Eyal Perek's David Bowie FAQ

DAVID BOWIE FAQ

Written by Eyal Perek

December 1995, updated Jan. 1996

Part 1. Introduction
1.1 Requests, thanks, wishes and (surprisingly) an introduction

Welcome to the Bowie FAQ.

I wrote some of the stuff you'll find here myself, but I also used info from postings written by other people. Their names are included in the credits section. I also used some biographic details from Evan's site (see section 5.3). The people who have helped writing this biographic information are also credited.

I also used the biographies included in the Early On and Sound + Vision compilations.

If you think you can contribute to this FAQ, in any way (even correcting typos), please do!

HELP!!! I need:

- The exact quote about Bowie and Angie living on Mars (posted a long time ago);

- Details about The Singles Collection (differences between the three versions), posted waaay back;

- Details about Bowie's son;

- Details about the album Rough Power. Was it published *only* because Iggy Pop fans said Bowie ruined Raw Power with his mixing?;

- Details about Queen's The Ultimate Collection - Rarities, Oddities And Cover Versions (that featured Bowie);

- More information about the biographies (section 3.7). Which of them are out of print?;

- The name of the female singer who recently covered Changes;

- Short reviews of Bowie's albums. The reviews should be general, and should not include items like descriptions of specific songs, release details and musician info. Finally: I don't need personal opinions, I can write those myself. A one sentence reviews (something like 'a glam-rock album') would be just fine.

- Details about his nomination for the Rock 'n Roll Hall Of Fame museum. Was he nominated the first time around 1987?

- The different versions of the lyrics to Sweet Head. This was discussed in the newsgroup a long time ago.

I know, this is too long for a FAQ. I'm thinking of releasing a shorter version. Meanwhile, you can call this text a biography, an anthology, or whatever you like!

If you have a question but can't find the answer, and the table of contents doesn't help, try using a text search.

The FAQ is split into three parts, because some newsreaders can't handle files larger than 60K.

1.2 The proper posting algorithm

Every now and then, a new person gets an internet account. This person, given the right conditions (being a Bowie fan, hearing about the Usenet), sooner or later discovers the alt.fan.david-bowie newsgroup. Occasionally, he would post an annoying question that some of us got tired of seeing.

Conclusion: Before you post a question with a header that goes 'I'm new to this newsgroup, and this question was probably already brought up, but I would still like to know...' READ THE WHOLE FAQ. You will then prevent the ('logical') possibility of being flamed or being hated.

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Part 2. Bowie Facts
2.1 Facts listed in chronological order

David Bowie is David Robert Jones, born in Stanfield Road, Brixton, South London, on the 8th of January 1947 to Peggy (whose real name was Margaret) and John (whose real name was Haywood Stenton) Jones.

He changed his stage name from Jones to Bowie in 1966 because of the success of Davy Jones on the London stage. That was prior to the success of the Monkees (with Davy Jones). He decided to choose a last name that was also the name of a knife because he liked Mick Jagger (jagger means knife). He chose the name Bowie from the American frontiersman, Texan Soldier Jim Bowie, who the knife is named for. He wanted to choose the name of an American, because he's always been interested in that country.

He had an older half brother, Terry, through his mother, that suffered many years from the mental illness with the long name Schizophrenia and was in a mental hospital for that reason. He committed a suicide in 1985 (this was after many attempts that failed). Bowie did not come to his funeral.

Bowie also has a step sister named Annette through his father.

When he was young he had an accident in which he broke his two legs. He still has a big scar on one of his legs, a result of that accident.

Bowie moved to Bromley, and studied art and graphic design in the Bromley Technical School.

Owen Frampton was his teacher. Owen's son, Peter Frampton, who was studying in the same school, and is three years younger than David, was a member in the band that played behind him in the Glass Spider tour (1987). They used to sing Sons Of The Silent Age as a duet.

