Some months later, Normand Kurtz bumped into Joe Vigoda and complained to him how badly Stevie had behaved in his dealings with me. Joe said nothing, but a few days later he sent Normand a ten-thousand-dollar cheque for me, together with a brief message of apology on behalf of Stevie Wonder. Normand told Joe that I had spent a lot more than that in the pursuit of Mr Wonder, which was true, but Joe advised us to take the money and run, which I did.
Now that Stevie Wonder was no longer a diversion, all the focus was back on David Bowie. Before Gem was paid its seventy-five thousand dollars under the agreement with RCA, the masters of Hunky Dory had to be delivered to the record company and David had to sign an ‘inducement letter’ to RCA, confirming his formal agreement to his personal obligations under the Gem agreement. In September 1971 David and Angie, together with Mick Ronson, went to New York with Defries. We sent them all over first-class, something none of them had experienced, and on arrival RCA arranged for them to see Elvis Presley perform at Madison Square Garden. David was now beginning to feel like a star.
On 9 September in the RCA boardroom, the Hunky Dory master was formally delivered to Rocco Laginestra, the head of RCA. As was their style, David and Angie were both dressed similarly. Both had identical red hairstyles and there was a slight hitch when the RCA head of publicity thought that Angie was in fact David. That resolved, David signed his inducement letter and RCA handed Defries the cheque for seventy-five thousand dollars, made out to Gem. It was quite a moment in my business life and I rather wished that I could have been there myself. Defries called me as soon as he was out of Rocco’s office to tell me that he had the cheque. It was obviously a great relief to me personally – in addition to covering recording costs, Gem paid David, Mick Ronson and the rest of the band weekly wages. Not only that, but so far not one of David’s recordings had ever recouped its cost, and he was earning a pittance from personal appearances.
Tony Zanetta or ‘Zee’ as he was generally known, enthusiastically welcomed David and his party to New York. Zee took them to The Factory and introduced them all to Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey, the film-maker who was closely associated with the artist. After the meeting, Defries called me to say that he thought we could get involved with the distribution of Warhol’s films. In Defries’s view, Warhol was not exploiting his commerciality and he was certain that he could help. In Zee’s recollection of the meeting, Warhol gave Defries no reason to think that he was interested in any assistance.
After a dinner where David and Defries met Lou Reed, the crew went to Max’s Kansas City, a New York club where they were introduced to Iggy Pop. The next morning Iggy was invited to breakfast with Defries and David, resulting in Defries soon signing Iggy, a proud heroin addict and general wild-man, as a Gem artist. The Warhol/Reed/Iggy/Bowie relationship was a forge that made David a major talking point within the New York gay community, who were a very influential force in Manhattan’s movers and groovers. It did him no harm at all in advancing his career.
Defries returned to London full of his fantastic trip to New York. He was convinced that we could manage Warhol and Lou Reed as well as Iggy. He brushed aside my concerns that we were taking on more than we could chew. He also became somewhat dismissive of other Gem artists. I became concerned about Defries’ enormous belief in his ability to achieve world domination of the ‘alternative’ music business and began to think that I might not want to bring Defries into my company as a partner. When he first came to see me, I believed that he was hoping to attach himself to my rising star. Now just over a year later, he clearly thought that his personal comet had eclipsed me. We still had a warm relationship but I was wary of the change.
In November we all went to The Rainbow theatre to see Alice Cooper – maybe the first successful rock’n’roll artist to wear character make-up. The Rainbow was previously The Astoria cinema, just across the road from the Astoria Candy Stores – my parents’ business, my home from the age of twelve to eighteen and now a very tacky dress shop. I explained to David that I used to live above it and I think he was surprised by my humble origins.
The Alice Cooper show was groundbreakingly great and spectacularly theatrical, but David promised that he could do better. He was already in the studios, recording tracks for the album to follow Hunky Dory and there was no doubt that he was influenced by his contact with Iggy, Lou Reed and the Warhol cabal.
