Speaker 1: Off the record is a production of I Heart Radio Darkness.
Speaker 1: That's how it always starts. Then from nothing, something, an idea,
Speaker 1: a notion, a concept. In this case, we'll call it
Speaker 1: a song. David Bowie is at the movies, the Modern Cathedral,
Speaker 1: Make Believe, where anything is possible. The sixties are drawing
Speaker 1: to a close, and he's staring mouth agape at two
Speaker 1: thousand one of Space Odyssey Standy Kubrick's groundbreaking special effects
Speaker 1: and made all the more mind melding by the drops
Speaker 1: of cannabis soil. David drills it on his tongue just
Speaker 1: before taking a seat. The images of outer space flicker
Speaker 1: before him, but he's fixated on inner space. Like the
Speaker 1: doomed astronaut in the film. He's adrift, isolated, and extremely lonely.
Speaker 1: David's life has gone off course. His music career is
Speaker 1: going nowhere. In nine years, he'd fronted eight bands and
Speaker 1: worked solo, yet each create a pursuit left him drifting
Speaker 1: further and further into the commercial abyss. He had been
Speaker 1: dumped by his label. Worse still, he'd been dumped by
Speaker 1: his girlfriend. The first woman he had ever loved, just
Speaker 1: left him for another man. Now she's gone living in Norway,
Speaker 1: of all places, to a poor, bummed out Londoner, Norway
Speaker 1: might as well be another planet. Almost in spite of himself,
Speaker 1: David starts crafting a song in his head. It's about
Speaker 1: a spaceman similar to the one on the screen. He
Speaker 1: calls his character Major Tom, and he calls the song
Speaker 1: Space Oddity. In later years, many would dismiss the song
Speaker 1: as a frivolous novelty number, a cross attempt to cash
Speaker 1: in on moon Manny is sweeping the globe thanks to
Speaker 1: Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind that summer, The Goofy
Speaker 1: title a playfu LaMarche Da Kubrick's overblown epic only seen
Speaker 1: the bolster their case. But these detractors missed the point.
Speaker 1: David Bowie spent the sixties chasing trends, trying to bandwagon
Speaker 1: up his way to the top of the charts, Rock
Speaker 1: R and B, psychedelic whimsy, what have you? When he sang,
Speaker 1: he opened his mouth, but not his soul. That changed
Speaker 1: with Space Oddity, which is less about an astronaut and
Speaker 1: more about himself. It's an emotional confession couched in the
Speaker 1: sci fi world that enthralled him as a boy. I
Speaker 1: am Major Tom, he would later admit, here, I am
Speaker 1: in my own cosmic space, and nobody can possibly understand
Speaker 1: what it's like to be out here. It's fitting that
Speaker 1: Bowie's breakthrough took the form of a schizoid space track.
Speaker 1: It kicked off a career long fascination with other worldly personas,
Speaker 1: informing songs like Life on Mars, Starman and of course
Speaker 1: siky Stardust. The lyrics read almost like a premonition, commencing
Speaker 1: countdown engines on. David Bowie was ready for blast Off.
Speaker 1: The voyage would send them very, very far from home
Speaker 1: and come at the cost of true love. Would the
Speaker 1: trade be worth it? Back at the theater, the movie
Speaker 1: was over, but David's story is just beginning. Hello, and
Speaker 1: welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes beyond
Speaker 1: the songs and into the hearts and minds of rock's
Speaker 1: greatest legends. I'm your host, Jordan Runtop. This season explores
Speaker 1: the life, or should I say lives David Bowie. In
Speaker 1: this episode, we're going to talk about Major Tom, the
Speaker 1: psychedelic spaceman that launched Bowie into orbit on June one.
Speaker 1: The music Press celebrated the release of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely
Speaker 1: Hearts club band the Beatles Day Glows studio masterpiece that
Speaker 1: would come to define rock in the sixties. But elsewhere
Speaker 1: in the trade papers you might have noticed a smaller announcement.
Speaker 1: The man who would help to find rock in the
Speaker 1: seventies also released an LP that day, his first, but
Speaker 1: David Bowie's self titled debut did not have the impact
Speaker 1: of Sergeant Pepper. In fact, it was all but ignored
Speaker 1: upon its release and later disowned by Bowie himself, which
Speaker 1: is unfortunate because it's not bad. Sure, the cover arts
Speaker 1: a little stale, with a mods suited David peering out
Speaker 1: from under his page boy haircut like a heart throb
Speaker 1: and a teenbeat magazine, but the musical content is wonderfully
Speaker 1: weird enough to do the future Ziggy start us proud.
Speaker 1: When Sessions began in the fall of nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: David had a fresh sound. He'd stopped taking his creative
Speaker 1: lead from American R and B acts and their feeble
Speaker 1: British copycats. Instead, he made like many in Swinging London
Speaker 1: and embraced his own englishness. Bands were dropping their phony
Speaker 1: state side accents and writing songs steeped in the distinctly
Speaker 1: British brand of psychedelia that was coming to the Four
Speaker 1: Characterized by surreal sketches of childhood innocence faded at Wardian
Speaker 1: glamour and domestic eccentricity. The Beatles offered acid tinged memories
Speaker 1: of their adolescent haunts with Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane,
Speaker 1: not to mention the wonderland whimsy of Lucy and the
Speaker 1: Sky with Diamonds. The Kink touted the Village Green Preservation
Speaker 1: Society and the dandie clothes horses of Carnaby Street. Pink
Speaker 1: Floyd even immortalized the local Panty Steeler with their debut
Speaker 1: single Arnold Lane. Always hip to the latest trends, David
Speaker 1: sensed the sea change and responded accordingly. He crafted songs
Speaker 1: in the British music hall tradition with a hint of
Speaker 1: hippie hipness for flavor. He dispensed with the time honored guitar,
Speaker 1: bass and drums set up that had served as the
Speaker 1: blueprint for British groups since the dawn of the decade.
Speaker 1: In its place, where brass bands and string sections performing
Speaker 1: offbeat arrangements and complex time signatures. Despite his lack of
Speaker 1: any formal musical training, David wrote the orchestrations himself, striving
Speaker 1: for the musical grandeur of the Beach Boys groundbreaking new
Speaker 1: album Pet Sounds. He patterned was singing after Anthony Newley,
Speaker 1: a singer, songwriter and actor who's a mainstay on the
Speaker 1: British stage and screen, and So I Must Go. David
Speaker 1: managed to pitch his vocal delivery and almost exact mimic
Speaker 1: of Newly stagey Cockney twang so dead on that Newly
Speaker 1: himself got wind of it and became extremely annoyed this
Speaker 1: new kid was stealing his voice. The released at the
Speaker 1: start of the Summer of Love, David's debut, is decidedly dark,
Speaker 1: loaded with troubling vignettes about lonely misfits and unsettled children's
Speaker 1: tales Please Mr Gravedigger, for example, as about as sunny
Speaker 1: as its title, taking inspiration from the real life murder
Speaker 1: of a ten year old Little Bombardier, is a portrait
Speaker 1: of an elderly alcoholic vet who forms a bond with
Speaker 1: two children until the neighbors accused him of being a
Speaker 1: pedophile and chase him out. Of Town, but there were
Speaker 1: also signposts pointing towards David's later work We Are Hungry Men,
Speaker 1: for shadows of dystopian themes of ziggy, stardust and diamond dogs,
Speaker 1: representing a future where racial purity is maintained through abortions.
Speaker 1: She's Got Metals, on the other hand, is a jaunty
Speaker 1: tune about a woman who downs men's clothes to fight
Speaker 1: in the war, a precursor to the gender bending motifs
Speaker 1: of Bowie's early seventies personas, but his most infamous recording
Speaker 1: of the Air. It was the album's lead single. It's
Speaker 1: Very titles enough to inspire fear and loathing in the
Speaker 1: heart of nearly every Bowie fan. It's called The Laughing Gnome.
Speaker 1: To be fair, it made a certain amount of sense
Speaker 1: when it was released in April nineteen sixty seven. The
Speaker 1: rediscovery of JRR. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings trilogy in the late sixties led to a
Speaker 1: spade of songs about fairies, wizards, goblins, and other mystical creatures.
