by Paul Trynka
Yet there was a far more crucial reason for Defries’ absence: a singer whose fame far outstripped Bowie’s, and who was also attempting to extricate himself from his contract. That singer was Stevie Wonder, Motown’s one-time child star, who would come of age in May 1971, and would be entitled to all of the royalties he’d accrued over the last eight years, with his contract up for renewal. Both the size of the prize, and the challenge of taking on Motown, became an obsession for Defries, who spent most of the winter planning his assault on the Detroit label.
Saddled with an absentee manager, abandoned by the collaborators he’d relied on so heavily, and with all the momentum of his one truly great song seemingly lost, David Bowie was finally, but for his wife, standing alone. The experience would reveal both of them at their best. However celebrated their relationship during the media saturation of the Ziggy years, it was in the obscurity of 1971 that the pair forged a new lifestyle. Abandoned, free, the pair were reborn, reinvented.
For David, his isolation, in the insulated microclimate of Haddon Hall, brought out shadows of the earnest, punctual, hard-working teenager. If other people weren’t going to help him complete his songs, then he’d do so by himself. And all those hard-earned lessons, the songs pieced painfully together with The Lower Third, the home-made arrangements cooked up with the Observer’s book of music, the chords he’d worked out alongside Mick Ronson, would finally cohere in the consciousness of David Bowie, showbiz trouper.
With the faint-hearted supporters stripped away, it was Angie who formed the bounds of David’s world. The hostess of Haddon Hall ministered to David’s every need: brought him breakfast in bed, made him endless cups of tea, or ran out for cigarettes. She would talk to Defries to keep him interested, and then she would call Bob Grace and tell him, ‘Oh you’re wonderful, I don’t know what we’d do without you,’ before confiding in him, ‘I hate this management.’ She loved being at the centre of events, planning schemes, such as using Dana Gillespie – David’s teenage girlfriend, who had now reappeared on the scene – in the hope of encouraging Defries to visit Haddon Hall.
The departure of The Hype brought another benefit. Tony and Liz’s old room was now empty, so David moved a piano into the light and airy space, which looked out on the garden. It was a battered, old upright that sounded like an ancient pub honky tonk; David would sit at it for hours, obsessively working out runs. Compared to writing on the Hagstrom twelve-string that Ken Pitt had bought him, working out new songs on the piano was hard, painstaking work, but it also allowed him to fit together the harmonic elements in an entirely new way. Over days and weeks he laboured, obsessively, working out songs, and in the process completely reworking his own approach to songwriting. ‘The writing sessions were legendary,’ says Mark Pritchett, whose band Runk would test-drive David’s songs. ‘They could be hours at a time. Angie might say, “We’re scheduled to do this.” He’d’ be, “I’m not doing it. I’m doing this.” Just to get the runs right. And when he got it he was crazed. He was on top of the world.’
Today David explains, almost regretfully, how hard he had to work. ‘I forced myself to become a good songwriter – and I became a good songwriter. I made a job of work at getting good.’ David had been raised on rock stars who, like Elvis, seemed to emerge fully-formed, instinctive geniuses who could pick up a microphone and transform the world. David might have been born on Elvis’s birthday, but he wasn’t gifted with the same instinctive talent. His regret expresses how gruelling the journey was to be, until he forced himself to become talented.
But being made, not born, also offered boundless opportunities. Having built up a technique from scratch once, he could do it again. The piano was a new beginning: a new channel for the ideas flooding out of Bowie’s consciousness. Songs came together differently on a keyboard; more fluid, based on runs rather than static chords. His writing would be dominated by the new instrument for the next six years: the most creative six years of his career. Bowie’s piano playing might have been ‘bad’, in drummer Henry Spinetti’s words, but his writing was sophisticated; fragments of Weimar or Sinatra songs were incorporated into the harmonic bonanza, clues that Bowie was driven more by showbiz traditions than by rock ‘n’ roll. In some respects, this represented a return to the eclecticism and originality of his Deram days. But back then his ambition far outstripped his abilities. This time around, he could realise his most audacious musical ideas with a minimum of help.
Bob Grace was staggered by Bowie’s ‘sheer graft’ throughout this new phase. ‘This was the most hard-working guy … talk about diligent, he redefined the word.’ Grace would hear the results at his office, and found a cheap demo studio at Radio Luxembourg, where they could record the songs fresh, as they came spilling out. Here David would work up songs with Runk – soon to be renamed Arnold Corns – or drummer Henry Spinetti, who still remembers David’s charm in talking him into doing sessions for free.
