride a White Swan' would be Bolan's breakthrough single. Meanwhile Bowie went back into the studio to record his next single. As all of the songs on The Man Who Sold the World were deemed to have too much of a hard rock edge and too dark a lyrical content to be commercially viable for a single release, Bowie recorded a new song 'Holy Holy'. This version has never been released again, always replaced by a version re-recorded in 1972 during the Ziggy Stardust sesssions. Shortly afterwards Ronson and Woodmansey decided to go back to Hull and Bowie hired Tony DeFries, a lawyer, to rid him of his out-of-touch (as Bowie saw it) manager Ken Pitt. In a few months time DeFries would assume the role of Bowie's manager but for the moment with the failure of yet another single, DeFries lost interest. Bowie was creatively isolated and alone. However it was this state of affairs that would, in the end, be the making of him.

 

In 1971 Bowie cocooned himself in Haddon Hall. With Visconti off with Marc Bolan, his flat was empty so Bowie installed an upright piano. Instead of his 12-string guitar, Bowie now started writing on the piano. The result was a slew of great piano-based songs such as 'Changes' and 'Life On Mars?' but perhaps one which is overlooked is 'Oh! You Pretty Things'. The song, which like McCartney did with 'Yesterday', Bowie woke up humming, was given to Peter Noone formerly with Herman's Hermits to record and was released as a single. It got to number 12 in the charts. So Bowie's first big hit since 'Space Oddity was sung by someone else, although Bowie plays piano on the track. Bowie was happy, however, and he would go on to record it for his next album.
 

Burretti and Bowie

David Bowie formed the fictional band Arnold Corns around this time. This was one of Bowie’s side projects and Bowie wrote the songs. The 'singer' was 19 year old dress designer Freddie Burretti (also known as Rudi Valentino). With the help of Mick Ronson, Mick Woodmansey and Trevor Bolder, Arnold Corns was created during the spring of 1971. Bowie was writing material that later became his fourth album, as well as songs earmarked for Burretti. Burretti as the frontman was a total fabrication. Bowie sang on all the recorded material.

 

The band’s first single was 'Moonage Daydream' with the B-side 'Hang On to Yourself', released on B&C Records in May 1971 and was a flop. Both these songs later reappeared on Ziggy Stardust in new versions with updated lyrics. The Arnold Corns versions appeared as bonus tracks on the Rykodisc CD re-release of The Man Who Sold the World. A second single 'Looking for a Friend' with the B-side 'Man in the Middle' was planned but scrapped. In 1972, B&C issued 'Hang On to Yourself' with the B-side 'Man in the Middle' as the second single.

 

1972 re-issue cover

On 30 May 1971 Angie Bowie gave birth to Duncan Zowie (pronounced Zoe) Haywood (after David's father) Jones. At first known as Zowie Bowie, he would later change his name to Joe and then Duncan Jones (he is now a film director). Bowie wrote the song 'Kooks' about his new-born son and just a few days later he was performing it at the BBC for their In Concert programme.


At the last minute Bowie phoned Mick Ronson whose band Ronno had not been doing too well. Ronson did the BBC session and he also brought Woodmansey and Ronno's new bass player Trevor Bolder with him. Thus this session marks the first time the future 'Spiders' played together. Shortly after the four went into the studio to record Bowie's fourth album.

 

Post Script

In 1974 Bowie produced a version of 'The Man Who Sold The World' for the singer Lulu. Bowie sings backing vocals and his band play on the track.

Bowie also wrote another song called 'Right On Mother' for Peter Noone in 1971 although this one failed to chart. To hear them, click on the links to Bowie's demo and Noone's single. Incedentally, Bowie played the piano on Noone's version. Herbie Flowers wrote the B-side, 'Walnut Whirl' and played bass on Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, which was produced by Bowie.
 

Next time: everything's going to be fine

David Bowie is (part 7): 'I Want To Live'

In 1969, for the first time in his career, David Bowie was unsure of himself. In his own words, "I was looking for myself". Producer Tony Visconti, who would become a long-standing Bowie collaborator, had only produced two previous albums and was unsure what to do either. The band, 'Junior's Eyes', didn't know what was expected of them. The band never played the songs live. The result is a missed opportunity.