Speaker 1: British psyche bands like Pink Floyd and Tomorrow also made
Speaker 1: gnome centered contributions to rock, but There's were sober and serious.
Speaker 1: David's ditty about a little old man in scarlet and
Speaker 1: gray fell somewhere between novelty number and full blown parody.
Speaker 1: The penny lyrics were bad enough, especially with the joke
Speaker 1: about a band called the Rolling Gnomes, but the addition
Speaker 1: of a shrill Gnome voice achieved through sped up tape
Speaker 1: made the song sound like a stoned outtake from one
Speaker 1: of the Chipmunks sessions. For all of David's trouble, the
Speaker 1: Laughing Gnome became his eighth consecutive single that failed the chart.
Speaker 1: Even worse, it became a liability in light of David's
Speaker 1: more mature to come. The Gnome duet frequently resurfaced in
Speaker 1: opportune times throughout his career, like an embarrassing naked baby photo.
Speaker 1: His feelings about his debut disc weren't much warmer, how
Speaker 1: cringe e he moaned when asked about it. In later years,
Speaker 1: The critics, at least the ones who bothered to review it,
Speaker 1: were a little kinder. Upon its release, a trade paper
Speaker 1: called The Disc and Music Echo called it a remarkable
Speaker 1: creative album by a nineteen year old londoner. Here's a
Speaker 1: new talent that deserves attention. Try David Bowie, He's something New. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: few tried David Bowie and the album sank like a stone.
Speaker 1: The failure was made worse by the personal tragedy that
Speaker 1: loomed back home and his parents house in the London
Speaker 1: suburb of Bromley. David's beloved half brother, Terry, his hero
Speaker 1: and mentor, who had freed his teenage mind with beat
Speaker 1: literature and experimental jazz, was sliding further into the grips
Speaker 1: of mental illness. Eleven years older than David, Terry had
Speaker 1: struggled ever since returning from the army in the late fifties.
Speaker 1: Now it's psychic episodes were becoming more frequent and more disturbing.
Speaker 1: David realized the extent of the problem in February seven
Speaker 1: when he took Terry to see a concert by Eric
Speaker 1: Clapton and Cream. It started off as a nice night.
Speaker 1: Terry had been the one who introduced David the Soho's
Speaker 1: jazz clubs as a wide eyed schoolboy years earlier. Now
Speaker 1: David was thrilled to reciprocate by taking his brother to
Speaker 1: his first psychedelic rock and roll concert. But the ear
Speaker 1: splitting music had a profound effect on Terry, the kind
Speaker 1: David couldn't have predicted. The pole setting vibrations from the
Speaker 1: power trio tore a hole in Terry's fragile reality, and
Speaker 1: his body began to vibrate like a human tuning fork.
Speaker 1: David realized something was badly wrong and hustled his brother outside.
Speaker 1: Terry immediately collapsed on the sidewalk, his world of dangerous
Speaker 1: and chaotic jumble. The ground appeared to open up, spewing
Speaker 1: fire and smoke into the night. Terry gripped the asphalt
Speaker 1: with all his might, certain that forests were trying to
Speaker 1: suck him into the sky. David watched helplessly as Terry
Speaker 1: stared a new abyss that only he could see. The
Speaker 1: storm and Terry's mind eventually passed, but David was horrified.
Speaker 1: He wasn't sure how to react. Mental illness was hardly discussed,
Speaker 1: much less treated with a degree of compassion and understanding
Speaker 1: that we strive for today. Those suffering in the sixties
Speaker 1: were usually denounced as mad and sent to asylums, which
Speaker 1: were almost indistinguishable from prisons. Overwhelmed by the gravity of
Speaker 1: his brother's condition, David simply pushed the thoughts from his mind.
Speaker 1: But Terry's problem grew worse. He started going off on
Speaker 1: walks without a word to his family, disappearing for days
Speaker 1: as he followed visions of Christ. Once he was missing
Speaker 1: for more than a week until authorities found him in
Speaker 1: a grocery store, filthy and starving, politely asking for a
Speaker 1: piece of fruit. Terry stayed with his parents until permanent
Speaker 1: care could be arranged. This made the Jones modest house
Speaker 1: in Bromi even more cramped than it already was. Da
Speaker 1: of it hated the place at the best of times,
Speaker 1: but the presence of his troubled brother made the bad
Speaker 1: vibes even worse. So. In the summer of nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: twenty year old David Bowie moved out of the family home.
Speaker 1: He was taken in by his new manager, Ken Pitt,
Speaker 1: a man who would more or less become a second
Speaker 1: father to David Urbane. Educated and a consummate gentleman, Ken
Speaker 1: was a show biz veteran had represented the likes of
Speaker 1: Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and even Anthony Newley.
Speaker 1: He had initially passed when asked to manage David. Then
Speaker 1: Ken Son performed and quickly changed his mind. David was
Speaker 1: equally taken with Ken and his impressive credentials. Most British
Speaker 1: pop up starts were managed by fly by night hucksters
Speaker 1: and wheeler dealers. Ken had genuine stars in his orbit,
Speaker 1: and David wanted to fly among them. He arrived at
Speaker 1: Ken's elegant London apartment with a little more than some
Speaker 1: records and clothes. Soon the two settled into a comfortable
Speaker 1: bohemian routine. Incense and half finished songs wafted from David's room.
Speaker 1: The smell bothered Ken, but David's habit of strolling nude
Speaker 1: through the apartment definitely did not. In his memoir, Ken
Speaker 1: remembers David, in his words, loping around the flat naked,
Speaker 1: his long, weighty penis swaying from side to side like
Speaker 1: the pendulum of a grandfather clock. In case it's not
Speaker 1: already obvious, Ken's interest in David was a little more
Speaker 1: than musical. Many close to the pair believe Ken loved
Speaker 1: David in a more than a client kind of way,
Speaker 1: but David's feelings are less clear and likely more complex.
Speaker 1: He was a well documented sexual opportunist, willing to do
Speaker 1: whatever with whoever if would help him get where he
Speaker 1: wanted to go. But it's clear he regarded Ken is
Speaker 1: more than just a step on a ladder, though some
Speaker 1: have speculated it's unknown if they ever cemented their relationship
Speaker 1: in a physical way. As Ken noted in his memoir,
Speaker 1: David was a tease. Considering the many hours David spent
Speaker 1: split out naked between a pair of Hi Fi speakers
Speaker 1: in their living room, this is something of an understatement.
Speaker 1: Like Terry before him can act is David's cultural mentor,
Speaker 1: whisking him around the West End theaters and encouraging him
Speaker 1: to scour through the many bookshelves that dominated their flat.
Speaker 1: David devoured works by Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Wall and William
Speaker 1: Butler Yates, and poured over collections by the German expressionist
Speaker 1: Egon Shield and printmaker Eric Gill. Ken also provided a
Speaker 1: master class in the art of press relations. David, the
Speaker 1: son of a PR manager, took to it very quickly.
Speaker 1: Never argue with an interviewer, but tell them exactly what
Speaker 1: they want to hear, he said, consider the outlet and
Speaker 1: tailor your responses to their readers. You're speaking to them.