Bowie's eyes are of different colour. His right eye is blue, his left eye is either brown or green, depending on the light. This is a common trait among people with differently coloured eyes. When he was born both of his eyes were blue. I've heard contradicting stories explaining this. I will summarize them in one sentence (pick what you think might be the best explanation): He had a {car accident/eye infection/street fight/fight with a high school friend over a girl} and {his left eye became paralyzed/his left eye was damaged in an operation/the doctors transplanted a wrong coloured pupil in an operation} Total of 4*2=8 combinations (I haven't heard about pupil transplants).

The most common belief is that Bowie's left eye was damaged in a school fight with longtime friend George Underwood circa 1962. His pupil was paralyzed and subsequently could not adjust to light properly. In an interview in Atlanta, October 95, David said, himself, that at the age of about 13, he and another guy liked the same girl, and the other guy socked David in the eye, making for a permanently enlarged pupil, which appears to be an eye of a different colour than the other eye. The scientific explanation is that when the iris is compressed it appears darker. In the picture on Black Tie White Noise and several other pictures in recent interviews, Bowie is wearing blue contact lenses.

Bowie still keeps a white acrylic alto saxophone his parents bought him when he was twelve years old. That was his first instrument. He took lessons from Ronnie Ros, who introduced him to the jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker.

Bowie was influenced by Rhythm & Blues, a relatively new music style that started in America. Bowie's favourite singer was Little Richard. He also liked John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and King Curtis.

His half brother, Terry, introduced him to progressive jazz, and to American poet Jack Kerouac.

The Konrads was Bowie's first group. The name he suggested was Ghost Riders. A known Konrads song is I Never Dreamed (written by Jones, Ferris, and Dodds), in which Bowie sings backing vocals. He left them because they didn't want to play R&B.

Then he formed Reds & Blues (with friend painter George Underwood), a band that played many covers.

Bowie graduated high school with an A in art.

He took a job at the London agency as a commercial artist.

In November '63 Bowie formed his first recording band Davie Jones and the King Bees. The name originated from the Louisiana's blues singer Slip Harpo song I'm A King Bee. They were: Bowie (vocals, tenor. alto sax), Roger Bluck (lead guitar), George Underwood (rhythm guitar, harmonica, vocals), Dave Howard (bass), Bob Allen (drums).

To raise money Bowie sent a letter to a rich English entrepreneur, John Bloom, who was in the washing machines business. Since he had nothing to do with music, he passed Bowie's request to Less Conn (who was managing Doris Day's music publishing company, Melcher music, and doing talent scouting for the Dick James Organization). Conn suggested that they play at Bloom's wedding anniversary. He accepted, and they played Got My Mojo Working and Hoochie Coochie Man in that party. Conn then decided to become their manager.

They recorded the very first Bowie single Liza Jane (an old Negro spiritual but Conn was credited as the composer)/Louie Louie Go Home (composed by Paul Revere & The Raiders). The single was recorder at Decca studios, West Hampstead and was released on a subsidiary label Vocalion Pop on the 5th of June, '64.

Bowie and his band gave performances in Marquee Club, Cafe Des Artists, the Roundhouse, and several universities. They also performed this single on the Juke Box Jury show, and on the BBC2 show The Beat Room. Since they weren't gaining any popularity Bowie decided to leave the band, on August '64, and they broke up.

Immediately afterwards Bowie joined The Manish Boys (The name originated from a Muddy Waters song), an R&G band from Maidstone, whose name used to change very often (Band Seven, The Jazz Gentlemen were amoung their previous names). They were: Bowie (vocals, tenor, alto sax), Johnny Flux (lead guitar), John Watson (bass, rhythm guitar, vocals), Mick White (drums), Bob Solly (organ), Paul Rodriguez (tenor sax, trumpet, bass), Woolf Byrne (baritone sax, harmonica).

After they'd heard David's copy of The James Brown Show Live At The Apollo, and under David's influence they changed their music style.

On November 12, '64 Bowie gave his first known television interview on BBC's Cliff Michelmore's Tonight show about the organization he founded for 'The Prevention Of Cruelty To Long Haired Men'.

Bowie: 'Well, I think we're all fairly tolerant, but for the last two years, we've had comments like "Darling" and "Can I carry your handbag?" thrown at us, and I think it just has to stop now'.