Confusingly released in Britain as 'David Bowie' (the second album with this name - in the US it was given the appalling title of 'Man of Words/Man of Music' and in 1972 it was re-issued at the height of Bowie's fame as 'Space Oddity', which is how I have known it for the last twenty years), Bowie's second full-length offering lacked an overall vision. Some of the songs sound as though they could have been recorded at any point since about 1967, a hippy feel with a bit of Bob Dylan in there. There is a tiny bit of Bowie's former show-tune style. But Bowie's song-writing was finally reaching maturity and there are one or two songs that point the way to new horizons.

A great song is 'God Knows I'm Good' about an old woman 'hot with worry', her face 'white with fear' who feels compelled to steal a tin of stewing steak, presumably because she can't afford it, forcing us to ask who the real criminal is. 'Memory Of A Free Festival' tells of a festival he organised with Beckenham Arts Lab. My favourite, however, is the much-maligned 'Cygnet Committee'. At 9 minutes, 33 seconds it was Bowie's longest song until 'Station to Station' at 10 minutes, 14 seconds. 'Cygnet Committee' contains a recurring theme of Bowie songs, that of the messiah. Bowie based this song on the way he had come to feel about hippies, as he saw it, leeching off him and using him and the Arts Lab for their own ends rather than that of the cause. He also felt that the hippy cause could be manipulated by a messianic figure for devious ends and that people would still blindly follow them.

Despite perhaps not showing Bowie at his best, there is some excellent song-writing here and if it were not for the fact that he made so many better albums later, it might even be seen as a great album.

 

'David Bowie' (1969, re-issued as 'Space Oddity' in 1972)

All songs written and composed by David Bowie

Side one
No.	Title	Length

1.	'Space Oddity'	5:15
2.	'Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed'	6:55
3.	"(Don't Sit Down)" (On subsequent re-releases, the track was appended to "Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed", and on the Space Oddity reissue, this track was removed completely.)	0:39
4.	'Letter to Hermione'	2:28
5.	'Cygnet Committee'	9:33

Side two
No.	Title	Length
6.	'Janine'	3:18
7.	'An Occasional Dream'	2:51
8.	'Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud	4:45
9.	'God Knows I'm Good'	3:13
10.	'Memory of a Free Festival'	7:05

In 1969, Bowie met Angela Barnett and they married a year later. Bowie once said they met "because we were both going out with the same man". That man was Calvin Mark Lee, Head of Promotions at Mercury Records. Lee claims he had a sexual relationship with Bowie and Barnett was his girlfriend. They all went for a Chinese meal at Lee's expense at the rest, as they say, is history. Bowie and Barnett moved into a flat in Haddon Hall, a large Victorian house in Beckenham. Other residents included Tony Visconti, Bowie's producer, and his girlfriend, John Cambridge, Bowie's drummer and sometimes Bowie's half-brother Terry. Bowie wasn't writing much during this period but he wrote a song for his new love called 'The Prettiest Star'.

On 8 January 1970, his 23rd birthday, Bowie went into the recording studio to record the song as a follow-up single to 'Space Oddity'. Tony Visconti had arranged for Marc Bolan to play lead guitar on the track. Bowie and Bolan had enjoyed a friendly rivalry for a number of years and all was going well until Bolan's wife June said "The only good thing about this record is Marc's guitar". Marc hurriedly left the studio. The song would become well known three years later when Bowie re-recorded the song for his 'Aladdin Sane' album with Mick Ronson faithfully recreating Marc's solo note for note. The original, whilst being slightly slower, more laid-back and less tight, is actually remarkably similar to the more well-known version, yet it reportedly sold less than 800 copies.