Speaker 1: On more than one occasion, Ken caught David poking through
Speaker 1: letters on his desk. We're listening in on telephone calls,
Speaker 1: all in hopes of picking up more tricks of the
Speaker 1: promotional trade. Once he took David to a glamorous party
Speaker 1: featuring a venerable who's who of the British entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: Rather than mingle, David made a scene by passionately snogging
Speaker 1: a woman in the middle of the room. This wasn't
Speaker 1: the sort of network and Ken had in mind. I
Speaker 1: thought they were going to copulate in front of the
Speaker 1: British music industry, the scandalized manager later wrote. But there
Speaker 1: was nothing, no party, no book, no theatrical premiere that
Speaker 1: would equal the impact of a record Ken gave David
Speaker 1: in the fall of nineteen sixty six. He picked it
Speaker 1: up during a recent business trip to New York, just
Speaker 1: one of the many discs shoved into his hand by
Speaker 1: over zealous label Exex. It was a test pressing of
Speaker 1: a new album by a group of Low Reastside proto
Speaker 1: punks called the Velvet Underground. Ken gave it a spin,
Speaker 1: but the atonal shriek of Heroin and the sado massochistic
Speaker 1: themes of Venus and furs left him cold. He was
Speaker 1: more of a Judy Garland guy, so he passed it
Speaker 1: to David, making one of the first people in Britain
Speaker 1: to hear it. Just as a Little Richard's Tutti Fruity
Speaker 1: had a decade earlier. The record changed his life, imprinting
Speaker 1: itself permanently on David's Psyche. Lou Reed Street Poetry conjured
Speaker 1: the dark edge of humanity in a way seldom done
Speaker 1: on a major label record, plus a boast of the
Speaker 1: artistic degree of the band's patron, Andy Warhol. The primitive
Speaker 1: beat of Motucker's drums, the howl of John Klee's viola,
Speaker 1: and the wash of lou Reed and Sterling Morrison's guitars
Speaker 1: blared from David speakers. To him. It was a declaration
Speaker 1: of independence from boring top forty decorum pop music wanted
Speaker 1: to make you feel good. This music just wanted to
Speaker 1: make you feel anything. David would later say, the music
Speaker 1: was savagely indifferent to my feelings. It didn't care if
Speaker 1: I liked it or not. David recorded a cover of
Speaker 1: the Velvets I'm Waiting for the Man, but it was
Speaker 1: deemed too uncommercial and shelved This was the fate of
Speaker 1: nearly all the demos David recorded during this period for
Speaker 1: his label. The songs bounced from genre the genre, and
Speaker 1: idea to idea with a manic abandoned that bordered on incoherence.
Speaker 1: David was desperate to prove his adaptability and find a
Speaker 1: voice that fit. So far, it wasn't Lou Reid or
Speaker 1: Anthony Newley. I was trying to be a one man revolution,
Speaker 1: he would later say, but mostly he just confused people.
Speaker 1: David's label was at a loss for what to do
Speaker 1: with him, so in a classic act of delegation, they
Speaker 1: made the new guy deal with it. Tony Visconti was
Speaker 1: a twenty three year old Brooklyn kid who just arrived
Speaker 1: in England. He was gearing up to produce David's old
Speaker 1: friend and rival, Mark Boland. Then a label big shot
Speaker 1: called him into his office. You seem to have a
Speaker 1: talent for working with weird acts, the exact said, before
Speaker 1: playing him David's debut LP. Tony dug it right away
Speaker 1: and what was obviously a prearranged set up, David was
Speaker 1: also casually waiting outside the office. When the listening session
Speaker 1: was complete, he and Tony got the talking, and well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't take long for one music never to recognize another.
Speaker 1: Soon they were trading lines from Frank Zappa songs and
Speaker 1: Continental art films. They talked until the office closed for
Speaker 1: the day. Then they went for a walk and talk
Speaker 1: some more. They parted company later that night as firm
Speaker 1: lifelong friends. Within weeks, Visconti oversaw production of a new
Speaker 1: Bowie song called let Me Sleep Beside You. The results
Speaker 1: were stronger than any of the songs on David's debut album,
Speaker 1: but it too was deemed unacceptable by the label, who
Speaker 1: feared that the title was too risque. Even in swinging London,
Speaker 1: let Me Sleep Beside You was just too hot. His
Speaker 1: compositions were offered to other artists like Judy Collins, Peter
Speaker 1: Paul and Mary big Brother in the Holding Company and
Speaker 1: the Jefferson Airplane to record, but they all opted the pass.
Speaker 1: With his music career stalled, Ken Pitt suggested David try
Speaker 1: is handed acting. It was a good idea. David had
Speaker 1: spent years pretending to be other people, both on stage
Speaker 1: and off, why not get paid for it. In n
Speaker 1: s seven, he bagged his first role as a painting
Speaker 1: that comes to life in a short film called The Image.
Speaker 1: But if David dreamed of Hollywood glamour, he was in
Speaker 1: for a rude awakening, and a wet one at that.
Speaker 1: The film was shot on location in a dilapidated house.
Speaker 1: One scene required David to hang from a second story
Speaker 1: window sill without a harness while stage hands doused him
Speaker 1: with buckets of cold water to simulate rain. Kempitt recalls
Speaker 1: on returning home that night looking like a dre ound
Speaker 1: mouse and complaining bitterly to make matters worse, The fourteen
Speaker 1: minutes silent film had a very select appeal. In other words,
Speaker 1: it was an even bigger flop than his debut LP,
Speaker 1: But hey, at least he got some badly needed cash
Speaker 1: for the Ordeal. Despite the rough star, David learned that
Speaker 1: he really did like acting. This realization sent ken Pitt's
Speaker 1: old school managerial brain in the high gear. Who needs
Speaker 1: pop music? That's kids stuff. He'd moved David into the
Speaker 1: realm of all around entertainers. Like David's hero Anthony Newley,
Speaker 1: Ken envisioned big plans, TV appearances, theatrical showcases, supper club cabarets.
Speaker 1: David had a different and slightly less mainstream idea mine.
Speaker 1: You know, quiet guy with face paint trapped in an
Speaker 1: imaginary box, that sort of thing. Though outwardly supportive, Ken
Speaker 1: was less than thrilled as David ventured down one of
Speaker 1: the least commercial artistic avenues known to man. But in
Speaker 1: a way, it was his own fault. Ken had sent
Speaker 1: copies of David's debut LP had dozens of his contacts
Speaker 1: in the entertainment community. One of these wound up in
Speaker 1: the hands of Lindsay Kemp, a renowned mime and performer
Speaker 1: had once studied under Marcel Marceau. Working as an occasional
Speaker 1: support act with some of the more open minded rock
Speaker 1: bands of the day, Kemp was best known as one
Speaker 1: of London's most flamboyant bohemian bon vivans. I like to
Speaker 1: do everything fully, he once boasted. I drink until I'm drunk,
Speaker 1: I eat until I'm full, frequently until I'm sick. I
Speaker 1: don't fancy people. I fall in love with them. Lindsay
Speaker 1: fell in love with David Bowie from the moment he
Speaker 1: first saw him on the album cover. He was struck
Speaker 1: again when he actually played the disc. The buoyant theatricality
Speaker 1: of the music lent itself perfectly to his own stage work,
Speaker 1: and he began playing the album during the intermission for
Speaker 1: his one man show. Word got back to David, who
Speaker 1: returned the compliment by attending when A Kemp's performances. Once
Speaker 1: the thrill of hearing his record in public war off,
Speaker 1: he grew intrigued by the possibilities and potential of mime.
Speaker 1: After curtain call, even went backstage to introduced himself. Campbell's
Speaker 1: floored by the side of David in the flesh, he
Speaker 1: would recall, it was like the archangel Gabriel standing there.
Speaker 1: He was in a beam of light, glowing beautiful, clearly.
Speaker 1: Kemp nine years David Sr. Was smitten. David asked if
Speaker 1: he could study with him. Lindsey suggests that he dropped
Speaker 1: by his Soho flat the next day to talk it over.
Speaker 1: For David, it was like walking into a velvet underground song.
Speaker 1: Lindsey's home was a hub for strippers, hookers, pimps and junkies.
Speaker 1: It was David's bohemian fantasy brought to life. He felt
Speaker 1: right at home. Over breakfast, the pair bonded over their
Speaker 1: shared love of musicals, expressionism in the circus. Lindsey turned
Speaker 1: him onto the two gens Jeanelle and Cocteau. Bowie turned
Speaker 1: Lindsay on the Buddhism. These converging Eastern and Western philosophies
Speaker 1: yielded their first collaboration, a mind piece called Perot and Turquoise.
Speaker 1: David dressed and it was the Bethan rough and caked
Speaker 1: in white face paint, played Cloud, a beautiful young muse
Speaker 1: of of the clown played by ken Case. You couldn't tell.