Hunky Dory was released in the UK in December 1971. It had a Gem Productions logo on the back, which was dropped without my permission in later pressings and on the CD. I could have taken legal proceedings but it did not seem important to me at the time. My kids, now grown up, have copies of the original, which is enough for me. I have the gold disc that was presented for sales of a hundred thousand copies. I also have a gold disc for the The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which was also a Gem production. I have three children and, unfortunately, only two Bowie discs to leave them, so to be fair I will have to work out how many New Seekers, Donna Summer and Heatwave gold discs equal one Bowie. I also have Gary Glitter gold discs, but suspect these would probably be a minus in the equation.
Hunky Dory did not do well on its initial release, selling barely two thousand copies in the first month. RCA London boss Ken Glancy was very concerned at the amount of money being spent on the promotion of the album at the insistence of Defries. To everybody’s relief, it had a surge in sales after the release of Ziggy Stardust, accumulating sales of three hundred thousand. Hunky Dory did get great reviews in the music press and was widely acclaimed by the industry.
Choosing the first single off the album was important and – in a rare nod towards my success at having selected hit singles for other artists in the past – I was asked to choose a track. ‘Life On Mars’ was clearly a masterpiece but I was concerned it did not have the instant appeal to producers of radio, especially BBC Radio 1, the station that was then vital for exposure to the pop-buying public. I settled on ‘Changes’, which I thought better fitted the radio-play requirements, and ‘Life On Mars’ would be the second single. ‘Changes’ did not make the Top 40 … so much for my reputation as a pop picker.
The album definitely created a Bowie buzz, and the material that David was writing for Ziggy excited us all. The relative failure of Hunky Dory was a disappointment against that but was not a major setback for me personally. Tony Macaulay was producing hits for Johnny Johnson and Mike Leander was in the studio producing albums for David Essex and Marianne Faithfull, so I was fully occupied on positive projects.
In January 1972, Michael Watts – an important music journalist – came to Gem to interview David for the Melody Maker. This was quite a serious weekly paper and I remember standing in the Gem reception afterwards with David, who told me that he had just come out to the writer. He reminded me about my initial concern that being openly gay could affect his popularity with female fans, laughed and said, ‘Laurence – we’re about to find out.’ David’s announcement was no great shock, bearing in mind his penchant for wearing dresses and his general lifestyle, but it was hailed as a statement of pride by the gay community and many gay men who were not particularly aware of his music became instant fans. In some quarters, his coming out was seen as a publicity stunt. David had a big UK tour coming up and there is no doubt that the article was a huge help.
Shortly after the article appeared, a letter came to the office. It was in a brown envelope marked On Her Majesty’s Service (OHMS), presumably from the taxman, so it came to my desk. It was in fact from a gay man who described in great detail what he would like to do to David and what he would like David to do to him. I still blush at the thought of it. The remarkable thing is that the sender continued sending letters in similar OHMS-marked envelopes almost every day for some months, presumably all written in working hours … and we wonder why the UK has a trade deficit.
I took Marsha to see David playing in Aylesbury that same month. He still showed no confidence on stage and was frankly disappointing. I r
emember saying he needed someone to help him create a stage act. A couple of weeks later he played the Imperial College in London. The gigs were chalk-and-cheese – he had now really got into his Ziggy character. He was in front of a small, studenty crowd but I remember ‘Suffragette City’ bringing them to their feet. I had taken the whole office along to support David. Paul Gadd – soon to be Gary Glitter – came with Mike Leander. After the show we all offered David our congratulations. David was patronising to Paul, which upset me a little at the time.