 

By 1970, Bowie's backing band 'Junior's Eyes' was falling apart. Guitarist Mick Wayne's drug intake was making him unreliable. Drummer John Cambridge suggested a guitarist he had played with in his preious band 'The Rats'. His name was Mick Ronson. From the moment Bowie heard Ronson play the two clicked. Bowie quickly taught Ronson his songs and they formed a new band: The Hype. Drummer Cambridge was a cowboy, guitarist Ronson was known as 'Gangsterman', Visconti on bass was known as 'Hypeman' and Bowie was 'Rainbowman'. After having abuse shouted at them at gigs, the band dropped the outfits and reverted to playing as 'David Bowie' but the music worked. The band's first job in the studio was to re-work 'Memory of a Free Festival' as a single but not before Cambridge, who was struggling with a difficult bass drum part, was replaced by Mick 'Woody' Woodmansey. Then they went to work on a new album.

Post Script: Here David Bowie appears on TV in 1970 to perform 'Space Oddity' and to collect a 'Special Merit Award for Originality' in an incredible pair of orange flares.



On March 11 1970, The Hype played at the Atomic Sunrise Festival at the roundhouse in Chalk Farm. Footage of the gig was shown on March 11 this year at the same venue. Here is a clip.



Next time: schizophrenia, Peter Noone and Spiders (From Mars)

David Bowie is (part 6): 'You've Really Made The Grade'



The Riot Squad

After recording his first album, Bowie joined mod band The Riot Squad to help them out and to try out some new material as his band had fallen apart. They recorded their version of 'I'm Waiting For the Man' before the Velvet Underground version was even released due to an acetate copy Bowie's manager brought back from New York, as well as Bowie's own Velvets-inspired 'Little Toy Soldier'. The Velvet Underground would prove to be an important influence on the development of Bowie's music.
 
At the end of 1967, David Bowie, frustrated with his lack of commercial success, left Deram and went off to learn to dance and act. He studied dance and mime with Lindsay Kemp who had his own 'Pierrot' show. Eventually they produced their own show with some of Bowie's music. In 1968 Kemp and Bowie were hired for a BBC drama The Pistol Shot.

Bowie then started a year-long relationship with another dancer, Hermione Farthingale. After the drama job finished they formed a multimedia trio called Turquoise. Eventually this would include guitarist John Hutchinson and be re-named Feathers (Farthingale would later be immortalised on Bowie's second album in the song 'Letter to Hermione').

The group appeared in a promotional film to boost Bowie's flagging career called 'Love You Till Tuesday' (which you can watch here). His manager intended it to be a CV that he could use to show to producers. The film showcases Bowie's songs, singing and mime. Bowie moved in with Farthingale and it was there that he wrote a new song for the film that would change his life and career forever. It was called 'Space Oddity'. At the end of the filming Hermione broke up with Bowie saying it had been an intense year. She also wanted to return to dancing full-time. Bowie was heartbroken but carried on regardless. It was the end of a short-lived experiment with cabaret.


From left to right:
 Hermione Farthingale, DB, Tony Visconti, John Hutchinson 

The first track to appear on the promo film is the titled track: 'Love You Till Tuesday'. Next up is 'Sell Me A Coat' from David Bowie's eponymous debut album. Track three is a charming story about what it is like to be four years old, 'When I'm Five'. Clearly the babysitting had given Bowie ideas for several songs. Track four is 'Rubber Band'. The next track, 'The Mask' demonstrates Bowie's new skill at mime. 'Let Me Sleep Beside You' is a wonderful song which Bowie claimed to have written much earlier. He told a BBC radio presenter in 1969 that he had written it it 1965 but never recorded it as his mother thought it was dirty. Track seven is 'Ching-A-Ling'. Remarkably and unexpectedly from such a light pop song, the counter-melody to Farthingale's 'Ching-A-Ling' chorus, sung by Bowie and Hutchinson (first heard at 0:29 on this version) is precisely the same tune as turned up on Bowie's next album but one, 'The Man Who Sold the World' on the much darker and heavier song 'Saviour Machine' played by first the lead guitar and then the synthesiser. The penultimate track is the original version of 'Space Oddity'. Written in his then-girlfriend Hermione Farthingale's attic flat, it was apparently inspired by the gift of a Stylophone from Marc Bolan. Those two notes one semi-tone apart form the haunting back-drop for the claustrophobia of the song. The final track is 'When I Live My Dream' from the 'David Bowie' album. 

