January 18, 2021 • 40 mins
Who is David Bowie? To answer that question, you’ll have to meet little David Jones, the shy boy growing up in grey, postwar Britain. Grappling with a troubled home life, young David becomes transfixed by science fiction and rock ’n’ roll. A painful family secret spurs him to reject his drab suburban life in favor of beat poetry and free jazz. The vibrant, rebellious artistry inspires him to try his hand at making music of his own. On the series premiere of ‘Off the Record,’ we’ll explore the confluence of influences that formed David’s unique creative vision, and instilled in him the drive to conquer the rock world — and remake it in his own image.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Off. The record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Isn't this room attractive? But take away the mirror and
you can see the difference. Not only does the high
fidelity mirror make the room more attractive, you get the
(00:22):
most accurate image possible, true line and color. In the
winter of nineteen sixty two, a boy named George Punch's
best friend David in the face. To be fair, David
kind of deserved it. They were fighting over the same
thing that most fifteen year old boys fight about. A
girl both lusted after Carol Goldsmith, a classmate at Bromley
(00:46):
Tech in the suburbs of London. George had been the
first to muster of the courage and ask her out.
Then David called and broke the news. She changed her mind.
The date was off. Trouble was, it wasn't true. David
made the whole thing up. Carol waited for over an
hour before storming off, devastated that she'd been stood up.
David planned the swoop in and pick up the pieces
(01:07):
of her broken heart, but George got wind of his
so called friends to see, so they had a showdown
at recess. Okay, maybe showdown is too strong. George marched
up to David and sucked him. The blow struck David's
left eye, landing it just the right angle to do
maximum damage. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors
attended to was bleeding eyeball. The injury nearly blinded him.
(01:31):
He recovered at home for weeks, isolated from his friends
at school. This sci fi reading, Americana worshiping, unusually self possessed,
jazz freak fashion plate, and budding Buddhist from the British
Sticks felt like even more of an outsider than usual,
And now he looked it in the mirror, he saw
a permanent reminder of the teenage tussle. The muscle that
constricted his iris was paralyzed, leaving David with a permanently
(01:53):
dilated left pupil. The effect made his eyes appears two
different colors, one blue and the other black. Looking in
the mirror, David wasn't so sure about this new reflection
he saw staring back at him. In fact, he was
kind of embarrassed. Sure there was the perfectly quaffed Presley pompadour, delicate,
almost feminine cheekbones, and sly often grin, but his mismatched
(02:14):
eyes looked weird, though not necessarily in a bad way.
Maybe it's kind of cool, he was marked. It gave
him a kind of mystique and aur of otherness, and
lent a hypnotic, mesmerizing edge to his ice cool stare.
We can work with this, he thought, Maybe, just maybe
weird is good for the first time. David Jones, a
(02:37):
young student from Bromley, gazed into the eyes of David Bowie,
a rock star from outer space. For the most visually
conscious musician of his era, Bowie's eyes would become his
defining feature, purring out of album covers, magazine spreads, and
music videos. Over the years, the face that stared back
at him in the mirror would change radically. He was
major Tom, he was ziggy Stardust, he was a Laddin Saying,
or the thin White Duke. But those other worldly eyes
(02:59):
remained constant them. The duality was striking. One eye steely,
blue and strong, constantly scanning the horizon for what's to come,
the other black and moody, damaged, looking inward at the
equally dark places in his soul. The two perspectives formed
a singular creative vision which led him to fame, fortune,
and immortality. In mythology, blindness is equated with mystical powers,
(03:23):
like the oracles, who can see beyond the realm of
mere immortals. Regardless of any supernatural abilities, Bowie's eyes were
a crucial part of his own mythology, providing him with
his very own superhero origin story. Some believed his eyes
with the result of a gangland street fight. Others cited
it as proved that Bowie really was from Mars. The
truth of the matter that he was trying to steal
(03:43):
his best friend's date was best kept quiet. Getting back
to David and George, they patched things up and stayed friends.
In later years. David thanked him for the whack. Without it,
he wouldn't have his trademark feature. So all on all,
it's a happy ending, But this is just the beginning. Hello,
(04:04):
and welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes
beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds of
rock's greatest legend. I'm your host, Jordan runt Tuck. This
season explores the life should we say lives of David Bowie.
In this episode, we're gonna talk about David Jones, the
Brixton Kid, with ruthless determination, who paved the way of
(04:26):
her all that was to come. He's the boy who
would be Bowie's. The soul we know is David Bowie
Crash landed at forty Stansfield Road in Brixton, England, on
January born to Hayward Jones, called John by his friends
and Margaret Burns, known to all us Peggy. The child
(04:46):
was Christen David Robert Hayward Jones. The midwife who delivered
baby David was struck by his knowing eyes. This child
has been on this earth before, she insisted, according to
his mother at least, but well, let's just say dramatic
flair runs in the family. The rumors of David's extraterrestrial
origins may be overstated, but the Jones neighborhood really did
(05:08):
look like another planet, Cold, Sootie and bleak one. Brixton
still bore the scars of Nazi bombing rates from World
War Two, which had ended less than two years earlier.
The rebel strewn streets were pockmarked with bomb sites. Baron
craters were homes and sometimes whole blocks in once stood.
Long after the war was over, essential goods were still
in short supply. Items like eggs, sugar, and linen were
(05:31):
strictly rationed. Even beef and soap were considered luxuries. Lack
of coal and gasoline meant homes could only use five
hours of electricity a day. Street lamps were switched off,
making the bombed out pits seem all the more ominous
and foreboding. For David's early years, his world was dark, damp,
and vaguely dangerous. Dystopia was just another day. Life inside
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the jones Is three story Victorian terrace house wasn't much sunnier.
David never had fond memories of his childhood. He recall
his family as cold and emotionally distant. There were not
a lot of hugs shared at forty Stansfield Road that
we desperately wanted one. In later years, when asked about
his relationship with his parents, David quote of Philip Larkin's
poem this be the verse, here's the opening stands up,
(06:17):
And it did slightly for polite company. They mess you up,
your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but
they do. They fill you with the faults they had
and add some extra just for you. He got along
reasonably well with his father, John, a quiet man who
had showed business dreams of his own when he was younger.
At one time, he ran a nightclub and spent much
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of his own money developing his first wife's cabaret act.
The act failed almost immediately, and their marriage followed suit.
When John met Peggy, they were unmarried when Dave was born,
a bold move in nineteen forties Britain. The boy was
eight months old when they unbastardized him by tying the knot.
Employed as a public relations director at a children's orphanage,
John retained some of his huckster tendencies over the years.
(07:00):
David l borrow many pages from his publicity playbook. His
relationship with his mother was more strained. David characterized Peggy
as a frigid, critical, monosyllabic woman who rarely smiled outward.
Displays of affection were totally out of the question. Whatever
emotion she had stayed locked deep inside of her. David
would say she gave him the bare essentials to keep
(07:21):
him alive, but never kissed him. Once, during a minor disagreement,
young David admitted to his mother, you know I think
you hate me, but suspicion lingered into adulthood. All his life.
He yearned for approval, and he never got it. When
she died in two thousand two, a friend offered his
condolences before adding, you know, your mother never quite took
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to me. David responded, trouble is, she never quite took
to me either. The only consistent source of love and
affection for David was his half brother Terry, Peggy's son
from a prior relationship. Though eleven years older, the two
grew close as they shared a cramped bedroom. Terry became
David's best friend, protector, and hero. Terry doated on his
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little brother, offering badly needed kindness and emotional support. When
Davis started painting, Terry offered praise and encouragement. The mother
just complained about the mess. But Terry's paternity made him
an unwelcome presence in the house. John never fully accepted him,
and Peggy viewed him as an unhappy reminder of an
earlier life. David watched this beloved half brother, his idol
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was treated like half a member of the family, a
second class citizen in his own home. Unwilling to take
any more abuse, Terry enlisted in the Royal Air Force
in nineteen fifty six, when David was just nine years old.