By now Defries’ spending – of Gem’s money – was getting totally out of hand. He always insisted on having a large amount of cash on his person so that he could be magnanimous to David and other artists (albeit with my money). At Gem’s expense, people were flying back and forth across the Atlantic, studios were being hired and musicians employed. Gem was like an avant-garde musicians’ benefits office and, having investigated the profligacy of The Beatles’ Apple Corp in my previous life, I clearly had to get my own house in order. Any concerns that I expressed to Defries were met with a shrug and, ‘I’m building us the biggest artist roster in the world, Laurence.’ My problem was finding the time to properly address this issue. Apart from working with Leander and Macaulay, I was starting to put together Arcade Records, the compilation company that would become the most profitable business venture I ever undertook.
One of the most important and interesting of Defries’ signings was Iggy Pop. David was keen to work with Iggy, who arrived in London in February to collaborate on David’s new album. We initially put him up at The Royal Garden hotel in Kensington. Iggy did not like the poshness and I was not mad about the cost. My tiny house in St John’s Wood was currently unoccupied as we had recently moved. I foolishly agreed that Iggy and his guitarist James Williamson could move into the house for the rest of their stay. ‘What a stupid thing to do,’ I hear you say, and you are right, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Iggy was very charming when I took him to the house – no sign of the wild-man of rock who appeared on stage – and he thanked me most politely for allowing him to stay in my house. He repaid me by leaving burn marks on our carpet where he had made little fires, no doubt to warm spoons for eating soup.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, to give it its proper title, was produced by David and Ken Scott, and was released in the UK in June of 1972. The album artwork featuring David, dressed in a stunning jumpsuit, was brilliantly photographed by Brian Ward on a rainy night in Heddon Street, a cul-de-sac off Regent Street. It’s now full of trendy restaurants, but in 1972 it was something of a seedy backwater where Brian could work undisturbed. Such is the importance of the album, there is now a plaque on the wall where the photograph was taken.
The album was immediately a success in the UK, selling eight thousand copies in the first week and peaking at UK No. 5. The music press had enormous goodwill towards David. They wanted him to produce a great album and Ziggy Stardust did the job. The alien had landed and had conquered the world.
It is important to acknowledge the contribution that Mick Ronson made to Bowie’s music, not just as one of the Spiders from Mars, but as a general contributor. He was not only a great guitarist who gave Bowie’s recordings a distinct sound, he was a brilliant arranger and producer who should have received much more formal credit for his work. Mick was quite an enigma. Very much a salt-of-the-earth northern lad, he was inclined to stand up when I – the guv’nor – entered the room. Classically trained from childhood to play piano and violin, he wanted to be a cellist until, influenced by the distinctive sound of guitar virtuoso Duane Eddy, he switched to guitar. From 1963 he played with a variety of bands in the Hull area, while working as a gardener for the Hull City parks department between gigs. He did a lot of session work and toured briefly with Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and others. In 1970, he joined David as a member of his backing band, The Hype, and was a huge influence on David’s music until he left him in 1973 to pursue a solo career.
Mick’s arrangements included the lovely string arrangement on ‘Life On Mars’. He was also, of course, part of the controversy when David famously simulated fellatio on his guitar on the tour to promote the Ziggy album – something that Mick was not happy about. But he was unquestionably one of the great guitarists of his era. He was a thoroughly nice bloke and I was deeply moved when I heard of his death from cancer, aged forty-six, in 1993. Mick was something of an unsung hero and I was happy to contribute to Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story, Jon Brewer’s excellent film.
Based on the success of the album I had bought a twentytwo-foot motorboat, which I named Ziggy Stardust. I thanked David for his ‘gift’ and he urged me to commission a paint job by George Underwood, a childhood friend and one-time fellow band member. It was hardly a practical idea, and the boat would never have lasted until now, but I sometimes wonder what a boat painted by George – now a successful artist – would be worth these days.
Success was a double-edged sword. On one hand I was delighted that the expectation and hype that had surrounded David had at last come to fruition and that I no longer needed to be concerned about my financial exposure. The downside was that Defries, vindicated in his belief of Bowie’s stardom, was paying less and less attention to my advice to concentrate on our other artists. He was now trying to get more deeply involved with Iggy, Mott the Hoople, Lou Reed and various other artists within that circle. David sat on my office floor playing ‘All The Young Dudes’ for Ian Hunter, the lead singer of Mott. Ian loved it and David produced the single and the following album. With my approval, Tony Defries signed Mott the Hoople to Gem.