Once again, nothing came of the new approach. With the caberet idea abandoned, Bowie fell in with the 'underground movement' (what you could also call hippies) in 1969. He moved in with Mary Finnigan and together they helped to organise the Beckenham Arts Lab. Bowie started talking about 'collectivism' and playing acoustic folk music. Around this time Bowie re-recorded 'Space Oddity', this time with acoustic guitars and the stylophone (although some of the original brass remained). 'Space Oddity' was released the week before the Apollo 11 moon landing and was used on the BBC coverage. The single entered the bottom of the charts and then dropped out destined to be another flop. On 16 August Bowie played the Beckenham Free Festival (which was immortalised in his 'Memory of a Free Festival') five days after his father's funeral. Then he went back in the studio to record another album. In the last week of September with the record company's entire sales, marketing and promotion teams working on the single, 'Space Oddity' jumped up the charts to 25, eventually reaching number 5.

Next time: one-hit wonder or superstar?

David Bowie is (part 5): 'You've Tried So Hard To Fly'

After the disaster of 'I Dig Everything', it was time for another change. Against the odds, Ken Pitt secured Bowie an album contract with a subsidiary of Decca Records, Deram. Bowie told producer Mike Vernon that he could handle all the string and brass arrangements he needed to make an epic first album. In long sessions that took place at the same time as the Beatles Sgt. Pepper sessions, Bowie and his bass player Derek 'Dek' Fearnley struggled to write string and brass parts. Bowie couldn't read or write a note of music although Dek had had piano lessons as a child. Nevertheless it was a painful and hurried process. According to biographer Paul Trynka, one clarinettist from the London Philharmonic refused to play saying "there are five notes in this bar. There should be four".

Despite these problems, on the first of June 1967 (the same day as Sgt. Pepper) 'David Bowie' was released. The first single, already released at the end of 1966 was 'Rubber Band' a curious, almost military band-style piece. Other songs sounded like show tunes in the style of Judy Garland, comedy songs in the style of Anthony Newley, throwaway pop songs, ballads or soul numbers, prefiguring Bowie's exploration of the soul scene in 1975's 'Young Americans'.

The album contains a number of songs that explore the relationship between adults and children.'Uncle Arthur' was inspired by the discovery that Derek Fearnley had lied about his age when joining the Buzz and was in fact 27 not 20 and an uncle. Bowie sometimes saw Fearnley's nephew at his brother's house and would sometimes babysit for Alan Mair, whose group were also managed by Ken Pitt. Mair's son, 'Little Frankie Mair' became the subject of 'Little Bombardier', although in the song Frankie was an adult who liked playing with children and attracted suspicion. 'Silly Boy Blue' is about a student of Buddhism, as Bowie was himself briefly. At the end of the song Bowie repeatedly sings 'Chime', the name of his teacher Chime Rinpoche.

Another theme that appears on many later David Bowie albums first appears here on 'We Are Hungry Men'. Bowie writes from the point of view of someone that presents himself as a 'messiah' that has come to help people, but turns out to be a very sinister and dangerous person that tries to use his charm for his own ends. 'Please Mr. Gravedigger' is a bizarre spoken-word piece complete with gravel, rain, thunder and sneezing. The subject matter was the death of a child, apparently inspired by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley's murder of Lesley Ann Downey. A little dodgy perhaps but the album is full of interesting stories. The album demonstrates a huge leap forward in Bowie's singing and song-writing and shows the depth of Bowie's ambition, the range of influences he could employ and his propensity for risk-taking. It also demonstrates two other themes there were to run throughout Bowie's career. The first is a skill for delegation. Bowie was able to inspire people to take 'Dek' Fearnley to take on much of the reponsibility for arranging the songs on the album. Throughout his career Bowie would inspire musicians, arrangers and producers to take on tasks and, at the same time, to produce their best work. The second is an ability to use the recording studio itself as an instrument. Bowie does it here particularly 'Please Mr. Gravedigger', but it is a technique Bowie used on much of his experimental work.