He returned from combat a few years later a broken man, disheveled, angry, irrational,
frequently upset when no one knew it. At the time,
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he was displaying early symptoms of the mental illness that
would cost him his life. Madness. That's what it was called.
Then David had another phrase for it, emotional and spiritual mutilation.
He always feared it because it always seem so dangerously close.
It blazed through his mother's side like a wildfire, consuming
the vibrant lives it touched. Two of peggy sisters were
(09:08):
institutionalized with schizophrenia, while a third was diagnosed as manic
depressive and lobotomized. Peggy's own severe personality may have hinted
at some undiagnosed condition. Now Terry, David's closest friend and confidant,
was falling prey to this cruel family affliction. Would David
be next? David remained haunted throughout his life by what
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he dubbed Peggy's curse. As a star, he cited his
art as a psychological outlet, crediting it for whatever sanity
he had been able to maintain. Armchair psychologists for theorized
that the characters David inhabited in his music weren't mere theatrics,
but something deeper, an attempt at staving off mental illness
with a custom made, compartmentalized psyche. The true source of
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David's chameleonic compulsions will never be known, but it's interesting
to note that one of his all time favorite books
was called The Divide Itself. In his seminal study on schizophrenia,
renowned psycholo just our D, laying to find Insanity is
quote a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world. To
a kid caught in the maelstrom of postwar deprivation, a
(10:10):
confusing home life, and mental illness, these words were a revelation.
The secrets and psychodrama of the Jones household set young
David apart from the kids he knew in Brixton. Sometimes
it was a good thing. Sure, he was alienated in
a drift, but it also made him feel special and independent.
Heading the clouds or nos in a book, he often
wandered off, walking aimlessly. He's remembered as a sweet, bright,
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well behaved, well dressed, well scrubbed boy, the kind of
kid any mother would be proud of except perhaps his own.
He could also be painfully shy. On his first day
at primary school, just down the street from his parents house,
he was so overcome with nerves and he went his pants.
Music was released from the Button Up Little Boy. David
displayed an ear for it early on, one of the
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more positive traits passed on from his mother, Peggy frequently
sang around the house, and he even wrote poetry. As
a toddler, David flung himself wildly around the kitchen whenever
he heard a piece of music that he liked. The
spontaneous outbursts were out of character for such a mild
mannered child. His parents would joke, maybe he'll grew up
to be a ballet dancer, But when David stole the
(11:15):
show in a primary school Nativity production, they began to
take real notice. After all, this is a long way
from peeing his pants. Soon, David began performing little shows
at home, using a window still as a stage. His mother,
predictably it was not amused, but John Jones loved it.
He was the consummate stage father in David. He saw
the chance to live out his own um for filled
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showbiz ambitions for which he had neither the talent nor
the temperament. As part of his job as an orphanage
pr director, John regularly hired celebrities for fundraisers, and he
was not shy about pushing his cute little boy up
front for a quick beat and greet. He tells his
famous guests, my son's gonna be an entertainer too. David
would not his head in agreement before thrusting out his
autograph book. Through his father, David learned how to manu
(12:00):
over amongst celebrities, presenting himself with maximum impact. At one event,
he broke away from his parents and marched right up
to fellow attendees Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. A photographer
was on hand the capture of the moment that the
amused newly crowned Queen greeted the future Ziggy Stardust. David
would later claim the shot was published on the front
page of a local newspaper, but sadly, no evidence of
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this photo has ever come to light. Whether he actually
made his media debut alongside Royalty or simply embellish the
story later on, he is up for debate, So let's
stay stock for a moment. You have an alienated kid
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with a passion for music, a predilection for theatrics, a
preoccupation with multiple personalities, and a precocious nact of self promotion.
What's left in the David Bowie recipe science fiction? He
caught the bug early in when David was six, the
BBC began broadcasting The Quartermass Experiment, a pioneering and kind
(13:03):
of trashy sci fi series. It became a phenomenon across Britain,
an early example of must TV. John and Peggy perhaps
correctly decided that this material was not suitable for children,
so David snook downstairs after bedtime and hid behind the
couch while his parents watched. The program made an enormous
oppression on David. It offered a glimpse of life unlike
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anything you'd ever known. More importantly, it reminded him that
the universe was more than just the four walls of
his unhappy home, as the show promised, on the other
side of the air, there was a whole new world
out there. The widespread popularity of The Quartermass Experiment wasn't
lost on David either. The public imagination had been captured
by a blend of aliens and sex m hmm, file
(13:47):
that one away for later. It's fitting there. Around the
same time the quatermass experiment hit the air waves, the
Jones family moved to Bromley, hometown of sci fi writer H. G. Wells,
the so called man who invented Tomorrow. But this British
suburb was about as far as you could get from
wells progressive futurist ideals. The town was just as bland
as Brixton, pleasant enough, but even more boring. The word
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gray comes to mind, gray streets lined with gray prefab
houses and gray rubble from the odd bomb site. The
atmosphere in their fore room house at Plain Style Grove
was just as tense as ever, and David's parents fought regularly.
John was very much in love with Peggy, but she
regarded their marriage as one of convenience, and which freely
tell him as much. So John passed his unspent affection
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along to David. Their father's suntime often involved trips in
the London to visit the theater. David would wait for
just the right moment to make a break from his
seat and slipped backstage, where he soaked up all the action.
Stage hands here customers there set designers and lighting crew,
the whole army work to get things looking perfect. This
was deeply inspiring for David and ignited in all consuming
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interest and presentation an art form of its own. David
frequently looked in the mirror. Most self conscious kids do,
but for David was about more than just checking his hair.
This fundamentally shy boy hoped the mirror could provide some answers.
He yearned to know who he was, and also who
he could be with some minor alterations until to the head,
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purse of the lip, maybe a whole new wardrobe. He
even made a list of his flaws in an effort
to weed them out of his personality altogether. The act
of transformation fascinated him early on. When he was three,
his mother found them staring transfixed in the bathroom mirror
as he smothered his face with women's makeup. It was
like a magic act. Now you see me, now you don't.
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His mother was less than pleased. You don't wear makeup.
David didn't understand, But you do, mommy, and exacerbated. Peggy
finally screamed, that is not for little boys. Fans of
Freud will have a field day with that. Not for boys,
he probably thought, we'll see about that. Aside from the bickering,
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there were two constant sounds that placed out Grove, the
small town talk from the pub directly outside David's bedroom window,
and the whistles from a nearby train station, a taunting
reminder that a bigger world, with bigger minds existed elsewhere. Today,
suburb is practically a dirty word, conjuring up stultifying images
of banality, little boxes on the hillside that all looked
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just the same. But for middle class Brits in the
mid fifties, a detached home in the suburbs was the
ultimate brass ring, the peak of aspiration. And who could
blame them. Many had survived two devastating world wars in
their lifetime. They weren't necessarily looking to expand their mind
or make their creative mark on the world. Mostly they
were just grateful to be alive. As the economy sluggishly
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began to improve, the mass exodus from city to country
reverberated like a massive social sigh of relief. There was peace,
and there was faith that things would keep getting better.
Modern material comforts and conveniences ease the pressure of daily
piz nous. Life was predictable and routine. Two adults, this
meant safety and security. The kids, who've never known any different,
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it was tedious and suffocating. The physical and psychological proximity
of the neighbors led to rigid self policing. Don't go
too outside the box, otherwise people will talk. For David,
this often took the form of his mother's voice, pull
up your socks, don't touch that. Have you washed your face?