David and Angie’s world was tiny, intimate; as far as work went, they latched on to Grace, monopolising him, jealous of others’ demands on his time, travelling to and from Beckenham in cabs they sneaked on to the Chrysalis account. When David wasn’t closeted at the keyboard, he’d often be found in mechanics’ overalls, underneath his car; over this period, thanks to his publishing income, he progressed from a one-anda-half-litre black fifties Riley, to a two-and-a-half-litre red version, and finally an 1100cc Riley Gamecock, a wood-framed 1930s racer. It was probably this latter machine that rolled into David, impaling his leg on the starting handle. The incident was witnessed by the Lewisham police, who found the sight of the exotic, curly-haired youth skewered by his own car hilarious. David spent a week in hospital recovering.
As David and Angie drew Grace into their world, Grace was as taken by Bowie’s wonderfully dry humour as his skills as a motor mechanic. He was also disorientated by their obsession with taking him to celebrated gay clubs like Yours Or Mine, usually referred to as the Sombrero, or gay movies, or to see flamboyantly gay friends like Freddie Buretti and Mickey King, all in an attempt to get him, says Grace, to ‘embrace his trip’.
David’s ‘trip’ – his lifestyle – had blossomed, thanks to Angie’s encouragement. He’d been hanging out at gay clubs since his Mod days, but by the time he hooked up with Calvin Lee, the scene had moved upmarket to the Kensington and Notting Hill arty set. Although this time has always been painted as his ‘Warhol period’ Bowie’s circle was quintessentially English – straight out of Noel Coward or Quentin Crisp. Americans who came visiting would be disorientated by the bisexual vibe; acquaintances like Ossie Clarke, who briefly shared a boyfriend with Calvin Lee, was married to a woman he adored, Celia Birtwell, whom he suspected of two-timing him with his celebrated gay friend and rival, David Hockney. Lionel Bart was another: famously devoted to Alma Cogan, he would often be seen with a rent boy in tow, or snuggled up to David. In fact, apart from the inferior dental-work, for Americans this scene was far more glamorous than back home. ‘Everyone was a dandy, so much better dressed than in New York,’ observes one visitor, Tony Zanetta. It was only later that he noticed that nearly every club-goer owned just the one suit, which on inspection was often slightly grubby, like the impressive facade of a country house which conceals the genteel poverty within.
Future commentators would wonder whether David’s gay persona was sincere and genuine. Robert Kensell, a good-looking party animal with a passing resemblance to Terence Stamp, was part of the Sombrero scene with his friend Jonathan Barber, one of Calvin Lee’s lovers. Kensell later built a thriving business as ‘house’ cocaine dealer to musicians at Olympic Studios, but in those early days Jonathan and he would bed-hop for food and fun, sponging off hosts like Ossie, Lionel or Kit Lambert. ‘Remember, in 1970 you couldn’t talk about something, unless you’d done it,’ he points out. ‘David wasn’t just part of the scene. He was at the centre of it.’
David’s flings with men were usually short-lived; the thrill was usually in the discovery. His bi
sexuality was part of his appeal for many Sombrero boys – ‘very manly’ is how one scenester describes him – and at least some of his obsession with the scene was, says Bob Grace, down to Mick Jagger. ‘Jagger was a role model – not an idol,’ says Bob Grace, who explains that despite a lack of any supporting evidence, ‘David was convinced he was bisexual.’
One of the Sombrero clientele that David loved pointing out with the words, ‘Look, isn’t he gorgeous?’ was Freddie Buretti. Freddie was fully six feet tall, with Caravaggio-esque good looks, and worked for a Kensington fashion retailer. One evening in 1971 he had a brush with the law, charged for importuning after, he said, having sex with the arresting officer. Bob Grace was called in to post bail, and despite the aggravation, had a sneaking respect for the way that Freddie insisted on listing his occupation as ‘seamstress’. Usually Freddie was seen hanging out with Daniella Parmar, his ‘girlfriend’. ‘She was the first girl I had seen with peroxide white hair with cartoon images cut and dyed into the back,’ David remembers. ‘Blessed with absolute style, she unwittingly changed so much of how female Britain looked – after my then-wife copied her sense of style.’ The ambiguity of Daniella and Freddie’s relationship was part of the vibe. Another of David’s protégés was Mickey King – again, David loved to imply Mickey was another bed-mate, it was all part of the confusion. As was the sight of Angie, with scraped-back hair, in an impeccably tailored suit, chatting up women at the Sombrero. Freddie, thanks to his design skills, became a semi-permanent member of the team along with Daniella. Mickey would drop in and out of Haddon Hall, as he did the rent-boy scene; ultimately, he would die in mysterious circumstances – stabbed by a jealous john, say his Haddon Hall friends.