'David Bowie' (1967)
All songs written and composed by David Bowie
Click on each track to hear it.
1. Uncle Arthur
2. Sell Me A Coat
3. Rubber Band
4. Love You Till Tuesday
5. There Is A Happy Land
6. We Are Hungry Men
7. When I Live My Dream
8. Little Bombardier
9. Silly Boy Blue
10. Come and Buy My Toys
11. Join The Gang
12. She's Got Medals
13. Maid Of Bond Street
14. Please Mr. Gravedigger

A second non-album single was recorded after the album in January but it was released first in April 1967. Although the subject of much derision later in his career, the kitsch and humourous 'The Laughing Gnome' succeeds on its own terms and is a well-crafted song. The B-side is 'The Gospel According to Tony Day'.

The third single released to promote the album was 'Love You Till Tuesday'. The B-side is 'Did You Ever Have A Dream'.

During the sessions for the album another track was recorded but left off the album and never released. It is the superbly mad 'Over The Wall'. The song was re-recorded by future TV sitcom star Paul Nicholas performing as Oscar. This version also failed to make the chart.

At this point, David Bowie was introduced to a young producer that had just come over from America. Although the first records they made together also failed to get into the chart, the partnership would prove to be one of the most enduring and critically successful in popular music history. Tony Visconti producer a number of songs, all of which were turned down by the label executives at Deram. They were 'Let Me Sleep Beside You', which is a great song and which was to be backed with 'Karma Man', 'In The Heat Of The Morning', whose first lines 'The blazing sunset in your eyes will tantalize / Every man who looks your way', has almost exactly the same tune as the first lines from 'Ziggy Stardust', namely 'Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with weird and gilly / And the spiders from mars' and 'London Bye Ta Ta', his best song to date.

Next time: Velvet Underground, dancing and mime

David Bowie is (part 4): 'Can't Help Thinking About Me'

The Lower Third had been together for about a year, playing gigs in Margate in Kent, when, in 1965, the core three members decided to take a shot at fame and headed to London in search of a singer. David Jones auditioned with a friend, Steve Marriott, later of the Small Faces, and although they preferred Marriott, he left and Jones got the gig. Over the next few months David Jones convinced the band to learn new songs by the Yardbirds, The Kinks and The Who as well as getting them to help with his own compositions. It quickly became evident that the eighteen year-old David Jones was taking creative control. After a summer of gigging in Margate and other towns in the south-east and the replacement of the drummer, The Lower Third had transformed into a Mod band and were ready to record their first single. 'You've Got a Habit of Leaving' was written by David Jones and was produced by Shel Talmy who, as well as producing the Manish Boys single, had had hits with The Who and The Kinks. It was credited to 'Davy Jones and the Lower Third'.

 

'You've Got A Habit Of Leaving' and the B-side, 'Baby Loves That Way' were both re-recorded in 2000/2001 for the unreleased David Bowie album 'Toy'. It was leaked onto the internet in 2011.



After David Jones' third attempt at stardom came to nothing EMI pressured Talmy to terminate his singles deal. At the same time Les Conn decided to pack in the music business but David already had a replacement in mind, Ralph Horton. Horton called a publicist he knew called Ken Pitt to help with the management of Davy Jones. Pitt explained that he was too busy, and in any case the name was a problem as there was another Davy Jones in America, who would go on to join the Monkees. David Jones already had a replacement name in mind. A few years earlier he had seen the film The Alamo and had become obssessed with the character Jim Bowie. So from henceforth he would be known as David Bowie.

Horton scored the band a number of gigs over the late summer and autumn of 1965 as well as a new recording contract through producer Tony Hatch with the Pye label. Bowie bought a guitar and was writing songs throughout this period: 'London Boys', 'Maid of Bond Street' and his eventual next single 'Can't Help Thinking About Me'.





The first single released under the name David Bowie is clearly a step up in both his writing and singing ability and deploys techniques he would use again and again in his career such as the 'pre-chorus' and the idea of songs as stories. Whilst Bowie lyrics are very rarely autobiographical, it is possible that lines like "It seems that I've blackened the family name / Mother says that she can't stand the neighbors' talking" do indeed refer to his own situation. His mother, Peggy, was getting fed up with his obsession with music at this point and wanted him to get a proper job. Bowie, of course, was not about to do that and felt unashamed about following his dream. The B-side is 'And I Say To Myself'. The single was released in January 1966, a week after Bowie's nineteenth birthday. The single failed to make an appearance on the main chart although it did get to twenty-five on the Radio London chart and number 34 on the Melody Maker chart.
 