The suburbs would shape David and many other artists of
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his generation by providing a paradigm to rebel against, something,
to push back on with such force that had altered
the trajectory of their lives. He would describe broadly as
a waste land caught between provincial country values and the
decay of the city. If he was going to find himself,
it was pretty obvious he wouldn't find it here. While
revisiting his childhood home as a superstar in the nineties,
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David started to break down in tears. It's a miracle,
he choked, I probably should have been an accountant. I
don't know how this all happened. Literally and metaphorically. He
escaped through music, A constant on the Jones family turntable
was a song called the inch Worm. Over the years,
it's been covered by the likes of John Coltrane, Tony Bennett,
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and even Paul McCartney, But for six year old David,
the definitive version remains the original, sung by comedian Danny
Kay and the film biopic of Fairytale author Hans Christian
Andrews worm Worm Measuring the Marble. It's a melancholic meditation
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on the fleeting nature of happiness. Danny Kay's melody is
offset by a chorus of young students blissfully unaware of
the trials that await them just around the corner. In adulthood,
the song became David's spiritual soundtrack as a boy, gave
voice to the sorrow he couldn't get verbalize. Inch Worm
is my childhood, he said in it gave me comfort.
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The person singing it sounded like he'd been hurt too,
and I'm into that, the artist singing away his pain.
When David first started making music of his own as
a teenager, inch Worm would be the first song he'd
learned to play. He would return to it again and
again over the years. He kept him connected with those
feelings of sadness that filled his soul as a child.
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Echoes can be heard of some of David's best known work,
from alotic fragments in Life on Mars and Aladdin Sane
to thematic elements of Ashes to Ashes and Thursday's Child.
He'd cup to it in later years. You wouldn't believe
the amount of songs that have spun off of that
one song. He once said, there's a connection that can
be made between being a somewhat lost five year old
who feels a little abandoned and having the same feeling
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when you're in your twenties. It was that song that
did it for me, But soon there be another song
that would take on equal importance in David's life. If
the Inchworm was the agony, this one was the ecstasy.
One day in the autumn of nineteen fifty six, David's
dad came home from work with a gift. An American
g I had donated a stack of records to the orphanage,
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and John barrowed a few for his music loving son
to hear. David was drawn the one right away, Tooty Fruity.
What kind of title is that? He stuck it on
the turntable and dropped the needle. Then his whole life changed.
It all started with those magic words, A whopp bopp,
a loo up, a whop bamboom. Those were the first
time David heard the spine tingling catterwall of Little Richard,
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whose unholy howl could wake the dead and compel them
to dance. That voice, coupled with his unrelenting barrel house
boogy wiggie piano, the result was powerful, naughty, sexy, funny
and electrified. David later said of the moment, my heart
nearly burst with excitement. I've never heard anything even resembling this.
It filled the room with energy and color and outrageous defiance.
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I had heard God. You got the chance to see
God later that year, in the early rock flick The
Girl Can't Help It. The film starts off in black
and white before exploding in a vibrant, wide screen technicolor.
That's pretty much what happened to David's world. Sure he'd
heard Bill Haley's Rock around the Clock, widely and inaccurately
sighted as the first rock and roll track. You'd also
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heard the folky twang of Lonnie Donegan, the man who
touched off a craze of teenage do it yourself skipple bands,
but Tooty Fruity was a different universe. It's impossible to
overestimate the impact Little Richard had on Little David. His
flamboyant shark skin suits and campy stage, and he was
never diminished the raw power that captured any audience. With
his high cheekbones, higher hair, and thick lashings of mascara,
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he was almost androgynous. His lyrics alluded to sex with
a knowing wink of a cabaret comic, but his shrieks
were pure, unspeakable orgasmic delight. Little Richard was wild, a rageous, subversive,
and very very weird, and he was loved. Most parents
hated rock and roll, but David's father was the best
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supplier of these exciting sounds. John Jones continued to receive
a steady flow of new releases at work, which he
then bring home to his son. David's collection quickly expanded
to include discs by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochrane,
Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers's Domino and Jean Vincent,
and of course there was Elvis Presley, the hip swiveling
former trucker from Tupola who had taken the raw black
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sound the mainstream white audiences. David liked Elves just fine.
Hell they even shared a birthday. He had the moves,
he had the style, he had the outlook. But there
was no mystery. His music spelled everything out. Who knew
what a whapoplop a whap bamboom men. It was like
a secret or a spell. For David. The Georgia peach
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would remain his idol. One Little Richard toward England. A
short time later, David somehow scored tickets. The chance to
see his hero in the flesh was just too good
to pass up. He got choice seats way up front.
Richard burst onto the stage, larger than life, and strode
to top his white baby grand piano. David was a static,
but then Richards started groaning and grabbing his chest. David
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was worried. Something was clearly wrong. Richard fell down onto
the stage, microphone by his side. David was terrified. Little
Richard was dying in front of him. A voice came
up to the loud speaker, is there a doctor in
the house? Then Little Richard lifted his head and shouted,
you guessed it. A wop bopaloop, a whap bamboom. The
effect was electrified. It was as if he had raised
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the dead. From that point on, David's goal was clear. Somehow,
some way, he would be a little Richard. It's easy
to spot the future rock star in the Bromwie Technical
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School class photo. Amid the rows and rows of tweens
and ties and identical blazers, young David Jones makes an impression,
adding a dash of color to the black and white panorama.
He's a nonconformist and a portrait of conformity. His classmates
stand rigidly at attention, many as if they're posing at gunpoint.
David has turned oh so casually to the right, the
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better to show off his good side. He told his
friends his shock of bright blonde hairris pile high and
what the kids call the d a or duck sass style.
He stares down the camera with a moody, almost seductive
pout worthy of James Dean and Marlena Dietrich. He's fifteen
years old and he's ready for his clothes up. The
picture speaks volumes. David Jones was just one of those
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kids you noticed at Bromley Tech. Classmates described them as smart, funny, cheerful,
and always willing to stop and chat with the younger kids.
More than anything else, he's remembered as one seriously cool dude.
As is so often the case with teenagers, it was
the clothes that made the man. He jazzed up school
uniforms with ultra crisped shirts and pointy winkle pinker shoes
that were all the rage. He even had his regulation
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pants tapered skin tight to mass the looks he'd seen
on the latest American album covers and magazine spreads. Outside
of school, he cut a dashing and dapper figure, strolling
down the suburban high streets and sleek suits paired but
tasseled suede boots that nobody else had the guts to
wear in public. David was rarely seen without his best friend,
George Underwood. These guys were so height they assumed they
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had E s P powers and spent hours trying to
guess the word the other was thinking of. They met
in nineteen fifty eight as members of the local boy
Scout troupe. It was during one of these scout trips
that they gave their first musical performance, playing old skiffle
in folk songs like Cumberland Gap, Tom Dooley and the
Ballot of Davy Crockett around the Campfire, backing themselves with
the Ukuleleen washboard. Four years later, the pair were the
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biggest rock and roll nuts at Bromley Tech. Together they
formed a group, George and the Dragons. When they weren't
busy practicing their Everly Brothers harmonies, they were usually found
on Bromley High Street, identically dressed and on the prow
for girls and hip Italian trousers, but not necessarily in
that order. Though they didn't know it at the time,
David and his friends would benefit from two government policies
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that would radically reshape adolescent life in England. The first
was the end of mandatory military service, the dread of
every help He's seventeen to twenty one year old male
in the country. The thread of eighteen months in the
army hung like a dark cloud over every British boy,
especially those of a moro bohemian nature. For decades, the
draft served as a rude welcome into adulthood, forcing boys
(26:03):
to rapidly become men or something like that. But by
the late fifties, it was over A crucial period of
youth was handed back to the postwar generation and they
were free to do with it as they liked. One
option was to attend Art College, a recent addition to
the English academic system. Up until then, schools prepared students
to either work in offices or factories. Our college offered
(26:24):
an alternative too many dreamy British hues. It was a
revelation you could make a living off your ideas. These
innovative institutions help set the stage for Britain's monumental contributions
to music, movies, fashion, theater and publishing as the Swinging
sixties began. The Blossom Art College alons include figures like
John Lennon, Keith Richards, Peaked Townsend, Ray Davies, Eric Clapton,
(26:46):
Jimmy Page and Sid Barrett, to name but a few.