The kinky, noisy buzz around Haddon Hall inspired David’s buoyant mood, which was untroubled by the mess at Mercury and Philips. Although the English version of The Man Who Sold the World languished in limbo until next April, delayed by the political changes at Philips, the Americans were keen to release the album. Mercury’s Robin McBride flew over that winter to collect the masters and artwork directly from Bowie. David handed him two illustrations by Arts Lab regular Mike Weller, which depicted Cane Hill – later to be replaced by a photo of David reclining at Haddon Hall in his Mr Fish dress.
Soon David’s London press contacts would be informed that the album was being ‘acclaimed in America … a sudden holocaust’. The reality was rather more modest. David’s American fans were mainly confined to Mercury staff, principally the newly appointed press officer Ron Oberman, who, as ‘torch-carrier’ for David, arranged a US promotional tour for The Man Who Sold the World, from 27 January, 1971.
David arrived unaccompanied for his first trip to the USA – Angie was five months pregnant and decided to remain at Haddon Hall. He was in his element travelling solo, un-phased by his reception at Dulles, where Immigration detained him for an hour, suspicious of his fey manner and flowing pre-Raphaelite locks. ‘For some reason, they seemed to think I looked strange,’ he informed Ron Oberman, who’d been waiting in the terminal for an hour. He spent the next few days bubbling with the enthusiasm of a child, accompanied by Ron to radio and press interviews in Washington DC and Chicago, partying, or going out for meals with Ron’s parents, who found him every bit as charming as the Manish Boys’ parents had, a decade before. Oberman soon picked up on David’s tastes, taking him up to 54th Street to see Moondog, the poet, musician and outsider who lived on the street, clad in Viking garb. David chatted to him, intently, fetching him coffee and sandwiches. When Ron was busy, David wandered around New York alone and was thrilled to see, the weekend after his arrival, that The Velvet Underground were playing the Electric Circus. He was transfixed by their renditions of new songs like ‘Sweet Jane’, venturing upstairs to chat to Lou Reed after the show, telling him how he admired his songwriting and had covered ‘Waiting for the Man’. Only later did he find out that Lou had left the band the previous autumn, and the man he’d talked to in the legendary ‘Dom’ was in fact Doug Yule. David found the notion that the Velvets could be duplicated, like a Coke can or a soup tin, enthralling: maybe the fake Lou was as authentic as the real thing? When he wasn’t discussing such concepts with Ron, he picked his brains on how the US music industry worked, quizzing him on the company politics of Mercury and other labels.
Where the East Coast was graced by the earnest, purposeful David Bowie, the West Coast was treated to a more decadent version. Writer John Mendelssohn arrived at LAX to meet the singer, who got off the plane wearing a Mr Fish dress, looking disconcertingly like Lauren Bacall. Mick Jagger had helped publicise the kipper-tie designer’s dresses for men, most famously at the Stones’ Hyde Park show in 1969. David’s interpretation of the same look was radically more feminine – his dress was more ornate, while his curly afro had grown out, and now his hair cascaded in waves over his shoulders. Mendelssohn was disturbed to find his chivalrous instincts aroused by this glamorous apparition; soon he and his friend were struggling with David’s trunk – so extraordinarily heavy they speculated he was smuggling a piano. David sashayed along behind them, murmuring ‘Oh dear!’ every now and then; the perfect, helpless fluttery-lashed ingénue. Mendelssohn had agreed to write a story on the English singer for Rolling Stone, but was so intimidated by this exotic creature that he could only think of the most inarticulate, mumbled questions, all of which David treated as if they were the most profound example of the inquisitorial arts.
Later that evening, some of Mendelssohn’s verve returned when the two arrived at the Holiday Inn and found the hotel’s facilities had been augmented with a girl, who’d been provided for Bowie by the future ‘Mayor of the Sunset Strip’, Rodney Bingenheimer.