'Do Anything You Say' b/w 'Good Morning Girl' was the first single credited simply to 'David Bowie'. Bowie's manager, Ralph Horton, sacked The Lower Third arguably because of his jealousy of their closeness to 'his' David. He would give David lifts to gigs in his Jag while the rest of the band had to use their converted ambulance. They were replaced with The Buzz. Unlike The Lower Third, The Buzz were a manufactured band and it shows. 'Can't Help Thinking About Me' had at least made it onto the bottom of some of the charts but this was a total flop.

At this point Ralph Horton realised there was nothing else he could do for David Bowie's career, so once again he contacted Ken Pitt, who decided to come to one of his shows. He was very impressed and after talking with him at Horton's flat, he became Bowie's manager.

In June 1966, Tony Hatch began producing 'I Dig Everything' but, dissatisfied with The Buzz, he replaced tham all with session musicians. The resulting cheesy grooviness pretty much guaranteed the record would be the failure that it was.





With 'I Dig Everything' b/w 'I'm Not Losing Sleep', David Bowie was being taken even further away from the limited success he had achieved with 'Can't Help Thinking About Me'. His manager Ken Pitt knew Bowie would go nowhere on the Pye label, who were planning to drop him anyway, so he planned to get him a new record deal.

In 1965 David Bowie recorded demos for three songs that were never otherwise recorded. They are: 'That’s Where My Heart Is', 'I Want My Baby Back' and 'Bars of the County Jail'.

There are also another three songs he recorded in 1965 that were never released. They are: 'I’ll Follow You', 'Glad I’ve Got Nobody' and 'That’s a Promise'.

(To hear each track click on the relevant title.)

Next time: David Bowie records his first album

David Bowie is (part 3): 'Act Tall, Think Big'

Davie Jones (top) and the King Bees
(George Underwood, far right)

The first press release for
Davie Jones and the King Bees

In 1963 David Jones joined the King Bees as the singer. In January 1964, with the help of his father, he wrote a letter to John Bloom, an entrepeneur that sold washing machines, fridges and dishwashers. The letter contained the lines, 'If you can sell my group the way you sell washing machines, you'll be onto a winner' and 'Brian Epstein's got the Beatles and you should have us'. Bloom passed the letter on to Les Conn, who spent the next few years pushing David with his many contacts. The seventeen year-old David signed a management contract with Conn, who reciprocated with gigs in the West End of London and a recording session at Decca Records. He was also famously put to work whitewashing Conn's walls with another of his finds, Mark Feld, soon to become Marc Bolan.

The King Bees first recording, credited to 'Davie Jones and the King Bees' was a single, 'Liza Jane', backed with 'Louie Louie Go Home'. Both sides of the single seem relatively undistinguished today. Even Davie Jones, the best thing about the record, sounds like he is still finding his voice in an approximation of a John Lennon-style beat singing voice. It failed to get anywhere near the chart. In June 1964 the band did some gigs to promote the single and then made an appearance on Ready, Steady, Go! In July, David announced, "I've decided to break up the band - and I've found another band."



In July 1964, the seventeen year-old David Jones joined a new band, a six-piece called the Manish Boys. Jones had improved his microphone tecnnique, his stage presence and begun to write his own songs. He left his job and would often spend weeks at a time at various friends' houses in the style of his heroes Dylan and Jack Kerouac. After a series of gigs with the Manish Boys, Les Conn secured an audition with Mickie Most, a top independent producer, hot off the back of success with the Animals' 'House of the Rising Sun'. They then recorded with Most; David's vocals were flawless, but the backing vocals were out and their time ran out.

Then in November David Jones and Woolf Byrne, another Manish Boy, were in La Giocaonda, a favoured coffee shop of musicians in Denmark Street when a BBC researcher asked if anyone had had problems with their long hair. Sensing an opportunity they agreed and were rewarded with an appearance on Tonight with Cliff Michelmore, broadcast in 12 November 1964.



The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men was, of course, a fiction, but his humour and wit was impeccable.