Bromley Tech, affiliated with the nearby Bromley College of Art,
offered a liberal education within its modernist class and concrete walls.
That's school. David found an important ally in Owen Frampton,
the head of the art department, a successful graphic designer
in his own right. Aussy, as he was known, was
(27:07):
the most beloved teacher at Bromley Tech. His enthusiasm for
art of all kinds sparked passion in his students, and
his care and kindness made the kids feel respected and valued.
For David Owen, Frampton became a mentor, turning him on
the artist. Like Egon Shield and Eric Henckel, he instilled
in David a sense of discipline and also nurtured his
growing rebellious street. He encouraged David and George's band and
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even allowed them to keep their guitars in his office
during the day. At lunch time, he leave the door
unlocked so they could retrieve their instruments and practice in
a concrete stairwell with a natural echo made them sound
like Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, or whatever rocker they were
impersonating that day. Usually they were joined by Owen's son,
a younger boy named Peter Frampton, an impressive guitarist who
was equally besotted with the sound of US radio rock
(27:52):
and roll swept across Gray deprived post war Britain like
a second wave of American liberation, freeing the hearts, minds
and libidos of the young. To David and many others,
the United States seemed like the Promised Land, a magical,
far off place where everything was colorful and larger than life.
It was the birthplace of pop culture, Superman, Coca Cola,
Frank Sinatra, Mickey Mouse, and hot dogs. America produced a
(28:16):
ceaseless flood of stars, styles, and trends, and the US
economic boom made even everyday life seemed possibly glamorous. Big
cars with big fins, big houses with big lawns, and
big television sets with the biggest celebrities. For Brits, America
seemed cooler, richer, and a hell of a lot more
fun than anything they had. This America existed more in
the mind than on the map, but that didn't matter.
(28:38):
It helped British kids dream a bit bigger, and without
that we wouldn't have had Swinging London, or, for that matter,
Ziggy Stardust. As a team, David grew obsessed with all
things American and did everything he could to copy the
latest looks from across the ocean. Once, when visiting his
local barber, he requested his hair be cut like the
newly inaugurated President Kennedy's. He and George would adopt American
(29:01):
accents when trying to left with local girls. David even
fell in love with American football. He would later say,
I had America Mania when I was a kid, but
I loved all the things that America rejects. It was
black music, it was the beat, nick poets, it was
all the stuff that I thought was the true rebellious
and subversive side. An early role model was James Byron Dean,
(29:24):
the doomed Hollywood heartthrob who cemented his reputation with just
three movies before his fatal car wreck in nineteen He
didn't live to see the full flourish of rock and roll,
but he knew what it was all about. Dean was
a fast living, spiritually searching hurricane of emotions, capped off
with raw sex appeal, underscored by his delicately pretty, almost
androgyn his facial features. David especially like Dean's performance in
(29:47):
the adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden. He related
to Dean's character cal Trask, an emotionally tormented young man
stranded in a small town, desperate for love but completely
unsure how to ask for it. It reminded David of
himself and his older half brother Terry Terry's sense of
isolation in the Jones family helped to make him an
(30:09):
enthusiastic disciple of the American Beat poets. Tearing through the
works of Alan Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burrows, he
shared their ethos of freedom and individuality with his eager
young sibling. Through the Beats, David began to explore Buddhism
and meditation. For his history class, he wrote an essay
condemning Chairman Mao's invasion of Tibet, not exactly run of
(30:30):
the mill topic for a Bromley text student to tackle.
Through Terry, David received the kind of education he wasn't
gonna get in school. David later said, Terry introduced me
to the outside things. He had shown me that there's
always been a history of the outsider, of the rebel,
of not being in the center and not being drawn
into the tyranny of the mainstream. Then one fateful day,
(30:52):
Terry passed David his copy of Jack Carouas on the Road.
For David, it was like receiving holy scripture, and he
would cite it as a defining moment went in his adolescence.
The dog eared pages sent him on a speed fueled
cross country adventure with renegades like Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise,
whose copious appetites for sex, drugs and jazz took David
the world's you could scarcely imagine if he couldn't get
(31:14):
out of Bromley, then on the road was the next
best thing. Before long, Terry was taking his brother David
out of Bromley for real. This dairy new literature had
Terry hooked on free jazz, the untamed music favored by
his beat heroes. Soon Terry was getting it live from
the source, the dank and smoky music clubs in Soho,
London's bohemian enclave. David frequently tagged along for the Saturday
(31:38):
night excursion, taking the forty five minute train in the
London's Victoria station and then down the exit ramp and
the frenetic urban oblivion. Two misfits, one older and taller
with his hair creeping past his collar, the other younger,
barely fourteen, clad in the school uniform, out way past
his bedtime, in the epicenter on London's Pleasure District. After
years of wartime austerity, London was becoming color will again.
(32:00):
In this case, it was the neon hughes of the
red light zone. Soho's club land was strewing the strip
joints and sex magazine emporiums, entertainment that flattered the rules
of conventional society. This was his exciting The schoolboy David
is the wild jazz they heard at the Flamingo Ronnie
Scott's the one hundred Club. When he and Terry weren't
engaged in debates about left bank philosophers like Sarto and Camu,
(32:24):
they were discussing the merits of jazzers like West Montgomery
and Jerry Mulligan. Sure, some of the weirder stuff like
John Coltran may have gone over David's head, but Terry's
enthusiasm is enough to carry him through. These nights on
the town stoked David's desire to make music of his own.
It seemed like a natural expression of this new outsider consciousness.
(32:45):
He later say, I wanted to be a musician because
it seemed rebellious. It's what link little Richard, but James
Dean caroact with Coltrane and even the Tibetan monks. At heart,
they're all rebels. Though David had messed aroun on the
guitar in ukulele, he was drawn to the saxophone. It
was good enough for John Coltrane and little Richard, he
figured it was good enough for him. His father John
(33:05):
happily obliged, giving him glamorous Italian design, cream colored Grafton model.
It looked cool as hell, but he still needs someone
to teach him how to play it. After scanning the
music papers, he came up with the address of Ronnie Ross,
a local jazz legend who played baritone sacks alongside Woody
Herman and other greats. Ronnie wasn't actually offering lessons, but
David was fearless and called him up anyway. Hello, my
(33:28):
name is David Jones, and my dad's helped me buy
a new saxophone, and I need some lessons, he said
breathlessly on the phone. I don't give lessons, I'm a
jazz player, Ronnie said, but I really want to learn. Well,
what are you doing Saturday morning? Nothing? Well, if you
can get yourself over here, I'll have a look at you.
(33:49):
David caught the bus to Ronnie's house every Saturday morning
for two months, but then his teenage enthusiasm more off
no kid wants to work on the weekend after all. Musically,
he didn't learn very much, but Ronnie did him part
of very important concept. Music is not about playing notes
on a page. It's about creating a new language and
communicating the visions in your mind without speaking them. This
(34:10):
would prove to be a very valuable lesson for David,
so we'd figure out the finger rings later. Instead of
going to Ronnie's, David spent his saturdays at Furlong's Records,
Bromley's musical mecca. Entire weekends were spent pruising the aisles
looking for disc from eclectic jazz greats like Charlie Parker
and Charles Mingus and the latest R and B sounds
(34:30):
from James Brown and Jackie Wilson, then unknown the most Brits.