The Manish boys signed with the Arthur Howes Agency. They played six shows as backup for Gene Pitney - Gerry & the Pacemakers tour, starting December 1st.

In Regent studios they recorded for Decca a cover of Barbara Lewis's song Hello Stranger (that was never released) and Love Is Strange. Mike Smith was the producer.

Then they met the producer Shel Talmy (who was producing The Kinks, The Who, Manfred Mann at the time), that after hearing them, decided to produce them.

Talmy: 'I really liked David because of the fact that he was, I thought, a head of the game'.

In IBC Studios they recorded the single I Pity The Fool (an Early '60 hit by American R&B singer Bobby 'Blue' Bland/Take My Tip (The first Bowie composition recorded. Jimmy Page appeared as a guest guitarist. The song was covered by Kenny Miller as an A-side) The single was released on March 5th.

Leslie Conn arranged that they perform I Pity The Fool on the BBC show Gadzooks! It's All Happening. Producer Barry Langford insisted that Bowie cuts his hair. He, of course, refused. Conn organized fans to parade around the BBC with banners like 'Be Fair To Long Hair'. Bowie also sent a letter to a local newspaper in which he claimed 'people with long hair have rights too'. The story was told in many other local newspapers. BBC Then decided to let him appear on the show, in condition that if they get complaints the band's fee will to to charity. No complaints were received -

in April '95 The Manish Boys broke up.

In March '65 Bowie met the band The Lower Third in Giaconda coffee bar, in Denmark St., a popular hangout for musicians. He became their lead singer. They were: Bowie (vocals, tenor, alto sax), Devis 'Tea Cup' Taylor (lead guitar), Graham Rivens (bass), Les Mighall (drums) (who left before the release of their first single, and was replaced by Phil Lancaster). Nicky Hopkins played piano in several sessions. The band was mainly influenced by The Who.

They appeared regularly on each Saturday at the R&B club La Discotheque. In Central Sound Studio, on Denmark St. they recorded several demos, including Born Of The Night (that was never released) and two radio jingles for the U.S. including Youthquake Clothing (that David and Denis wrote when they arrived at the studio).

Their first single (and second Bowie single to be produced by Talmy) was released on 20th of August under EMI's Parlophone label. You've Got A Habit Of Leaving (influenced by The Who)/Baby Loves That Way (that David admitted it was a take off on Herman's Hermits. On backing vocals: Less Conn, Shel Talmy, two engineers and the band as monks). On the press release of this single David said that he likes Sammy Davis Jr. They band also recorded Over The Wall We Go - that was covered by Oscar.

Graham: 'David used to sit at home and strum a guitar and write some lyrics. We then used to sit down together as a group and make the whole thing something feasible and bring the whole tune together. A lot of the early stuff we did with him, apart from the basic tune and lyrics, was very much a joint effort'.

Talmy: 'David and I went straight to monaural tape on those demos. Certainly that wasn't multitrack. We did it specifically to do demos. They were things he had that we were talking about recording at a future date. And it was always nice to get them down on tape so we could have a listen'.

Ralph Horton (who was working for the agent Terry King, managing Screaming Lord Sutch and The Casuals, and who worked as a driver for The Moody Blues) became Bowie's first official manager. He arranged a few shows. The first - as a support to the Moody Blues at the Bromel club in Bromley. Other shows included Summer weekend engagement at the winter gardens in Ventnor, and support for Johnny Kidd & The Pirates on the Isle Of Wight.

They also did a series of afternoon concerts at the Marquee Inecto Show, that were broadcasted by a pirated radio station Radio London, sponsored by the makers of Inecto shampoo. They used to sing songs by The Kinks, Chim Chim Cheree (from Mary Poppins), and Mars (from Holst's Planet suite, the theme music from the British television serial The Quartermass Experiment).

Horton phoned Ken Pitt, who later on became Bowie's 2nd manager, at the end of '66, (and at the time, was managing Manfred Mann, Crispian St. Peters) because the band had financial difficulties. Pitt had no time, but he did suggest that Bowie changes his name. And he did (on November '65).