Speaker 1: The pieces somewhat autobiographical. In exchange for contributing songs to
Speaker 1: the production, David attended Lindsay's dance and Movement class is
Speaker 1: free of charge. There he studied the finer points of
Speaker 1: my avant garde theater and commedia dell Artetill clumsy at first,
Speaker 1: he absorbed the lessons like a sponge. This was more
Speaker 1: than mere stagecraft. David was perfecting methods to present persona
Speaker 1: in a physical way through minute manipulations of his hands
Speaker 1: and face. Lindsey had a word for it, exteriorizing, exposing
Speaker 1: his soul to the world. He encouraged David to be
Speaker 1: fearless and continually toyed with the audience's expectations. The stage
Speaker 1: became a training ground where he could experiment without fear
Speaker 1: of consequences. Lindsey called it the hypnotist. In the Casanova technique,
Speaker 1: you have to hypnotize an audience to enchant them, but
Speaker 1: then you have to make them love you. David at
Speaker 1: a head start on the casanova part. The women in
Speaker 1: his movement class fought for the privilege of being his
Speaker 1: scene partner, improvising scenarios that nearly always involved rolling around
Speaker 1: with him on the floor. But if the students had
Speaker 1: a crush, the teacher was full on infatuated. Lindsay regularly
Speaker 1: took David back to his flat tom as he called it,
Speaker 1: muck about. Their affair didn't lack for passion, but it
Speaker 1: hit a snag when the production of Paroh and Turquoise
Speaker 1: hit the road for a brief tour in early David
Speaker 1: got cozy with the costume designer, a glamorous woman named
Speaker 1: Natasha Korlinov, who happened to be Lindsay's best friend for
Speaker 1: a time. Natasha and David carried on their tryst in secret,
Speaker 1: but hotel walls can be thin. One night, Lindsay heard banging, thumping,
Speaker 1: and the unmistakable sound of David's grunts coming from the
Speaker 1: room next door the betrayal of Lindsay. Heartbroken, he resolved
Speaker 1: to end it all in a way befitting his status
Speaker 1: as a professional dramatist. He'd hurl himself into the ocean. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the ocean was far away, so he considered biking into
Speaker 1: the sea until the waves overtook him, but then he
Speaker 1: couldn't find a bike. Plus it was kind of cold out,
Speaker 1: so he slid his wrists. Nothing major, just a flesh
Speaker 1: wound to make an impact. He awoke to the sound
Speaker 1: of music and thought he'd arrived at the Pearly Gates,
Speaker 1: but no, he fainted. It was now on the floor
Speaker 1: of his dressing room, covered in blood, while dress rehearsal
Speaker 1: for Pero and Turquoise continued without him. The hospital stits
Speaker 1: him up pretty good, but not good enough. That night,
Speaker 1: he dramatically bled through the white silk of his costume,
Speaker 1: earning a roar of applause from the impressed audience. Natasha's
Speaker 1: reaction to David's betrayal was less visual, but equally theatrical.
Speaker 1: She took an overdose of aspirin, which yielded a little
Speaker 1: more than an upset stomach. She and Lindsey both gave
Speaker 1: David a well deserved cold shoulder, and for a time
Speaker 1: he was banished to sleeping on a chair in the
Speaker 1: hotel hallway. This love triangle played out while David was
Speaker 1: still living with Ken Pitt. He also enjoyed intermittent flings
Speaker 1: with all manner of people and all manner of genders,
Speaker 1: and one of his first interviews, David bluntly outlined his
Speaker 1: views of monogamy. I do not believe in love in
Speaker 1: its possessive form, he said, Hey, it was the sixties
Speaker 1: after all. Eventually, Lindsey forgave David and hired him to
Speaker 1: perform in a television play he was choreographing for the
Speaker 1: BBC called The Pistol Shot. But while on the set,
Speaker 1: David's care free world of wanton no string sex would
Speaker 1: come crashing down around him for the first time, twenty
Speaker 1: one year old David Bowie would fall hopelessly head over
Speaker 1: heels in love. David Bowie was in love. Her name
Speaker 1: was Hermone Farthingale, or at least that's what she called herself.
Speaker 1: Her real name was a closely guarded secret to shield
Speaker 1: her well to do family from her hippie goings on.
Speaker 1: Her exquisitive beauty, on the other hand, was no secret.
Speaker 1: Her Money was an elegant English rose, with rich red hair,
Speaker 1: fair almost translucent skin, and a slender dancer's build, the
Speaker 1: result of her extensive ballet training. She and David were
Speaker 1: initially acquainted through Lindsay Kemp's movement class, but the romance
Speaker 1: blossomed in January on the set of a BBC television
Speaker 1: play called The Pistol Shot. Kemp had been hired to
Speaker 1: choreograph a ballroom sequence, so he cast several of his
Speaker 1: students as dancers. In the costume drama. David and Hermony
Speaker 1: had a brief scene together, performing a minuet and powdered
Speaker 1: wigs and satin breeches mid eighteenth century frippery. Half a
Speaker 1: century later, Hermony would say it took maybe five minutes
Speaker 1: maximum for them to fall in love. David, never overly sentimental,
Speaker 1: would call her Money the real first love of my life.
Speaker 1: It was certainly the first time he been ruled by
Speaker 1: his heart instead of his ambition or libido. Even the
Speaker 1: possess of Lindsay Kemp, who still carried a torch for David,
Speaker 1: recognized their instant connection and backed off slightly. Things were
Speaker 1: more complicated with Ken Pitt, David's manager, with whom he
Speaker 1: shared an apartment and sometimes in bed. David lied to
Speaker 1: Can about his first few days with hermony, claiming he
Speaker 1: was going to Hampstead Heath to look for UFOs, perhaps
Speaker 1: the most sixties excuse of all time. Soon he moved
Speaker 1: out of Ken's apartment and into the three story Georgian
Speaker 1: house Hermione rented with other striving artists in London's leafy
Speaker 1: Kensington district. The tasteful home they shared was decorated in
Speaker 1: what could be best described as rich hippie chic. The
Speaker 1: pair spent hours discussing art and philosophy, or cooking simple
Speaker 1: macrobiotic meals. On weekends, they ventured out to the country
Speaker 1: to commune with nature and sunbathe in the nude. David's
Speaker 1: friends had never seen him so content. They too were
Speaker 1: enchanted by this talented, refined, sensitive, and intense young woman.
Speaker 1: She brought out David's fun, loving spirit and sense of humor.
Speaker 1: They even looked similar with their delicate, almost elfin features,
Speaker 1: but the similarities were beyond the superficial. They described one
Speaker 1: another as twin souls. It was the happiest time of
Speaker 1: David's life with Hermione as his muse, music poured out
Speaker 1: of him. Songs like in the Heat of the Morning
Speaker 1: London by Tata and Karma Man We're All written in
Speaker 1: the early days of their courtship on David's Gibson twelve string.
Speaker 1: He'd moved on from the hippie vaudeville sounds of his
Speaker 1: debut and instead embraced the stripped down confessional style of
Speaker 1: emerging singer songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. Together,
Speaker 1: the two lovebirds formed a performance troup called Feathers. It
Speaker 1: was one of those experimental collectives that could have only
Speaker 1: come about in the late sixties. Feathers fused David's spacey
Speaker 1: folk tunes with poetry, recitations and offbeat mime work. This
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly Marcel Marceau. For one routine, David mind an
Speaker 1: old man hunched over with a crooked back. Then he
Speaker 1: finds a joint on the ground, which he gleefully smokes.
Speaker 1: Soon he's standing stick straight. A highlight of their set
Speaker 1: was the childlike ching a Ling, a singalong jug band
Speaker 1: tune about azure clouds Crystal Girls another far out imagery.
Speaker 1: The Whole Feathers project was indicative of David's short attention
Speaker 1: span and artistic confusion, but also his frustration with the
Speaker 1: mainstream record business, said stonewalled them over the last five years.
Speaker 1: Now he was going against the hit parade and expressing
Speaker 1: himself through any medium he liked. It may have been
Speaker 1: creatively fulfilling, but he was hopelessly broke ken. Pitt did
Speaker 1: his best to chart a course back to commercial viability.
