E-Book, Englisch, 252 Seiten
Smart David Bowie
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-0-85716-279-3
Verlag: McNidder and Grace
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
The Collector
E-Book, Englisch, 252 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-85716-279-3
Verlag: McNidder and Grace
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Nick Smart is joint editor and designer of the popular fanzine, David Bowie Glamour. He has been a fan of David Bowie since 1979 and has interviewed and written articles on many of Bowie's collaborators. He jointly curated the David Bowie World Fan Convention in Liverpool, 2022 and New York 2023.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
It was with the advent of the Spiders that Bowie found the formula he needed to carry the news to the masses. A solid band. If the previous years had been marked by Bowie moving from one band to the next searching for the right ingredients, the three years from 1971 to 1973 were notable for their relative stability – a period that began in 1969 with one John Cambridge, invariably known as Cambo. Kevin Cann, the noted Bowie authority, does not exaggerate when he says that “John Cambridge single-handedly altered the trajectory of popular music.”
Growing up in Hull, the 12-year-old John began his music career as almost all drummers do – using knitting needles to tap along with the records of the day. As those days were the mid ’60s, that meant the Shadows, the Dave Clark Five and Johnny Kidd & the Pirates. Some two years later, in what could be regarded as a Sliding Doors moment, he found himself at a club called the Kontiki when the band, a Driffield group called the Roadrunners, returned for their second set without their drummer. As they stood awkwardly on the stage waiting for the tardy stickman, a friend of John’s shouted, “John will stand in while he comes back, won’t you, John?” As John puts it, “My career as a drummer had begun.” That Sliding Doors moment is just one of several surrounding John which, had fate taken a different route, could have meant a different career history for David Bowie.
The thriving Hull music scene of the time had also produced a capable guitarist by the name of Mick Wayne – a member of the Hullabaloos along with Cambo. Wayne would go on to play with David Bowie and famously played the solo on ‘Space Oddity’, setting in motion a series of events that would lead to the advent of the Spiders from Mars. The Hull scene was as fluid as it was lively at that time, with drummers and guitarists seemly swapping bands and standing in for one another as and when needed. So it was that Cambo, having turned down a previous offer, eventually agreed to join local band the Rats as their drummer. It was as a Rat that John struck up a friendship with Mick Ronson. Later, Woody Woodmansey was to replace John in the Rats, a move that also foreshadowed upcoming events with Bowie’s future band, Hype/the Spiders from Mars.
The combo of Cambo and Ronno – clearly it was a thing to add an “o” suffix to form a nickname – proved a potent one and the Rats, already popular, came to be regarded as the top local band. Meanwhile, Mick Wayne’s band, now called Junior’s Eyes, were also making a name for themselves, gigging in London and getting airplay nationally. Later, in May 1969, Mick Wayne invited John to come and see his band Junior’s Eyes and casually asked him to sit in on a song. Unbeknown to him, he was being auditioned and a few days later became a member of the band. So, it was off to London.
The road that led to Bowie was unfolding. David Bowie had a song called ‘Space Oddity’ and was set to record it with Tony Visconti. But though the producer assures me that he likes the song now, he regarded it at that time as a throwaway novelty song and declined to produce. Gus Dudgeon therefore did the honours for that track while Tony produced the remaining tracks on the subsequent album. The guitarist who played the iconic solo on the ‘Space Oddity’ track was one Mick Wayne and, when the time came to record the album, Tony said, “Why don’t we get your band in?” – which seemed preferable to getting in, as John puts it, “this bass player and this drummer” for the various songs. Bowie and John met in July 1969 just days before starting to work together and hit it off immediately. The fabled proto-Spiders band, Hype, was formed.