He even worked it forlongs, briefly sementing his status as
a local tastemaker among his fellow teens, but the job
was short lived. He spent most of the time trying
to build up his own record collection rather than actually,
you know, selling stuff. After his boss called him chatting
up customers one too many times, he got the acts.
(34:54):
David knew firsthand that record stores were great places to
pick up girls. One time he was trolling the racks,
a young shopkeeper's assistant took a liking to him. Together,
they'd cozy up in one of the listening booths, fogging
up the windows to the sounds of Ray Charles. She
was seventeen and David was thirteen. My first older woman
who'd recall with pride. David was ten when he felt
(35:15):
his first sexual stirrings, and devoted considerable energy to the
attraction of local females. But when speaking to journalist Cameron
Crow in nineteen seventy six, he claimed that his first
sexual experience was with a boy, a pretty boy to
use his words, that he took up to his childhood
bedroom at age fourteen. He explained the Crow it didn't
really matter who were what it was with, as long
as it was a sexual experience. But considering this was
(35:38):
the same interview where he dubbed Hitler quote the first
rock star, he may have just been going for shock value.
Whatever the case, David's talent for seducing girls is well documented.
In nineteen sixty, around the same time he was steaming
up the listening booths with the shopkeeper's assistant, David took
a class trip to Spain. Well most of the boys
(35:59):
played soccer with the Spanish kids. David is best remembered
chatting with the local girls in a school newspaper article
about the trip. He's reverently referred to as Don Jones
the lover last scene pursued by thirteen Senoritas, keenly aware
of his powers of persuasion, he could be quite the
lady killer. As an adult, David lamented what he called
terrible behavior, which included swapping partners midway through a double
(36:22):
date without getting permission from any of the parties involved,
and then, of course, as the whole Carol Goldsmith incident,
which earned him a punch in the eye from George Underwood.
They'd patch things up by the time George started playing
with the Conrads, a local rock and roll outfit that
had taken Bromley Tech by storm, or at least a
light breeze. David desperately wanted to join, and he begged
(36:44):
George to put in a good word. They eventually let
him in, not as the front man, but as a
humble Sacks player. I'm the singer, George ashored him. But
you can do a few numbers. Knowing an opportunity when
he saw one, David agreed to be a sideman. He
played his first gig with the on Radzi Bromley text
p t A Fair in June. It was the social
(37:05):
event of the season. The p t A even shelled
out for a new sound system. This was big news.
Some four thousand kids and parents were on hand to
watch David make his formal stage debut, blasting out instrumentals
and the cream colored sacks slung coolly over his shoulder,
his towering blonde pompadoura threatening to collapse as he bounced
his head in time. The covers by the shadows, Little
(37:27):
Richard and Sam cooked. He didn't sing a note, but
it didn't matter. David KNEWI of the crowd mesmerized, and
he liked it a lot. David needed a name for
this confident new character that appeared when he performed so
at odds with his calm, cool, and somewhat shy daily demeanor.
For a time he was Dave J, which morphed in
the Luther J and then Alexis J. He also briefly
(37:51):
considered a flash ear name inspired by a hero of
the Alamo called Jim Bowie, but that one didn't catch on,
at least not yet. That name belonged to someone else.
The man who would defy convention through his sound style
and constant chameleonic reinvention. The man who would elevate rock
concerts to the level of performance art. The man who
(38:11):
gave the LGBTQ community a badly needed hero by openly
embracing his fluid sexuality. The man who would struggle with
drug abuse, pushing himself to the brink of sanity with
a diet of cocaine, milk and red peppers. The man
who performed and partied with the likes of John Lennon,
Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reid and
somehow lived to tell the tale. The man who endured
(38:35):
the dissolution of his marriage on the front page of
every tabloid. The man who indirectly helped bring down the
Berlin Wall and predicted the creative potential of the Internet,
The man who channeled his impending death, and the one
final masterpiece. We'll get to know that man very well
over the course of this series. But David Bowie didn't
exist back in June two for now, he was David Jones,
(38:59):
fifteen years old old and playing rock and roll on
stage with his friends. As far as he was concerned,
he couldn't get any better than this. We hope you
enjoyed the first episode of Off the Record. Each Monday
will explore one of David Bowie's unique personas, from Major
(39:19):
Tom and the Thin White Duke, the Ziggy Stardust, the
Latin Saying, and beyond, in addition well of weekly bonus
episodes featuring interviews with major figures from that week's installment.
First Up, I talked to George Underwood, David's childhood best
friend who's playground punch resulted in David's trademark extraterrestrial Eyes.
Despite the whack, the pair stay close for the rest
(39:41):
of David's life. If you want to get to know
the boy who would be Bowie, George Underwood is a
great place to start. I'm Jordan Runtub. Thanks for listening.
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
The executive producers are Noel Brown and Sean ty Tone.
The supervising producers so Taylor Coin and Tristan McNeil. The
show was written and hosted by me Jordan run tug
(40:04):
and edited, scored and sound designed by Tristan McNeil. If
you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave us
a review. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
Off. The record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Isn't this room attractive? But take away the mirror and
you can see the difference. Not only does the high
fidelity mirror make the room more attractive, you get the
(00:22):
most accurate image possible, true line and color. In the
winter of nineteen sixty two, a boy named George Punch's
best friend David in the face. To be fair, David
kind of deserved it. They were fighting over the same
thing that most fifteen year old boys fight about. A
girl both lusted after Carol Goldsmith, a classmate at Bromley
(00:46):
Tech in the suburbs of London. George had been the
first to muster of the courage and ask her out.
Then David called and broke the news. She changed her mind.
The date was off. Trouble was, it wasn't true. David
made the whole thing up. Carol waited for over an
hour before storming off, devastated that she'd been stood up.
David planned the swoop in and pick up the pieces
(01:07):
of her broken heart, but George got wind of his
so called friends to see, so they had a showdown
at recess. Okay, maybe showdown is too strong. George marched
up to David and sucked him. The blow struck David's
left eye, landing it just the right angle to do
maximum damage. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors
attended to was bleeding eyeball. The injury nearly blinded him.
(01:31):
He recovered at home for weeks, isolated from his friends
at school. This sci fi reading, Americana worshiping, unusually self possessed,
jazz freak fashion plate, and budding Buddhist from the British
Sticks felt like even more of an outsider than usual,
And now he looked it in the mirror, he saw
a permanent reminder of the teenage tussle. The muscle that
constricted his iris was paralyzed, leaving David with a permanently
(01:53):
dilated left pupil. The effect made his eyes appears two
different colors, one blue and the other black. Looking in
the mirror, David wasn't so sure about this new reflection
he saw staring back at him. In fact, he was
kind of embarrassed. Sure there was the perfectly quaffed Presley pompadour, delicate,
almost feminine cheekbones, and sly often grin, but his mismatched
(02:14):
eyes looked weird, though not necessarily in a bad way.
Maybe it's kind of cool, he was marked. It gave
him a kind of mystique and aur of otherness, and
lent a hypnotic, mesmerizing edge to his ice cool stare.