Speaker 1: He persuaded David the film of video Showcase to pitch
Speaker 1: the television networks, and even coughed up the money to
Speaker 1: produce the project himself. Music videos were certainly cutting edge,
Speaker 1: but the songs themselves were not. He was early nine,
Speaker 1: and the trippy Anthony Newley influenced music hall ditties from
Speaker 1: two years earlier now sounded hopelessly passe. David's candy striped
Speaker 1: boter blazer made him look more like a psychedelic sized
Speaker 1: ice cream man on a pop star called Love You
Speaker 1: Till Tuesday. A highlight of the twenty eight minute film
Speaker 1: was a mind piece called The Mask. It's a revealing
Speaker 1: and early prescient critique of fame and the high price
Speaker 1: that comes with it. The piece begins with a boy
Speaker 1: who steals a mask, which he uses to amuse his
Speaker 1: friends and family. The mask catapults the boy to start him,
Speaker 1: transforming him into a addy egomaniac. Then, before a packed audience,
Speaker 1: he discovers that he can't remove the mask has become
Speaker 1: a part of him, and he suffocates on the stage
Speaker 1: as the lights dim on his lifeless body. The narrator
Speaker 1: solemnly speaks. The papers made a big thing of it.
Speaker 1: Strangled on the stage, They said funny, though they didn't
Speaker 1: mention anything about a mask. It was rock and roll
Speaker 1: suicide three years early. Even in nineteen sixty nine, David
Speaker 1: Bowie was under no illusions about the perils of his
Speaker 1: chosen profession. Despite Ken's efforts, every network passed on the special,
Speaker 1: but a crueler rejection was on the horizon for David.
Speaker 1: Her money was offered a role as a dancer and
Speaker 1: The Song of Norway, a big budget MGM musical extravaganza
Speaker 1: starring future Brady Bunch mom Florence Henderson. The shoot required
Speaker 1: her money to live in Scandinavia for seven months. She
Speaker 1: knew she had to take it. David knew their relationship
Speaker 1: was over. It was just a formality when she called
Speaker 1: a short while later to tell David that she's met
Speaker 1: another man, a fellow dancer on the set, and that
Speaker 1: was the end. There had been signs there always are friends,
Speaker 1: witnessed the increasingly frequent quarrels David could be demanding, wanting
Speaker 1: dinner on the table, shirts freshly ironed that sort of thing. Hermione,
Speaker 1: who was just as headstrong as he was, wasn't going
Speaker 1: to put up with that for very long. David would
Speaker 1: admit that the romantic reverie was ruined by his own hand,
Speaker 1: or rather another part of his anatomy. I was totally unfaithful,
Speaker 1: He'd later say, and couldn't, for the life of me
Speaker 1: keep it zipped. I'm sure we would have lasted a
Speaker 1: good long time if I'd been a good boy. It
Speaker 1: was David's first and pretty much last romantic rebuff. Love
Speaker 1: is something that breeds brute anger and jealousy, he said,
Speaker 1: while still reeling from the pain. It rotted me, drained me,
Speaker 1: and it was a disease. Heartbreak was a new sensation
Speaker 1: for David, and he thought soul was an impressive number
Speaker 1: of beds, but he quickly realized that sex did little
Speaker 1: dull the pain of loss. He poured his feelings into
Speaker 1: his music, crafting some of the most intensely personal songs
Speaker 1: he'd ever write. In an occasional dream, David poetically recalls
Speaker 1: the time they spent together and the future that would
Speaker 1: never come. The past we talk with our eyes of
Speaker 1: the sweetness in our lives and the tomorrows of rich surprise,
Speaker 1: some things we could do in our madness. Letter to
Speaker 1: Harmony is even more direct, taking the form of a
Speaker 1: love note, never sent with words filled with regret and
Speaker 1: all the things that had gone on said. I care
Speaker 1: for no one else but you. I tear my soul
Speaker 1: to cease the pain. I think maybe you feel the same.
Speaker 1: What can we do? I'm not quite sure what we're
Speaker 1: supposed to do, so I've been writing just for you.
Speaker 1: They say your life is going very well. They say
Speaker 1: you sparkle like a different girl. But something tells me
Speaker 1: that you hide when all the world is warm and tired.
Speaker 1: You cry all in the dark. Well so do I.
Speaker 1: No concepts, no characters, no artifice. His feelings aren't hidden
Speaker 1: in dense thickets of imagery, but laid bare for all
Speaker 1: the Sea and simple heart rendering verse. He'd never write
Speaker 1: another song like it again. The pain stayed with him
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life, so did Harmon's letters,
Speaker 1: which he treasured to his dying day. There would be
Speaker 1: love in David Bowie's future, but no one would ever
Speaker 1: wound him in quite the same way. Bad news started
Speaker 1: to pile up in early After months of rejecting song
Speaker 1: after song, David's label, Decca, decided not to renew his
Speaker 1: record contract. David broke down and cried when he heard
Speaker 1: the news, and supposedly through a chair through a plate
Speaker 1: glass window. Ken pitt fielded increasingly anxious letters from David's father, John,
Speaker 1: wondering when his boy might reach anything that slightly resembled
Speaker 1: financial stability. To feed himself. David took any odd job
Speaker 1: he could that still allow out of the flexibility required
Speaker 1: for a struggling creative. He briefly worked at a photocopy
Speaker 1: agency near the London High Court, and for a time
Speaker 1: he even scrubbed people's kitchens. An audition for the musical
Speaker 1: Hair led to nothing, but he did land apart in
Speaker 1: a thirty second TV commercial for Love ice cream, directed
Speaker 1: by an up and coming filmmaker named Ridley Scott. When
Speaker 1: he was offered two days work at a magician's workshop.
Speaker 1: David needed alone for the railfair. Out of desperation, Ken
Speaker 1: helped him assemble a cabaret routine incorporating Hackey props like
Speaker 1: a laughing Gnome hampuppet and homemade cardboard cutouts of the Beatles.
Speaker 1: The act was dead on arrival. David began to seriously
Speaker 1: think about chucking it all and becoming a Buddhist monk.
Speaker 1: He had been fascinated by the religion since his days
Speaker 1: is a budding beat Nick in school. Now he was
Speaker 1: regularly attending seminars at nearby temples and even joined the
Speaker 1: local Tibet Society. Looking beyond the material world helped him
Speaker 1: cope with the fact that he wasn't doing particularly well
Speaker 1: on that department. Maybe he should just shave his head
Speaker 1: and take his vow. Then he took a trip to
Speaker 1: the cinema and caught Stanley Kubrick's two thousand one, a
Speaker 1: Space Odyssey. The film had opened in England in the
Speaker 1: spring of night, attracting the hip his heads in London.
Speaker 1: John Lennon was rumored to watch it once a week
Speaker 1: If David was looking for escapism, he definitely picked the
Speaker 1: wrong movie. The bleak, unsettling imagery that unspooled at a
Speaker 1: glacial pace was like a portrait of his own psyche.
Speaker 1: This was space, not the beautifully star flecked variety, but inky,
Speaker 1: black emptiness without harmony. His world was just as dark
Speaker 1: and cold. David had deviated from his flight plan, the
Speaker 1: one that all little British boys his age have been
Speaker 1: issued at birth. Keep your head down, get a good job,
Speaker 1: make some money, don't make waves. Now he was on
Speaker 1: his own, off course, beyond help, seemingly condemned to float aimlessly,
Speaker 1: waiting for death. So he put it in a song.
Speaker 1: The jokey title belayed the serious emotions that went into it.