On November 2nd they band was auditioned at BBC but they were turned down. That was explained in '87: '...Like the Rolling Stones before him, the 19 year old Bowie's performance was not suitable for the BBC's purposes. The talent selection group were particularly surprised by the inclusion of the Lower Third's version of Chim Chim Cheree from Mary Poppins, and as for Bowie's singing..."a Cockney type, but not outstanding", "A singer devoid of personality", "sing wrong notes" and "Out of tune" were just some of the comments. But two years later, Bowie was back at the beeb with a complete change of style and a trial broadcast'.

The year ended with the first performances outside of England, including two shows at the Golfe Drouot in Paris, one on New Year's Eve (On The Bill with Arthur Brown), and the other one on January 2nd, '66.

In the end of '65 the band signed with Pye records. On January 14th the first single under the new name was released, produced by Tony Hatch, head of A&R for Pye. Can't Help Thinking About Me/And I Say To Myself. That was the first Bowie single to be released in the U.S. (on the Warner Brothers label, in May)

Since they didn't have any success, The Lower Third broke up, January '66. Bowie then joined The Buzz (named by a radio station DJ). David Bowie and The Buzz were: Bowie (vocals), John Hutchinson 'Hutch' (lead guitar), Derek Fearnley 'Dek' (bass), John Eager 'Ego' (drums), Derek Boyes 'Chow' (organ). Hutchinson was replaced after four months with Billy Gray 'Haggis', but rejoined Bowie two years later with Feathers.

They were auditioned at February 3rd, in the Marquee club. Their first performances were on the 10th of February, in Leicester University with the Graham Bond Organization and Jimmy James & The Vagabonds, and a day later in the Marquee club. They recorded a few songs, including That's A Promise (written by Bowie). This song was only released on a bootleg single, and bootleg albums, one of which is Pierrot In Torquoise.

In March They performed The Lower Third's song Can't Help Thinking About Me on Ready, Ready, Go! and reached #26 on the Melody Makers chart. In March 7th they recorded Do Anything You Say/Good Morning Girl (with Tony Hatch as the producer), that was released on April 1st.

They gave some successful performances in Scotland, and, at the Marquee - Bowie did a Sunday afternoon series of his own The Bowie Showboat (from the 10th of April '66 to the 12th of June), and it became apparent that Bowie had a group of devoted fans.

In the second The Bowie Showboat show Bowie met his next producer Ken Pitt.

I Dig Everything/I'm Not Losing Sleep was recorded on June 6th, and released August 19th. Band unknown. Producer Hatch thought the songs needed rearranging and used session musicians.

Hatch: 'David was then extremely conservative, good to get on with and excellent in the studio. His material was good, although I thought he wrote too much about London dustbins. Those were his formative years and he hadn't reached maturity, but he was unusual, unique'.

In December, '66, The Buzz broke up.

In 1967 Bowie signed with Deram, a Decca subsidiary, and released Rubber Band and Love You Till Tuesday, that both later appeared on his debut album David Bowie.

This album was released without We Are Hunger Men and Maid Of Bond Street in the U.S. A year after he released his song The Laughing Gnome, in 1967, Roni Hilton wrote an orchestral version to that song. The song was later (in 1973) re-released on a collection, and reached the sixth place on the british charts.

Around this period, Bowie made an unsuccessful attempt to become a family entertainer.

After that, Tony Visconti became his producer, and they recorded Let Me Sleep Beside You, London Bye Ta Ta but no company wanted to release these songs.

His first role as an actor in the cinema was in a short half hour art film called 'The Image', in which he portrayed a corpse. In one of the scenes, Bowie lies on a window sill and someone pours water on him to create the illusion of rain. The film was shown as a 'filler' in seedy Soho cinemas.

In 1968 Bowie wrote a four page play called Ernie Jones. It tells the story of a man, Ernie, that wants to commit suicide, so he decides on having a 'suicide party'. The play never acted on stage.

In they same year, the famous choreographer Lindsay Kemp let young Bowie (who, by then, was a mime with Kemp's dance troupe) appear on his show, in return for sex. Before one of the performances Bowie disappeared with the beautiful scene decorator Natasha Korlinov and Kemp tried to commit suicide by cutting his wrists, but he was saved. Two months later Bowie came back to him, then Natasha tried to kill herself with sleeping pills. She was also saved.