We can work with this, he thought, Maybe, just maybe
weird is good for the first time. David Jones, a
(02:37):
young student from Bromley, gazed into the eyes of David Bowie,
a rock star from outer space. For the most visually
conscious musician of his era, Bowie's eyes would become his
defining feature, purring out of album covers, magazine spreads, and
music videos. Over the years, the face that stared back
at him in the mirror would change radically. He was
major Tom, he was ziggy Stardust, he was a Laddin Saying,
or the thin White Duke. But those other worldly eyes
(02:59):
remained constant them. The duality was striking. One eye steely,
blue and strong, constantly scanning the horizon for what's to come,
the other black and moody, damaged, looking inward at the
equally dark places in his soul. The two perspectives formed
a singular creative vision which led him to fame, fortune,
and immortality. In mythology, blindness is equated with mystical powers,
(03:23):
like the oracles, who can see beyond the realm of
mere immortals. Regardless of any supernatural abilities, Bowie's eyes were
a crucial part of his own mythology, providing him with
his very own superhero origin story. Some believed his eyes
with the result of a gangland street fight. Others cited
it as proved that Bowie really was from Mars. The
truth of the matter that he was trying to steal
(03:43):
his best friend's date was best kept quiet. Getting back
to David and George, they patched things up and stayed friends.
In later years. David thanked him for the whack. Without it,
he wouldn't have his trademark feature. So all on all,
it's a happy ending, But this is just the beginning. Hello,
(04:04):
and welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes
beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds of
rock's greatest legend. I'm your host, Jordan runt Tuck. This
season explores the life should we say lives of David Bowie.
In this episode, we're gonna talk about David Jones, the
Brixton Kid, with ruthless determination, who paved the way of
(04:26):
her all that was to come. He's the boy who
would be Bowie's. The soul we know is David Bowie
Crash landed at forty Stansfield Road in Brixton, England, on
January born to Hayward Jones, called John by his friends
and Margaret Burns, known to all us Peggy. The child
(04:46):
was Christen David Robert Hayward Jones. The midwife who delivered
baby David was struck by his knowing eyes. This child
has been on this earth before, she insisted, according to
his mother at least, but well, let's just say dramatic
flair runs in the family. The rumors of David's extraterrestrial
origins may be overstated, but the Jones neighborhood really did
(05:08):
look like another planet, Cold, Sootie and bleak one. Brixton
still bore the scars of Nazi bombing rates from World
War Two, which had ended less than two years earlier.
The rebel strewn streets were pockmarked with bomb sites. Baron
craters were homes and sometimes whole blocks in once stood.
Long after the war was over, essential goods were still
in short supply. Items like eggs, sugar, and linen were
(05:31):
strictly rationed. Even beef and soap were considered luxuries. Lack
of coal and gasoline meant homes could only use five
hours of electricity a day. Street lamps were switched off,
making the bombed out pits seem all the more ominous
and foreboding. For David's early years, his world was dark, damp,
and vaguely dangerous. Dystopia was just another day. Life inside
(05:54):
the jones Is three story Victorian terrace house wasn't much sunnier.
David never had fond memories of his childhood. He recall
his family as cold and emotionally distant. There were not
a lot of hugs shared at forty Stansfield Road that
we desperately wanted one. In later years, when asked about
his relationship with his parents, David quote of Philip Larkin's
poem this be the verse, here's the opening stands up,
(06:17):
And it did slightly for polite company. They mess you up,
your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but
they do. They fill you with the faults they had
and add some extra just for you. He got along
reasonably well with his father, John, a quiet man who
had showed business dreams of his own when he was younger.
At one time, he ran a nightclub and spent much
(06:37):
of his own money developing his first wife's cabaret act.
The act failed almost immediately, and their marriage followed suit.
When John met Peggy, they were unmarried when Dave was born,
a bold move in nineteen forties Britain. The boy was
eight months old when they unbastardized him by tying the knot.
Employed as a public relations director at a children's orphanage,
John retained some of his huckster tendencies over the years.
(07:00):
David l borrow many pages from his publicity playbook. His
relationship with his mother was more strained. David characterized Peggy
as a frigid, critical, monosyllabic woman who rarely smiled outward.
Displays of affection were totally out of the question. Whatever
emotion she had stayed locked deep inside of her. David
would say she gave him the bare essentials to keep
(07:21):
him alive, but never kissed him. Once, during a minor disagreement,
young David admitted to his mother, you know I think
you hate me, but suspicion lingered into adulthood. All his life.
He yearned for approval, and he never got it. When
she died in two thousand two, a friend offered his
condolences before adding, you know, your mother never quite took
(07:41):
to me. David responded, trouble is, she never quite took
to me either. The only consistent source of love and
affection for David was his half brother Terry, Peggy's son
from a prior relationship. Though eleven years older, the two
grew close as they shared a cramped bedroom. Terry became
David's best friend, protector, and hero. Terry doated on his
(08:02):
little brother, offering badly needed kindness and emotional support. When
Davis started painting, Terry offered praise and encouragement. The mother
just complained about the mess. But Terry's paternity made him
an unwelcome presence in the house. John never fully accepted him,
and Peggy viewed him as an unhappy reminder of an
earlier life. David watched this beloved half brother, his idol
(08:24):
was treated like half a member of the family, a
second class citizen in his own home. Unwilling to take
any more abuse, Terry enlisted in the Royal Air Force
in nineteen fifty six, when David was just nine years old.
He returned from combat a few years later a broken man, disheveled, angry, irrational,
frequently upset when no one knew it. At the time,
(08:45):
he was displaying early symptoms of the mental illness that
would cost him his life. Madness. That's what it was called.
Then David had another phrase for it, emotional and spiritual mutilation.
He always feared it because it always seem so dangerously close.
It blazed through his mother's side like a wildfire, consuming
the vibrant lives it touched. Two of peggy sisters were
(09:08):
institutionalized with schizophrenia, while a third was diagnosed as manic
depressive and lobotomized. Peggy's own severe personality may have hinted
at some undiagnosed condition. Now Terry, David's closest friend and confidant,
was falling prey to this cruel family affliction. Would David
be next? David remained haunted throughout his life by what
(09:29):
he dubbed Peggy's curse. As a star, he cited his
art as a psychological outlet, crediting it for whatever sanity
he had been able to maintain. Armchair psychologists for theorized
that the characters David inhabited in his music weren't mere theatrics,
but something deeper, an attempt at staving off mental illness
with a custom made, compartmentalized psyche. The true source of
(09:50):
David's chameleonic compulsions will never be known, but it's interesting
to note that one of his all time favorite books
was called The Divide Itself. In his seminal study on schizophrenia,
renowned psycholo just our D, laying to find Insanity is
quote a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world. To
a kid caught in the maelstrom of postwar deprivation, a
(10:10):
confusing home life, and mental illness, these words were a revelation.
The secrets and psychodrama of the Jones household set young
David apart from the kids he knew in Brixton. Sometimes
it was a good thing. Sure, he was alienated in
a drift, but it also made him feel special and independent.
Heading the clouds or nos in a book, he often
wandered off, walking aimlessly. He's remembered as a sweet, bright,
(10:34):
well behaved, well dressed, well scrubbed boy, the kind of
kid any mother would be proud of except perhaps his own.
He could also be painfully shy. On his first day
at primary school, just down the street from his parents house,
he was so overcome with nerves and he went his pants.
Music was released from the Button Up Little Boy. David
displayed an ear for it early on, one of the
(10:55):
more positive traits passed on from his mother, Peggy frequently
sang around the house, and he even wrote poetry. As
a toddler, David flung himself wildly around the kitchen whenever
he heard a piece of music that he liked. The
spontaneous outbursts were out of character for such a mild
mannered child. His parents would joke, maybe he'll grew up
to be a ballet dancer, But when David stole the
(11:15):
show in a primary school Nativity production, they began to
take real notice. After all, this is a long way
from peeing his pants. Soon, David began performing little shows
at home, using a window still as a stage. His mother,
predictably it was not amused, but John Jones loved it.