Mercury’s radio promotions man on the West Coast, Bingenheimer had been abandoned by his mother in Hollywood as a teenager, but his enthusiasm for rock ‘n’ roll and frank adoration of celebrity soon helped him become sidekick to Sonny and Cher, and later one of the leading scenesters. Rodney was famous as, in friend and rival Kim Fowley’s words, ‘purveyor of a posse of pussy’ – a skill he proved by sending the girl ‘like a welcoming present’, says Mendelssohn. As Mendelssohn and Bowie reclined in the Holiday Inn lounge, listening incredulously to a hilarious lounge duo called The Brass Doubles – an organist and drummer, who each played their main instrument one-handed while doubling on trumpet – they competed for Rodney’s girl. David won out, chatting away relentlessly in a deadpan, Jagger-esque drawl. Finally, she accepted David’s offer to ‘come up to me room for some guitar lessons?’
*
Like many Englishmen before and since, David discovered the possibilities offered in the new continent of reinventing oneself, aided by an exotic accent. His skills at enchanting and confusing all onlookers blossomed; resplendent in his dress, or other exotic outfits, he perfected the knack of monopolising people’s attentions. At one legendary party hosted by Tom Ayers, one of Rodney’s innumerable music-biz friends, he hovered by the door, greeting guests, outraging the elderly ladies, enchanting the groupies and Valley girls. In between chatting to Bingenheimer, and working his wiles on a sixteen-year-old called Kasha (‘who had certainly the most beautiful breasts on the West Coast’, sighs Mendelssohn) Bowie had a short conversation with Ayers, who was a house producer for RCA. David mentioned his problems with Mercury, and Ayers told him to ‘look at RCA’, saying, ‘The only thing they’ve got is Elvis – and Elvis can’t last for ever.’
It was a short, but momentous exchange. The idea of supplanting the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, whose birthday he shared, who had inspired him as a kid, would at one time have seemed ridiculous. Now an insider from Elvis’s own company was suggesting the company would be lucky to have him. Riding on a wave of energy, of excitement at the sights and sounds of California, and the enthusiasm of the small gaggle of Hollywood insiders, David started contemplating, for the first time, the prospect of conquering America.
Even the mundane promotional visits were enjoyable. He and John Mendelss
ohn spent an afternoon driving up to San Jose for a radio interview, talking nonsense and singing their own reworking of Edwin Starr’s ‘War’, with the words, ‘Tits! What are they good for?’ When they arrived at the station and started chatting, they found the West Coast hippie DJ was sneering and suspicious of the camp, obscure English singer. Bowie was cheery, unintimidated, his deadpan humour in full flow, and when the DJ asked him to suggest a track to play, he instantly sealed his decadent credentials with a languid request for ‘anything by The Velvet Underground’.
As the show ran on, Mendelssohn was looking through the record racks when he spotted a copy of The Stooges, the debut album by Michigan’s punk pioneers, notorious for having crashed and burned in a haze of heroin that year. Intrigued, David chose ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ for his next selection. When the song’s moronically monumental riff and Iggy Pop’s deadpan drawl blared from the studio speakers, David’s amused energy seemed to intensify. As they drove back, Mendelssohn told him about The Stooges singer, Iggy, who’d arrived on the West Coast that summer – his only clothing some ripped jeans, one change of underwear and a pair of silver lamé gloves – and shocked crowds: pulling a girl out of the audience by her face, or dripping melted wax on his chest. David hung on his every word.
Iggy and The Stooges became a near-obsession over the following months, part of a cornucopia of influences that he soaked up like a sponge, the more outré or outrageous, the better. In Chicago, Ron Oberman had played him a crazed record called ‘Paralyzed’ by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy – David loved it and took a copy of the 45” home with him, along with a stack of albums by Kim Fowley, another West Coast eccentric.
When David returned to Britain, he was ‘buzzing’ with the sounds and the sights he’d encountered, completely re-energised according to his neighbour Mark Pritchett, who was given four Kim Fowley albums from the stash David brought home. The Stooges’ two albums were constantly spinning on David’s turntable, and had an immediate effect. One of the first songs he wrote after his return was ‘Moonage Daydream’: stripped-down and less wordy than his recent efforts, its ‘put your electric eye on me, babe’ name-checked The Stooges’ song ‘T.V. Eye’. In April, David worked the song up with Pritchett’s band, Runk. (For many years, legend would have it they were The Spiders in disguise, thanks to the improbably monikered drummer Timothy James Ralph St Laurent Thomas Moore Broadbent, and bassist Peter De Somogyi, Pritchett’s blue-blooded Dulwich College schoolmates.) The song was written on guitar, and when the trio recorded it at Luxembourg Studios with David, he was painstaking about every detail, singing out the middle instrumental section, an homage to one of Kim Fowley’s songs with the Hollywood Argyles ensemble, but used here, says guitarist Mark Pritchett, ‘for a Berthold Brecht effect – like a funfair with camp overtones’.