In December the band played a tour on a bill that consisted of Gene Pitney, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Kinks and Marianne Faithfull. One of the songs on the Manish Boys set-list was the Bobby Bland cover 'I Pity the Fool', which shortly afterwards was picked to be recorded as their first single, and was to include session musician and future Led Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy Page. It was released in March 1965.



The B-side, 'Take My Tip', a pastiche of Georgie Fame, was the first song written by David Jones to be released on record.



Once again the single failed to trouble the charts. Shortly afterwards the gigs began to dry up, they were short of money, the van broke down and by April they had split up.

Next time: new band, new single, new manager, new name.

David Bowie is (part 2): 'When I'm Five'

David Robert Jones was born on 8 January 1947. His mother, Margaret 'Peggy' Burns and father, Haywood Stenton Jones, originally from Yorkshire, lived at 40 Stansfield Road in Brixton, South London with two other families. David Jones would live there with his half-brother (on his mother's side) Terry, who was ten years older than him, for eight years before moving to Bromley, about ten miles south-east, in Kent.

Peggy Burns' family was known for 'madness' and David's 'frightful' aunt Pat spoke to the tabloids about it in the 1980s. Although not directly affected himself, some in David's family, most obviously Terry, did suffer and this undoubtedly had an imapct on David's life.

In 1953, David Jones secretly watched The Quatermass Experiment on television, giving him a lifelong love of science fiction.

When David Jones arrived in Bromley he went to Burnt Ash School, but it was after he joined the scouts and the church choir that he met Geoff MacCormack and George Underwood, two of his most enduring friendships.

One evening in 1955, David's father came home from work with a bag of records he had been given. That night David played each single in turn: Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Franke Lymon and the Teenagers. He was already very excited by his discovery of rock 'n' roll, but the best was yet to come.

He played 'Tutti Frutti' by Little Richard and, according to the future David Bowie many years later, "I hit gold... my heart nearly burst with excitement. I'd never heard anything even resembling this. It filled the room with energy and colour and outrageous defiance. I had heard God."

Little Richard was not a traditional Mississippi bluesman; he was from New Orleans and his music exploded from the speakers. Richard was inspired by the cross-dressing scene and he used brightly-coloured suits and over-the-top showmanship. He was also gay, although he did not come out until much later. On 16 February 1957 Little Richard became the first American rock 'n' roll star to appear on British television on the BBC's Six-Five Special. The show aired this extract from the film Don't Knock The Rock.



About a year after they had first met, in the summer of 1958, David Jones and George Underwood produced their first public performance around the camp fire at a scout camp on the Isle of Wight. George owned a Hofner acoustic guitar and David a ukulele and on this ocasion David strummed while George sang.

When David and George went to Bromley Technical College, David was taught art by Owen Frampton. Not only did he work very hard sketching and developing an ability for art, he was also inspired by Frampton to develop an interest in appreciating art and it was from him that David developed a love of Egon Schiele's work. Frampton was also the father of Peter Frampton who was a few years below David at the college.

By the age of fourteen, David Jones was spending all his spare time at Medhurst's department store in the record department, checking out the latest records, and the girls. Here he developed a taste for jazz as well as rock 'n' roll. Around 1960, his father bought him a plastic alto saxophone and David got a Saturday job at Furlong's, a record and instrument store.

David and George were developing a friendly rivalry in both their musical ambitions and their attempts to chat up girls. In one infamous incident in 1962, David Jones told George a girl that he was on his way to meet, could not make it. After the girl waited for an hour and went home distraught, David intended to go round to her house to 'comfort' her. On the way, however, he met George who had uncovered his plan and, understandably, punched him in the face. Somehow he managed to scratch the eyeball and David had to go to hospital. The result was a pupil that was permanently dilated giving the impression that he has two differently-coloured eyes.

Shortly after this incident George Underwood, who had been in several bands and was now in the Kon-Rads, invited David Jones to join. Their first public performance was at the Bromley Tech PTA Fete. Late in 1962, George Underwood was kicked out of the band but David Jones stayed. In 1963 the band played a number of gigs and managed to get an audition with Joe Meek, a successful producer, but they were turned down. They then got a slot on the TV talent contest Ready Steady Win! The Kon-Rads, who only did covers, were mocked whilst the band that won boasted a great young guitarist, Peter Frampton, now at Bromley Grammar School. Their third break, an audition with Decca Records also ended in disaster with the drummer 'a nervous wreck'. By the time they were turned down, David had already left.