He was the consummate stage father in David. He saw
the chance to live out his own um for filled
(11:36):
showbiz ambitions for which he had neither the talent nor
the temperament. As part of his job as an orphanage
pr director, John regularly hired celebrities for fundraisers, and he
was not shy about pushing his cute little boy up
front for a quick beat and greet. He tells his
famous guests, my son's gonna be an entertainer too. David
would not his head in agreement before thrusting out his
autograph book. Through his father, David learned how to manu
(12:00):
over amongst celebrities, presenting himself with maximum impact. At one event,
he broke away from his parents and marched right up
to fellow attendees Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. A photographer
was on hand the capture of the moment that the
amused newly crowned Queen greeted the future Ziggy Stardust. David
would later claim the shot was published on the front
page of a local newspaper, but sadly, no evidence of
(12:21):
this photo has ever come to light. Whether he actually
made his media debut alongside Royalty or simply embellish the
story later on, he is up for debate, So let's
stay stock for a moment. You have an alienated kid
(12:42):
with a passion for music, a predilection for theatrics, a
preoccupation with multiple personalities, and a precocious nact of self promotion.
What's left in the David Bowie recipe science fiction? He
caught the bug early in when David was six, the
BBC began broadcasting The Quartermass Experiment, a pioneering and kind
(13:03):
of trashy sci fi series. It became a phenomenon across Britain,
an early example of must TV. John and Peggy perhaps
correctly decided that this material was not suitable for children,
so David snook downstairs after bedtime and hid behind the
couch while his parents watched. The program made an enormous
oppression on David. It offered a glimpse of life unlike
(13:25):
anything you'd ever known. More importantly, it reminded him that
the universe was more than just the four walls of
his unhappy home, as the show promised, on the other
side of the air, there was a whole new world
out there. The widespread popularity of The Quartermass Experiment wasn't
lost on David either. The public imagination had been captured
by a blend of aliens and sex m hmm, file
(13:47):
that one away for later. It's fitting there. Around the
same time the quatermass experiment hit the air waves, the
Jones family moved to Bromley, hometown of sci fi writer H. G. Wells,
the so called man who invented Tomorrow. But this British
suburb was about as far as you could get from
wells progressive futurist ideals. The town was just as bland
as Brixton, pleasant enough, but even more boring. The word
(14:11):
gray comes to mind, gray streets lined with gray prefab
houses and gray rubble from the odd bomb site. The
atmosphere in their fore room house at Plain Style Grove
was just as tense as ever, and David's parents fought regularly.
John was very much in love with Peggy, but she
regarded their marriage as one of convenience, and which freely
tell him as much. So John passed his unspent affection
(14:33):
along to David. Their father's suntime often involved trips in
the London to visit the theater. David would wait for
just the right moment to make a break from his
seat and slipped backstage, where he soaked up all the action.
Stage hands here customers there set designers and lighting crew,
the whole army work to get things looking perfect. This
was deeply inspiring for David and ignited in all consuming
(14:56):
interest and presentation an art form of its own. David
frequently looked in the mirror. Most self conscious kids do,
but for David was about more than just checking his hair.
This fundamentally shy boy hoped the mirror could provide some answers.
He yearned to know who he was, and also who
he could be with some minor alterations until to the head,
(15:19):
purse of the lip, maybe a whole new wardrobe. He
even made a list of his flaws in an effort
to weed them out of his personality altogether. The act
of transformation fascinated him early on. When he was three,
his mother found them staring transfixed in the bathroom mirror
as he smothered his face with women's makeup. It was
like a magic act. Now you see me, now you don't.
(15:41):
His mother was less than pleased. You don't wear makeup.
David didn't understand, But you do, mommy, and exacerbated. Peggy
finally screamed, that is not for little boys. Fans of
Freud will have a field day with that. Not for boys,
he probably thought, we'll see about that. Aside from the bickering,
(16:01):
there were two constant sounds that placed out Grove, the
small town talk from the pub directly outside David's bedroom window,
and the whistles from a nearby train station, a taunting
reminder that a bigger world, with bigger minds existed elsewhere. Today,
suburb is practically a dirty word, conjuring up stultifying images
of banality, little boxes on the hillside that all looked
(16:22):
just the same. But for middle class Brits in the
mid fifties, a detached home in the suburbs was the
ultimate brass ring, the peak of aspiration. And who could
blame them. Many had survived two devastating world wars in
their lifetime. They weren't necessarily looking to expand their mind
or make their creative mark on the world. Mostly they
were just grateful to be alive. As the economy sluggishly
(16:46):
began to improve, the mass exodus from city to country
reverberated like a massive social sigh of relief. There was peace,
and there was faith that things would keep getting better.
Modern material comforts and conveniences ease the pressure of daily
piz nous. Life was predictable and routine. Two adults, this
meant safety and security. The kids, who've never known any different,
(17:06):
it was tedious and suffocating. The physical and psychological proximity
of the neighbors led to rigid self policing. Don't go
too outside the box, otherwise people will talk. For David,
this often took the form of his mother's voice, pull
up your socks, don't touch that. Have you washed your face?
The suburbs would shape David and many other artists of
(17:28):
his generation by providing a paradigm to rebel against, something,
to push back on with such force that had altered
the trajectory of their lives. He would describe broadly as
a waste land caught between provincial country values and the
decay of the city. If he was going to find himself,
it was pretty obvious he wouldn't find it here. While
revisiting his childhood home as a superstar in the nineties,
(17:49):
David started to break down in tears. It's a miracle,
he choked, I probably should have been an accountant. I
don't know how this all happened. Literally and metaphorically. He
escaped through music, A constant on the Jones family turntable
was a song called the inch Worm. Over the years,
it's been covered by the likes of John Coltrane, Tony Bennett,
(18:09):
and even Paul McCartney, But for six year old David,
the definitive version remains the original, sung by comedian Danny
Kay and the film biopic of Fairytale author Hans Christian
Andrews worm Worm Measuring the Marble. It's a melancholic meditation
(18:30):
on the fleeting nature of happiness. Danny Kay's melody is
offset by a chorus of young students blissfully unaware of
the trials that await them just around the corner. In adulthood,
the song became David's spiritual soundtrack as a boy, gave
voice to the sorrow he couldn't get verbalize. Inch Worm
is my childhood, he said in it gave me comfort.
(18:51):
The person singing it sounded like he'd been hurt too,
and I'm into that, the artist singing away his pain.
When David first started making music of his own as
a teenager, inch Worm would be the first song he'd
learned to play. He would return to it again and
again over the years. He kept him connected with those
feelings of sadness that filled his soul as a child.
(19:13):
Echoes can be heard of some of David's best known work,
from alotic fragments in Life on Mars and Aladdin Sane
to thematic elements of Ashes to Ashes and Thursday's Child.
He'd cup to it in later years. You wouldn't believe
the amount of songs that have spun off of that
one song. He once said, there's a connection that can
be made between being a somewhat lost five year old
who feels a little abandoned and having the same feeling
(19:34):
when you're in your twenties. It was that song that
did it for me, But soon there be another song
that would take on equal importance in David's life. If
the Inchworm was the agony, this one was the ecstasy.
One day in the autumn of nineteen fifty six, David's
dad came home from work with a gift. An American
g I had donated a stack of records to the orphanage,
(19:56):
and John barrowed a few for his music loving son
to hear. David was drawn the one right away, Tooty Fruity.
What kind of title is that? He stuck it on
the turntable and dropped the needle. Then his whole life changed.