Speaker 1: Space Oddity was a self portrait. There was something about
Speaker 1: it that touched areas of my own insecurities. He later explained,
Speaker 1: this feeling of isolation I had ever since I was
Speaker 1: a kid was really starting to manifest itself. He initially
Speaker 1: intended the song to be a Simon and Garfuncle style
Speaker 1: duet with his friend John Hutchison. He and hutch recorded
Speaker 1: a demo version soon after New Year's nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 1: Sitting face to face on the edge of David's bed,
Speaker 1: hutch sang the part of ground control while David played
Speaker 1: major tom naturally for another worldly edge, he played a stylophone,
Speaker 1: a small electronic keyboard given to him by his friend
Speaker 1: and sometimes rival, Mark bolan Ken. Pitt immediately noted the
Speaker 1: hit potential of space oddity and launched in the full
Speaker 1: managerial hype mode, But then they hit a snag. John
Speaker 1: Hutchison opted to move back to his hometown to be
Speaker 1: closer to his wife and child. David now had the
Speaker 1: tricky task reviving his solo career with a song intended
Speaker 1: to be a duet, but he had a new partner,
Speaker 1: albeit one of her romantic variety. David was playing music
Speaker 1: at a friend's house one day when the sounds from
Speaker 1: his guitar attracted their downstairs neighbor, Mary Finnegan. Rather than
Speaker 1: complain as most neighbors might, Mary liked it and invited
Speaker 1: David in for a cup of tea. Being nine sixty nine,
Speaker 1: the tea came with a dash of cream and cannabis soil.
Speaker 1: By the time the cups were cleared, David had accepted
Speaker 1: Mary's invitation to move into the spare room of the
Speaker 1: apartment she shared with her two young children. The crumbling
Speaker 1: Victorian wasn't much the look at, but he needed to
Speaker 1: move on from the home he chaired with her money
Speaker 1: and staying with his parents was no longer an option
Speaker 1: for the twenty two year old. No matter how broke
Speaker 1: he was. To David, Bromly represented semi death. David was
Speaker 1: far from a model tenant. He rarely paid rent, and
Speaker 1: cleaning was a completely foreign concept. However, the transition from
Speaker 1: lodger to lover happened quickly. One night, Mary arrived home
Speaker 1: from work to find an unfamiliar sight a tidy apartment
Speaker 1: David had laid out an elegant candle at dinner. After
Speaker 1: the meal, that retired to his room, where he'd arranged
Speaker 1: the nest of cushions on the floor. Kneeling before the
Speaker 1: altar of his stereo, David played Mary some of his
Speaker 1: favorite songs, selections from Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and Jacques Brel.
Speaker 1: For a poor artist, sharing music was the most precious
Speaker 1: gift he could offer. He and Mary stayed up late
Speaker 1: mulling over their individual philosophies. David was constantly torn between
Speaker 1: his Buddhist leanings and show business aspirations. Wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: great to wed art and spirituality all while still making
Speaker 1: some badly needed cash on the side. This let them
Speaker 1: open up their own venue, the Beckenham Arts Lab. It
Speaker 1: was a suburban version of the alternative creative center springing
Speaker 1: up around central London. A sort of psychedelic sized youth club.
Speaker 1: My music, poetry, puppet shows, Harry Krishna, Chance anything went
Speaker 1: Every Sunday evening. David and Mary transformed the dingy back
Speaker 1: room of the Three Tons Pub into a mini hate Ashbury.
Speaker 1: The tobacco stained walls were decorated with day glow posters
Speaker 1: straight out of San Francisco. The sticky, beer soaked floorboards
Speaker 1: were covered with cushions in Indian bedspreads. There was no
Speaker 1: stage to speak of. David just sat on a stool
Speaker 1: in the corner, strumming his acoustic twelve string Gibson colored
Speaker 1: lights projected onto a white bed sheet, where the extent
Speaker 1: of their special effects about People turned out for opening
Speaker 1: night on May four nine. The next week, attendants had doubled.
Speaker 1: By week three, the excess crowd flowed out into the
Speaker 1: pub's garden. There happening was a hit. David relished his
Speaker 1: role as a hippie pie piper, leading the parade of
Speaker 1: local freaks to the Straighter than Straight Tutor pub to
Speaker 1: hear his songs. Each week, the publicity blur for the
Speaker 1: beck in the mart's labs summed up the sheer groovy
Speaker 1: nous come for the fun of it and for the
Speaker 1: instant identification with the vibrations cos me. David continued to
Speaker 1: embrace the free love philosophy, not that Mary knew anything
Speaker 1: about it. He spent several days a week in London,
Speaker 1: staying with an assortment of friends and lovers. Easily the
Speaker 1: most colorful of these was Calvin Mark Lee, a San
Speaker 1: Franciscan ex pat whose doctorate in pharmaceutical chemistry no doubt
Speaker 1: proved useful in the drug filled music industry. Employed as
Speaker 1: the insistent head of Mercury Records European office, the flirty
Speaker 1: and flamboyant Calvin was famous for his love jewel, a
Speaker 1: glittering plastic, red and silver prism displayed on his forehead,
Speaker 1: later co opted by David in the waning days of
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardust. Calvin was one of the few impressed with
Speaker 1: David's debut LP and Son I'm a fan letter in
Speaker 1: the summer of sixty seven. David didn't get many fan letters,
Speaker 1: and certainly none like Lee's, which included passionate pledges of love.
Speaker 1: The inevitable affair soon began, How could it not, Calvin
Speaker 1: was smitten. David's interest was more casual, some might say opportunistic.
Speaker 1: He was chiefly attracted to Calvin's position at a major
Speaker 1: label and his superhuman talents as a networker. The Mercury
Speaker 1: Exect was friends with Acid King stan Ousley, Mike Nesmith
Speaker 1: of the Monkeys, and even Jimmy Hendrix. David hoped to
Speaker 1: meet such luminaries, but Calvin's most influential production was with
Speaker 1: a headstrong American woman. She wasn't famous, but she'd helped
Speaker 1: chart David's artistic pat and become his first wife, Mary
Speaker 1: Angela Barnett, better known to the world as one Angie Bowie.
Speaker 1: David used to say that he met his first wife
Speaker 1: when they were quote screwing the same bloke. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a clever party joke, but that's pretty much how
Speaker 1: it happened. Their courtship is one of the raunchier meat
Speaker 1: cutes in rock history. Calvin Mark Lee was the man
Speaker 1: who brought the star crossed lovers together. In addition to
Speaker 1: wearing a prism on his forehead, one of Calvin's many
Speaker 1: eccentricities involved displaying a photo gallery of all of his
Speaker 1: sexual conquests above his bed. It was a hall of
Speaker 1: fame for him and also let his sex partners know
Speaker 1: they were in good company. Once. At some point during
Speaker 1: their affair, Angela became fixed at it on a picture
Speaker 1: of David shirtless. Calvin, the consummate networker, promise to make
Speaker 1: an introduction, andree is a roar shock test when it
Speaker 1: comes to Bowie fans. To some, she's the woman behind
Speaker 1: the curtain, the manic muse, the master manipulator, the mastermind
Speaker 1: who engineered David's assent to the highest reaches of pop
Speaker 1: cultural significance by crafting his look, his deals, and his
Speaker 1: ever changing personas. To others, she's the worst thing that
Speaker 1: ever happened to him. Whatever the case, there's no denying
Speaker 1: that this larger than life whirlwind made an oversized impact,
Speaker 1: and that's just how she likes it. Andre was born
Speaker 1: in n nine on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, to
Speaker 1: an American colonel who left the army to open a
Speaker 1: mining company. Her complex attitudes the sex were shaped early.
Speaker 1: At age seven, her dad caught her kissing a boy
Speaker 1: next door, a harmless write of passage for most kids.
Speaker 1: His response was to beat her relentlessly with a camel whip.
Speaker 1: She'd have an equally traumatic experience while enrolled at Connecticut
Speaker 1: College when she was expelled for having an affair with
Speaker 1: her fe mail student. Both of these incidents made her wonder,
Speaker 1: what is the problem that everyone has with sex? Her
Speaker 1: lust for stardom was equally intense. It began on a
Speaker 1: transatlantic cruise when she happened to bump in the Liberacci
Speaker 1: a fellow passenger. An up close audience with this paragon
Speaker 1: of show business access was enough to get her hooked
Speaker 1: on the very idea she would be a singer, or
Speaker 1: a model or something, as long as it was grand.