Tony Visconti was the one to formally introduce Cambo and David. David stood out, even then. Whereas most of the band wore denim and long hair, David’s hair was permed, and he habitually wore knitted jumpers and bright red or turquoise corduroy trousers. Bowie talked through the songs with John without playing them, which seems an unusual approach. To John, it seemed Bowie was intelligent and different with something interesting to say in any situation. Recording of David’s new album commenced on 16 July. The album, like the one he had made two years earlier, would be called David Bowie, perhaps by way of a reset after the lack of success of the previous record. The tracks ‘Janine’, ‘An Occasional Dream’ and ‘Letter to Hermione’, David’s plaintive message to his lost love, were recorded that day. It was David’s practice to sit atop a high stool and play the songs on a 12-string guitar. There was no rehearsal before a take and usually the first or second take would be used: Bowie believed that early takes, even if they contained a few mistakes, always had a spontaneous quality that later ones lacked. The practice of preferring early takes continued throughout Bowie’s career, as many musicians attest.
Over the following months, Cambo had many adventures with the band. In Cambo’s book Bowie, Cambo and All the Hype he talks about a memorable occasion, the band left Dunfermline for Glasgow, leaving John behind in the toilet. John then caught a bus to the gig, arriving before the band, who, not having missed him, were surprised to find him awaiting their arrival. On another occasion, John and David walked into a music shop in Edinburgh and found the sheet music for ‘Space Oddity’. On purchasing the item, Bowie studied it and remarked, “They’ve got the bloody chords wrong!”
It is a measure of Cambo and Bowie’s close relationship that as early as February 1970, Cambo talks about David and Angie joining him on a trip to Hull, staying with his parents while Tony Visconti and his fiancée Liz Hartley stayed with other relatives of John’s.
* * *
As many would-be musicians know, real-life and creeping grown-up responsibilities have scuppered the promising careers of many a young band. So, it was with guitarist Mick Wayne whose partner, Charlotte, was ill, forcing him to miss a few gigs. Junior’s Eyes began to realise their chance had passed. John had continued with the band alongside his work with Bowie for a time, but by January 1970 it was clear that if things were going to happen for the band, they would have done by this point. The decision was made to end the band and in the absence of Wayne, Tim Renwick, guitarist from the Space Oddity album, deputised with Hype, but he had other work lined up and a more permanent solution was needed.
Quite why John Cambridge pursued the matter is still a mystery – even to John himself. What is clear is that he was pretty sure he had the solution to Bowie’s guitar problem in Mick Ronson, his friend from the Rats. The problem was that Ronson had tried his hand as a guitarist in London before, and his efforts had earned him only an unreleased track by Elton John and a lot of debt. To persuade him to try his luck in the big city once more would be a challenge. Likewise, David Bowie and Tony Visconti were singularly unenthusiastic at the prospect of John’s old mate from Hull becoming their new guitar player.
“No, he’s really good. Look, I’m going home between gigs. Let me bring him back with me – see what you think,” he implored. David and Tony casually waved him away. What did a drummer know about guitarists?
A classically trained pianist who also played violin and recorder, Ronson was also a talented arranger, but at this time he was working as a municipal gardener. John caught up with him as he marked out the lines of a school playing field with creosote. It must have been quite something to have seen an unenthusiastic Ronson walking away to mark the pitch, followed by John imploring him to give London another shot. The guitarist’s reluctance was palpable and understandable given his previous experience and what was on offer – essentially a meeting with a one-hit wonder. “I’m not going down there again,” said Ronson – monosyllabic at the best of times. “I’ve been ripped off too many times – not interested.” Even as he appealed to Ronson to consider a meeting, John wondered to himself what he was doing walking around a playing field asking an unresponsive guitarist to meet an uninterested singer to form a partnership that seemed to appeal to neither of them.
John’s final shot was, “Look, we’re playing the Marquee Club next Tuesday and it’s Junior’s Eyes’ last gig. Why don’t you come along, bring your guitar and see what you think?” Ronson, at last, capitulated. But for John’s persistence there would be no “Spider with the platinum hair.”
It was an inauspicious start, the show wrongly billed as being Dave Berry, the 1960s’ teen idol. John played his final gig with Junior’s Eyes, followed by his first with Bowie’s Hype. Ronson, who had been driven there in Cambridge’s Hillman Minx, was introduced to David and the group then headed off to La Chasse, a nearby club, and from there to Haddon Hall – the sprawling Victorian villa where David and various musicians, artists...