Bowie: 'Lindsay gave me lessons in exchange for writing music for them. He introduced me to a lot of extraordinary things - Artaud, theatre of the absurd, all that kind of thing. A lot of my attitude toward the stage, and staging, really came from Lindsay. He was my mentor'.

Bowie then opened up for the duo Tyrannosaurus Rex (with Marc Bolan), a band Visconti was producing, as a mime (as a Buddhist priest). As a pantomimist, he presented his own version of the chinese invasion to Tibet.

He also appeared as an extra in the movie The Virgin Soldiers. He won 2nd place in the Maltese Song Festival with his song When I Live My Dream. After that, he formed a mixed media band called Feathers with John Hutchinson and ballet dancer Harmion Farthingale that he was dating, and who was studying with Kemp. They combined original songs with Jackques Brel songs, poetry and mime acts. Very shortly after, Farthingale dumped him. He wrote the song Letter To Hermione about it, that is included in his album Space Oddity.

In February 2nd, '69 he recorded the song Space Oddity with Hutchinson. In the first recordings of Space Oddity, Bowie tried to make the sound of the spaceship by himself. It sounded bad. (He also did this on stage, in 1972. The live version is available in Santa Monica '72, or in any bootleg of that performance). If you don't have any of these recordings, try to imagine how they sounded, for everlasting amusement.

Bowie: 'Hermione had run off with a dancer. I was totally head-over-heels in loved with her, and it really sort of demolished me. That event, plus the 2001 movie, sort of set me off on the Space Oddity song'.

Space Oddity, plus some tracks from the album David Bowie were used in the promo film Love You Till Tuesday. The soundtrack of this film was released in 1984 (and the film itself).

The film didn't succeed. Because of the American moon landing on July 20th, Mercury signed with Bowie, and they wanted him to re-record Space Oddity.

Bowie: 'John Hutchinson was going to record it with me. In fact, on the demo, Hutch is singing the first verse. We had intended making an album together, and we had demoed quite a few songs. This single was going to be "Bowie and Hutch". But then, two or three days before the session, Hutch said that he really didn't think that we were going to make it in rock. He was married, and he had a kid up in Yorkshire, and he decided he was going home. So I ended up doing the whole thing myself. I was heart broken. I mean, I'd built up a whole thing around the idea of duets'.

Space Oddity was re-recorded in June 20th with Gus Dudgeon as a producer (who was the engineer in the recordings of the album David Bowie) and with Paul Buckmaster's arranging.

Space Oddity became Bowie's first big hit. The interesting fact is that Bowie's producer at that time, Tony Visconti, rejected the song. Bowie HAD to give the song to another producer - Gus Dudgeon. Bowie produced an alternative version to the song in 1980.

Because of the big success, Mercury agreed to produce Bowie's next album in the early seventies. It was released as David Bowie in Britain in Britain (note: there's no typing mistake here), and as Man Of Words/Man Of Music in the U.S. This album was later on re-released as Space Oddity, in 1972, without the song Don't Sit Down. (but the song was included again in the Ryko 1990 re-release).

Bowie also recorded an Italian version of Space Oddity - Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola (lonely boy, lonely girl) and a French version that I don't know its name, but the English translation is 'A man who disappears in the sky'.

Space Oddity is about Major Tom, an astronaut who gets lost in space. David returned to Major Tom in his hit single Ashes To Ashes, that is included in his album Scary Monsters (in '80). The Ryko re-release of the album includes a performance of Space Oddity from the 31st of December, '79.

Next Page

DAVID BOWIE FAQ

Written by Eyal Perek

December 1995, updated Jan. 1996

Table of contents:

Part 1. Introduction 1.1 Requests, thanks, wishes and (surprisingly) an introduction

1.2 The proper posting algorithm

Part 2. Bowie Facts 2.1 Facts listed in chronological order

Next Page

Part 1. Introduction
1.1 Requests, thanks, wishes and (surprisingly) an introduction

Part 2. Bowie Facts
2.1 Facts listed in chronological order