Speaker 1: She'd work out the details later. By nine sixty six,
Speaker 1: she moved to the newly swinging London to study marketing
Speaker 1: at a local college. She continued the dream of fame,
Speaker 1: but her reality was much more modest, living in a
Speaker 1: cramped room above the travel agency where she worked. Then
Speaker 1: she met Mercury Records chief Lou Reisner in the elevator
Speaker 1: of an ultra k hair salon. That's when things started
Speaker 1: looking up for Angie. They became an item. Then Lou
Speaker 1: made the mistake of introducing Angie to a second in command,
Speaker 1: Calvin Mark Lee. Then they also became an item. Has
Speaker 1: made Calvin rather unpopular in Risinger's office. Whenever Calvin tried
Speaker 1: to tell the label head about his talented friend David
Speaker 1: and his great new song about a spaceman, Lou was
Speaker 1: only too happy to ignore him. Angie first laid eyes
Speaker 1: on David in the flesh when Calvin took her to
Speaker 1: see a Feather's performance at the Roundhouse Club. She could
Speaker 1: take her leave the whole multimedia mime thing, but that frontman.
Speaker 1: He was hard to forget, Andie would vividly recall her
Speaker 1: memory of David that night. His steel blue eyes burned
Speaker 1: with mystery that defied the searching spotlights. His whole performance
Speaker 1: exuded in eroticism. They met for real a few months later,
Speaker 1: in the spring of nineteen sixty nine, when Calvin Invita
Speaker 1: heard a third Wheel of Chinatown dinner date charged to
Speaker 1: his Mercury Record's expense account. By now, Angie had grown
Speaker 1: infatuated with the photo of David hanging over Calvin's bed,
Speaker 1: she showed up to the Dumpling In restaurant dressed to
Speaker 1: kill in a three piece pink and purple pants suit
Speaker 1: with matching silk tie. Such masculine attire was unusual for
Speaker 1: a woman in sixties London, and David was intrigued with
Speaker 1: their slight build and short cropped hair. They almost looked
Speaker 1: like twins. They also shared open attitudes to sex. Over dinner,
Speaker 1: she told David about her physical relationship with a woman,
Speaker 1: a revelation that had brought her public shame at college.
Speaker 1: David couldn't care less, He told her, you only did
Speaker 1: what you felt. That's how love is. With that, their
Speaker 1: destiny was sealed. After dinner, the trio dropped by a
Speaker 1: record release party for King Crimson at the Speakeasy Club.
Speaker 1: David asked Angie to dance with the immortal pickup line
Speaker 1: do You Jive? Before long, they wound up at Angie's
Speaker 1: flat above the travel Agent. She had some constructive criticism
Speaker 1: for his love making. He was a stud, not a sensualist,
Speaker 1: she later said, but they were bonded by more than
Speaker 1: just sex. They fed off each other's ambition. It was
Speaker 1: the first time that David had met someone has driven
Speaker 1: as himself. The fact that she was a sexually aberrated
Speaker 1: live wire was just a bonus. They spent a few
Speaker 1: nights together in London before David headed back to the
Speaker 1: home he shared with Mary and Beckenham. But Mary was
Speaker 1: out of town, so when David came down with a cold,
Speaker 1: he called Angie to come nurse him back to health.
Speaker 1: When Mary arrived home, she knew instantly that something was different.
Speaker 1: The smell gave it away. Instead of the usual aroma
Speaker 1: of stale takeout food, cigarettes and sweaty socks that lingered
Speaker 1: when David was around, her nose detected furniture polished, disinfected,
Speaker 1: and poshed notes of Chanel perfume. She found the place immaculate.
Speaker 1: The last time this had happened, David had prepared a
Speaker 1: romantic neil. This time, he was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1: She patted into his room to find a woman's kimono
Speaker 1: draped over a chair. The kimono didn't belong to her.
Speaker 1: The notebook on David's desk was opened to display a
Speaker 1: half written song called Beautiful Angie. That's when it finally
Speaker 1: dawned on Mary that David might have kind of, sort
Speaker 1: of been slightly less than monogam us. Shattered, Mary retreated
Speaker 1: to her own bedroom to make sense of the betrayal.
Speaker 1: She awoke hours later to the smell of cooking. A
Speaker 1: cheerful American woman greeted her in her own kitchen. Hello Mary,
Speaker 1: she said, in her mini mouse voice, How wonderful to
Speaker 1: meet you. David's told me so much about you. Mary
Speaker 1: wanted to be angry, but she just couldn't. Obviously, David
Speaker 1: had some nerve bringing his new lover into her own
Speaker 1: home without even having the good grace to break up
Speaker 1: with her first. But Aie was just too charming. She
Speaker 1: was generous, cooking lavish meals and planning fun group outings.
Speaker 1: She was bright, well read, and highly cultured. She had
Speaker 1: Mary delighted in speaking French together, which had the added
Speaker 1: bonus of making David supremely uncomfortable. David had been kind
Speaker 1: of a jerk, but Mary thought Angie was great. Almost
Speaker 1: in spite of herself. Mary aloud Angie and David to
Speaker 1: rent a room in her home for the next few months.
Speaker 1: Of course, there were times when Angie could be a
Speaker 1: self centered drama queen throw hissy fits for the Ages.
Speaker 1: The relationship was technically an open one, but David's new
Speaker 1: partner was still prone to the odd fit of jealousy.
Speaker 1: Once early in their courtship, David informed her that he
Speaker 1: was going out, Andie responded by hurling herself down the stairs.
Speaker 1: David barely reacted, coolly stepping over her body on his
Speaker 1: way out the door, and she became a crucial supporter
Speaker 1: of David's musical career. The hippie dippy arts lab thing
Speaker 1: with small potatoes, she had bigger ideas she continued her
Speaker 1: relationship with Mercury Records chief Lou Reisner and pestered him
Speaker 1: to sign David Calvin mark Lee continued the lobby for
Speaker 1: David as well, but Lou wouldn't hear of it. It
Speaker 1: was bad enough that Calvin was sleeping with his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: but now David too. No chance for all of lose misgivings.
Speaker 1: Calvin New Space Audity was a hit, The song itself
Speaker 1: was great, and the Apollo eleven Moonshot scheduled for that summer,
Speaker 1: presented a golden marketing opportunity that was just too good
Speaker 1: to pass up. The countdown was on so Calvin went
Speaker 1: behind Low's back and financed the demo recording. The results
Speaker 1: were fantastic, and when Angie threatened to stop seeing Lou
Speaker 1: if he didn't sign David well, that helped to George
Speaker 1: Martin was the first choice to produce Space Oddity, but
Speaker 1: the Fifth Beatle wasn't a fan of the song and
Speaker 1: said no, and irate Ken Pitt scribbled George Martin is
Speaker 1: fallible in his diary. Then he placed to call the
Speaker 1: Tony Visconti, David's close friend had produced his last sessions. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Tony also didn't like the song. He thought it was
Speaker 1: too gimmicky, a cheap way to cash in on the
Speaker 1: Lunar landing. Instead, he pawned the job off on his
Speaker 1: former engineer, Gus Dudgeon, who was more than happy to oblige.
Speaker 1: Recording began at London's Trident Studios on June nine, the
Speaker 1: day David inked his deal with Mercury. Cutting edge instruments
Speaker 1: were used for that spacey otherworldly impact. David played his
Speaker 1: style a phone and they also rolled out a melotron,
Speaker 1: a primitive synthesized or popularized by the Beatles on Strawberry
Speaker 1: Fields forever to play it. Dudgeon tapped future prog rock
Speaker 1: god Rick Wakeman of Yes then still enrolled the music College.
Speaker 1: It was the second recording date he'd ever played, but
Speaker 1: he nailed the meloitron keyboard part and just two takes.
Speaker 1: Some of the effects were less high tech. Guitarist Mick
Speaker 1: Wayne dragged his chrome cigarette lighter up the neck of
Speaker 1: his guitar to simulate the dramatic rocket lift off. The
Speaker 1: result is a masterfully cinematic piece of folk rock. From
Speaker 1: the ominous, barely audible introduction to arranger Paul Buckminster's chilling
Speaker 1: orchestral conclusion as Major Tom's spacecraft tumbles into the ether.