My offices were now a home from home for a motley collection of musicians – now including Mott the Hoople – outré hangers-on and arguably weirdos, who sucked up so much of the oxygen of Gem that the other occupants – including me – were made to feel like background characters. I had no wish to fall out with Defries, but clearly I had to make some changes. I had promised him 20 per cent of the company ‘if things worked out well’ and at some level things had worked out very well indeed, but it was clear that if I did not change my relationship things could work out very badly.
There was no question that if David was to be a worldwide star he had to conquer America. America had by far the biggest market for music. As a generalisation, a US hit sold more than five times as much as a UK hit, and a successful US tour could make ten times as much as a UK tour. Through his marriage to Angie, a US citizen, David was allowed to work in America and it made sense for him to physically establish a base there. Defries was completely in love with the New York scene and had been nagging me to open a Gem office in New York, which he would run. I was unable to contain his extravagance when he was in an office five yards from where I sat, so clearly my chances would not improve if he were three thousand miles away. I was also very much aware that once he was that far away – human nature being what it is – at some point Defries would start to resent being a ‘junior partner’ and things could well become nasty. I had been increasingly convinced that I could not live with Tony Defries as a partner in my company and the timing of his wish to move to New York suited me very well.
The Defries coterie of artists was still in deficit to Gem. Pay attention to this next bit because it introduces irony into my story. I did not keep copies of my old Gem accountings – who knew? – but Kevin Cann’s book Any Day Now sets out some very specific balances of Defries-signed artists from around 1972:
Bowie’s deficit: £29,062.
Mott the Hoople’s surplus: £2,603
Iggy Pop’s deficit: £5,767
Dana Gillespie’s deficit: about £2,000
I called Kevin Cann and asked him how on earth he had come by this information. He told me that he had been given copies of accountings by Peter Gillman, who with his wife wrote Alias David Bowie in 1986. I called Peter who told me that he had been given some files by the widow of Peter Gerber, who was my internal accountant until he was seduced away by Defr
ies. So essentially, the information that I have set out above was generated in the seventies by a member of my staff, passed on to Peter Gillman for the book he published in 1986, and passed on to Kevin Cann for the book he wrote in 2010. I was upset at the time that Defries had approached Peter to work for him without asking me if I minded, but on the other hand – and there is often another hand – I thought that Peter would protect my future interest, so I did not make an issue of Tony’s poor behaviour.
Having decided to change my arrangement with Defries, we had to agree a ‘divorce’ deal. If it came to a fight, in the left-hand corner was David Bowie’s contract with Gem, which provided that if Defries left Gem, David could walk away. But – big but – in the right-hand corner we had David’s obligation to RCA, which was through the recording contract that he had signed with Gem. Even if Gem lost David for management, it would still own his recording services and most importantly, the Gem/ RCA contract provided that outright ownership of the albums reverted to Gem five years after the contract ended. Gem would win. Happily, Defries acknowledged my contribution to his position at that time and there was no fight.
Defries had decided to go it alone under the name MainMan. There was to be a MainMan London and MainMan New York. He had no money so I loaned him forty thousand dollars to finance his New York operation. Gem assigned to MainMan all the rights and benefits that it owned in David and the other artists brought in by Defries. Gem would receive all outstanding amounts due plus 20 per cent of the gross income from all of David’s earnings for five years. After the deal was agreed, Defries asked if there was a point at which I would be satisfied to give up my financial interest in David’s gross income. Without giving it too much thought I said that if he repaid the loan and paid the deficits on the assigned artists account, plus – a big plus – five hundred thousand pounds within eighteen months, I would then give up any future interest. Before you conclude that I was a schmuck to make this deal, a few points in mitigation:
Hunky Dory (Who Knew) Page 17