Later that year David Jones found out he had failed every O'Level except art. Undettered he continued with music, although he did accept a job as a paste-up artist at an ad agency wangled by Owen Frampton. After a brief period with George playing as The Hooker Brothers, the pair teamed up with a trio called the King Bees.

Next time: the story continues to 1965.

... David Bowie Is

On 8 January this year, his 66th birthday, David Bowie stunned the world by releasing a single with the promise of an album to follow shortly. The single, 'Where Are We Now?' was his first for nine years (if you don't include his live performance of Pink Floyd's 'Arnold Layne' with Dave Gilmour and Rick Wright, which was released as a single in 2006). The follow-up album, 'The Next Day', which was released in March, was his first for ten years.


Bowie had cut short his Reality Tour in 2004 after suffering a heart attack. Although he continued to perform at one-off events until 2006 and did guest vocals on other people's records until 2008, he had failed to record any new solo material for such a long time that fans and critics alike had begun to assume that he had retired. Indeed there was even a rumour in 2011 that David Bowie was at death's door and did not have long to live.

David Bowie has done almost no promotion for this album. And yet there has been more speculation, more articles written, more retrospective 'looks-back' over his career, more reviews for this album than probably for any other except perhaps 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars' in 1972. Apparently coincedentally, the Victoria and Albert Museum currently has an exhibition of Bowie's clothes, lyric sheets and other artefacts from his career. The whole world, it seems, is interested in David Bowie.

I have always been interested in David Bowie, ever since I first heard the 'Ziggy Stardust' album when I was about 16 around 1990. I then explored his back catalogue and have bought every album since. But it is only now that I feel moved to look back over David Bowie's life as a whole, which I intend to do over the next few weeks with the help of 'Starman - David Bowie: The Definitive Biography' by Paul Trynka; Pushing Ahead of the Dame, a website dedicated to understanding the meaning of Bowie's songs and, of course, David Bowie's own website.

I am not an artist, but David Bowie is, in my opinion. He approaches writing songs, and particularly lyrics, in some ways like an author, in others like a painter. His songs are plays in which Bowie writes, directs and stars. He creates characters, the ones we are all familiar with like Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, The Thin White Duke and so on, but also others. Almost every song is written from the perspective of another character. Some people see this as false and accuse him of being a charlatan, but I don't see it like that. Why do we expect authors, playwrights and film directors to tell stories from the perspective of fictional characters they have created, whilst insisting songwriters always write from their own perspective, with stories directly from their own lives? Why do we insist singer/songwriters reveal personal details about their own lives or be considered fraudulent? For me, David Bowie is an excellent writer of stories.

Having said that, he doesn't often write in a linear fashion. He uses 'cut-up' techniques pioneered by William Burroughs and others where he writes lyrics and then literally cuts them up to see if he can create new meaning in a different order. More recently he has used the 'Verbasiser', a computer version of the cut-up technique. As he says himself, he is trying to create an impression of a situation or a feeling or an idea. In that sense he seems to me to be a great artist. He says people can take their own meanings from his work. This could be considered pretentious but it is only what most artists say. It doesn't mean his work is without meaning or without social comment, far from it.

Finally, David Bowie is great at discovering music, artists, authors, ideas and so on that are underground and taking something from each and fusing them to make something that is new and wonderful. In the process he helps to bring these underground trends into the mainstream. Bowie rarely seeks to hide his influences but shares them freely: buddhism, japanese kibuki theatre, the songs of Syd Barrett and Anthony Newley, American soul music, the writings of George Orwell, the art of Egon Schiele, the plays of Bertolt Brecht, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Lindsay Kemp, Marc Bolan, Mick Jagger, Neu!, The Young Gods, Nine Inch Nails, the Prodigy, Scott Walker and so on.

Next time: The story of David Bowie from the beginning to about 1963.