Speaker 1: It's a decidedly downbeat comment and what was intended to
Speaker 1: be the decades crowning achievement, Space Oddity offers a cold,
Speaker 1: hard look where all that technological no how has gotten
Speaker 1: us estranged from fellow humans and focused on the superficial,
Speaker 1: like the shirts one wears. Ironically, the only way Major
Speaker 1: Tom breaks free of his existential despairs that's attached completely
Speaker 1: from human end himself. Bowie Ever, the Buddhist later explained
Speaker 1: at the end of the song, Major Tom is completely
Speaker 1: emotionless and expresses no view at all about where he's at.
Speaker 1: He's fragmenting, his mind is completely blown. He's everything. Then
Speaker 1: Mercury worked overtime to ensure that the song was in
Speaker 1: shops before Apollo eleven's launch date. Calvin Mark Lee waited
Speaker 1: at the studio to personally whisk the final takebox over
Speaker 1: to the pressing plant. On July eleven, only three weeks
Speaker 1: after the recording session, Space Oddity hit the shelves. Nine
Speaker 1: days later, a somewhat larger milestone occurred when Neil Armstrong
Speaker 1: walked on the Moon. The BBC used the song during
Speaker 1: its television coverage. Presumably the producers didn't pick up on
Speaker 1: the song's catastrophic conclusion. The BBC radio were a bit
Speaker 1: more cautious and refused to play the song until the
Speaker 1: astronauts were safely back on Earth. Unfortunately, this delay had
Speaker 1: a disastrous impact on the chart success of Space Oddity.
Speaker 1: Ken took the time honored approach of paying off a
Speaker 1: chart rigger to elevate the ranking, but the investment only
Speaker 1: goosed the song up to number It was a slow burn,
Speaker 1: but that November Space Oddity finally peaked at number five.
Speaker 1: David Bowie had his first bona fide hit, but one
Speaker 1: of his biggest supporters wouldn't get to share it with him.
Speaker 1: In August, David went abroad with Ken Pitt to compete
Speaker 1: in the Malta International Song Festival think Eurovision, but d
Speaker 1: list clad in the pastel boaters Jackety wore. In the
Speaker 1: ill fated Lovey Till Tuesday TV special, David performed when
Speaker 1: I Lived My Dream, the track from his debut album.
Speaker 1: Was a bit stale at that point, but it earned
Speaker 1: a strong response from the middle of the road crowd.
Speaker 1: It even netted David an award for Best Produced Song,
Speaker 1: not exactly a Grammy, but it was the first professional
Speaker 1: accolade that David had ever received as an artist, and
Speaker 1: he couldn't wait to show it off for his father John.
Speaker 1: He arrived back in England and learned the news. John
Speaker 1: was gravely ill. A heavy smoker, John Jones often complained
Speaker 1: of lung ailments, but while David was away, these pains
Speaker 1: grew serious and John collapsed in the street. David's mother, Peggy,
Speaker 1: hoped that some good old fashioned bed rest would solve
Speaker 1: the problem, but John's fever quickly escalated in a critical condition.
Speaker 1: David rushed to his bedside, still clutching his statuette. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a major award, but that didn't matter. He wanted
Speaker 1: to repay John for his faith and support, and the
Speaker 1: small success was a down payment. He needed his father
Speaker 1: to know that he wasn't a loser, that he was
Speaker 1: going to be okay, more than okay. He was going
Speaker 1: to reach the top, and he was going to do
Speaker 1: it for them both. John saw the trophy and managed
Speaker 1: a weak smile before fading into unconsciousness. He died two
Speaker 1: days later, on August five, nineteen sixty nine, of low
Speaker 1: bar pneumonia. He was fifty six. David was in the
Speaker 1: midst of a recording session when he got the call
Speaker 1: telling him that his father was gone. There was some
Speaker 1: quick tears, but then he got right back to work.
Speaker 1: It was the best way to honor his father. The
Speaker 1: album in progress, alternately titled Space Oddity, Man of Words,
Speaker 1: Man of Music, or simply David Bowie four Scars of
Speaker 1: the Twin Tragedies that threatened to overwhelmed David. In the
Speaker 1: second half of nineteen sixty nine. Hermione's unhappy departure cast
Speaker 1: a shadow over several songs but the searing unwashed and
Speaker 1: somewhat slightly dazed is on another level. The visceral imagery
Speaker 1: is uncharacteristically grotesque and tortured. I'm a foulus in pigtails,
Speaker 1: and there's blood on my nose, and my tissue is
Speaker 1: rotting where the rats chew my bones. My eye sockets empty,
Speaker 1: see nothing but pain. David loathe giving straight answers about
Speaker 1: the genesis of his songs, but he was explicit about
Speaker 1: this one. He'd say that Unwashed and somewhat slightly days
Speaker 1: captured the mailstrom of anguish and confusion. In the weeks
Speaker 1: after his father's death, David was racked by regret about
Speaker 1: all the things that have been left unsaid between them.
Speaker 1: For years. He'd call for career advice or visit home
Speaker 1: to get his laundry done, but David rarely tried to
Speaker 1: engage on a deeper level. The familial chilliness he'd experienced
Speaker 1: since childhood had hardened into an impenetrable frost, and communication
Speaker 1: was difficult. I could never ever talk to my father,
Speaker 1: he'd later say. I really loved him, but we couldn't
Speaker 1: talk about anything together. As David matured in adulthood, he
Speaker 1: started to reach out in small ways. He just died
Speaker 1: at the wrong damn time. He'd say, there were so
Speaker 1: many things I would love to have said to him,
Speaker 1: and asked him about all those stereotypical regrets when your
Speaker 1: father dies and you haven't completed your relationship. I felt,
Speaker 1: damn wrong time. Not now, Not now. David didn't cry
Speaker 1: at his father's funeral. Friends and family praised him from
Speaker 1: taking the loss like a man. It's doubtful that he
Speaker 1: shared the macho sentiment. The pain was simply too painful
Speaker 1: the process. However, he took solace in a series of
Speaker 1: early morning phone calls he received in the days after
Speaker 1: John's death. Whenever David answered, he heard only silence. David
Speaker 1: took it as a sign, telling a friend, I just
Speaker 1: knew it was my dad seeing if I was all right.
Speaker 1: Five days after he buried his father, David played the
Speaker 1: biggest show of his life. He'd been planning the Beckenham
Speaker 1: Free Festival for months along with his arts lab cohorts.
Speaker 1: They're hard work paid off as five thousand people turned
Speaker 1: out to enjoy music, puppet shows, astrologers, tarot readings and
Speaker 1: Tibetan crafts. It was Augustine. As usual, his timing was impeccable.
Speaker 1: Just as David released his debut album on the same
Speaker 1: day the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper. He made his festival
Speaker 1: debut the same weekend as Woodstock Half a World of
Speaker 1: The weather was beautiful, but David's mood grew cloudy minutes
Speaker 1: before he was due to perform. The torment of the
Speaker 1: prior months, coupled with about a stage fright, hit him
Speaker 1: all at once, and he grew testy and withdrawn. He
Speaker 1: traveled so far already, and many loved ones were left behind.
Speaker 1: His father, Hermione, his brother Terry, They were no longer
Speaker 1: by his side. What did he have? The show for?
Speaker 1: It all? A prime slot at a free festival in
Speaker 1: a backwater British suburb, A cooler received novelty record, an
Speaker 1: LP that was all but ignored. Was this as good
Speaker 1: as it gets? Was this all? There was a voice
Speaker 1: called out to David. It was time to play. All
Speaker 1: the doubts were set aside as he started to sing
Speaker 1: for a few thousand people, for David Bowie, the show
Speaker 1: would go on off. The record is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Noel Brown, and
Speaker 1: Shawn Ty Tone. The Superbusting producers so Taylor chicogn and
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. The show is written and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Jordan run Tug and edited, scored and sound designed by
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe
Speaker 1: and leave us a review. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.