It all started with those magic words, A whopp bopp,
a loo up, a whop bamboom. Those were the first
time David heard the spine tingling catterwall of Little Richard,
(20:19):
whose unholy howl could wake the dead and compel them
to dance. That voice, coupled with his unrelenting barrel house
boogy wiggie piano, the result was powerful, naughty, sexy, funny
and electrified. David later said of the moment, my heart
nearly burst with excitement. I've never heard anything even resembling this.
It filled the room with energy and color and outrageous defiance.
(20:42):
I had heard God. You got the chance to see
God later that year, in the early rock flick The
Girl Can't Help It. The film starts off in black
and white before exploding in a vibrant, wide screen technicolor.
That's pretty much what happened to David's world. Sure he'd
heard Bill Haley's Rock around the Clock, widely and inaccurately
sighted as the first rock and roll track. You'd also
(21:02):
heard the folky twang of Lonnie Donegan, the man who
touched off a craze of teenage do it yourself skipple bands,
but Tooty Fruity was a different universe. It's impossible to
overestimate the impact Little Richard had on Little David. His
flamboyant shark skin suits and campy stage, and he was
never diminished the raw power that captured any audience. With
his high cheekbones, higher hair, and thick lashings of mascara,
(21:24):
he was almost androgynous. His lyrics alluded to sex with
a knowing wink of a cabaret comic, but his shrieks
were pure, unspeakable orgasmic delight. Little Richard was wild, a rageous, subversive,
and very very weird, and he was loved. Most parents
hated rock and roll, but David's father was the best
(21:44):
supplier of these exciting sounds. John Jones continued to receive
a steady flow of new releases at work, which he
then bring home to his son. David's collection quickly expanded
to include discs by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochrane,
Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers's Domino and Jean Vincent,
and of course there was Elvis Presley, the hip swiveling
former trucker from Tupola who had taken the raw black
(22:06):
sound the mainstream white audiences. David liked Elves just fine.
Hell they even shared a birthday. He had the moves,
he had the style, he had the outlook. But there
was no mystery. His music spelled everything out. Who knew
what a whapoplop a whap bamboom men. It was like
a secret or a spell. For David. The Georgia peach
(22:27):
would remain his idol. One Little Richard toward England. A
short time later, David somehow scored tickets. The chance to
see his hero in the flesh was just too good
to pass up. He got choice seats way up front.
Richard burst onto the stage, larger than life, and strode
to top his white baby grand piano. David was a static,
but then Richards started groaning and grabbing his chest. David
(22:50):
was worried. Something was clearly wrong. Richard fell down onto
the stage, microphone by his side. David was terrified. Little
Richard was dying in front of him. A voice came
up to the loud speaker, is there a doctor in
the house? Then Little Richard lifted his head and shouted,
you guessed it. A wop bopaloop, a whap bamboom. The
effect was electrified. It was as if he had raised
(23:12):
the dead. From that point on, David's goal was clear. Somehow,
some way, he would be a little Richard. It's easy
to spot the future rock star in the Bromwie Technical
(23:34):
School class photo. Amid the rows and rows of tweens
and ties and identical blazers, young David Jones makes an impression,
adding a dash of color to the black and white panorama.
He's a nonconformist and a portrait of conformity. His classmates
stand rigidly at attention, many as if they're posing at gunpoint.
David has turned oh so casually to the right, the
(23:55):
better to show off his good side. He told his
friends his shock of bright blonde hairris pile high and
what the kids call the d a or duck sass style.
He stares down the camera with a moody, almost seductive
pout worthy of James Dean and Marlena Dietrich. He's fifteen
years old and he's ready for his clothes up. The
picture speaks volumes. David Jones was just one of those
(24:18):
kids you noticed at Bromley Tech. Classmates described them as smart, funny, cheerful,
and always willing to stop and chat with the younger kids.
More than anything else, he's remembered as one seriously cool dude.
As is so often the case with teenagers, it was
the clothes that made the man. He jazzed up school
uniforms with ultra crisped shirts and pointy winkle pinker shoes
that were all the rage. He even had his regulation
(24:40):
pants tapered skin tight to mass the looks he'd seen
on the latest American album covers and magazine spreads. Outside
of school, he cut a dashing and dapper figure, strolling
down the suburban high streets and sleek suits paired but
tasseled suede boots that nobody else had the guts to
wear in public. David was rarely seen without his best friend,
George Underwood. These guys were so height they assumed they
(25:01):
had E s P powers and spent hours trying to
guess the word the other was thinking of. They met
in nineteen fifty eight as members of the local boy
Scout troupe. It was during one of these scout trips
that they gave their first musical performance, playing old skiffle
in folk songs like Cumberland Gap, Tom Dooley and the
Ballot of Davy Crockett around the Campfire, backing themselves with
the Ukuleleen washboard. Four years later, the pair were the
(25:22):
biggest rock and roll nuts at Bromley Tech. Together they
formed a group, George and the Dragons. When they weren't
busy practicing their Everly Brothers harmonies, they were usually found
on Bromley High Street, identically dressed and on the prow
for girls and hip Italian trousers, but not necessarily in
that order. Though they didn't know it at the time,
David and his friends would benefit from two government policies
(25:43):
that would radically reshape adolescent life in England. The first
was the end of mandatory military service, the dread of
every help He's seventeen to twenty one year old male
in the country. The thread of eighteen months in the
army hung like a dark cloud over every British boy,
especially those of a moro bohemian nature. For decades, the
draft served as a rude welcome into adulthood, forcing boys
(26:03):
to rapidly become men or something like that. But by
the late fifties, it was over A crucial period of
youth was handed back to the postwar generation and they
were free to do with it as they liked. One
option was to attend Art College, a recent addition to
the English academic system. Up until then, schools prepared students
to either work in offices or factories. Our college offered
(26:24):
an alternative too many dreamy British hues. It was a
revelation you could make a living off your ideas. These
innovative institutions help set the stage for Britain's monumental contributions
to music, movies, fashion, theater and publishing as the Swinging
sixties began. The Blossom Art College alons include figures like
John Lennon, Keith Richards, Peaked Townsend, Ray Davies, Eric Clapton,
(26:46):
Jimmy Page and Sid Barrett, to name but a few.
Bromley Tech, affiliated with the nearby Bromley College of Art,
offered a liberal education within its modernist class and concrete walls.
That's school. David found an important ally in Owen Frampton,
the head of the art department, a successful graphic designer
in his own right. Aussy, as he was known, was
(27:07):
the most beloved teacher at Bromley Tech. His enthusiasm for
art of all kinds sparked passion in his students, and
his care and kindness made the kids feel respected and valued.
For David Owen, Frampton became a mentor, turning him on
the artist. Like Egon Shield and Eric Henckel, he instilled
in David a sense of discipline and also nurtured his
growing rebellious street. He encouraged David and George's band and
(27:29):
even allowed them to keep their guitars in his office
during the day. At lunch time, he leave the door
unlocked so they could retrieve their instruments and practice in
a concrete stairwell with a natural echo made them sound
like Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, or whatever rocker they were
impersonating that day. Usually they were joined by Owen's son,
a younger boy named Peter Frampton, an impressive guitarist who
was equally besotted with the sound of US radio rock
(27:52):
and roll swept across Gray deprived post war Britain like
a second wave of American liberation, freeing the hearts, minds
and libidos of the young. To David and many others,
the United States seemed like the Promised Land, a magical,
far off place where everything was colorful and larger than life.
It was the birthplace of pop culture, Superman, Coca Cola,
Frank Sinatra, Mickey Mouse, and hot dogs. America produced a
(28:16):
ceaseless flood of stars, styles, and trends, and the US
economic boom made even everyday life seemed possibly glamorous. Big
cars with big fins, big houses with big lawns, and
big television sets with the biggest celebrities. For Brits, America
seemed cooler, richer, and a hell of a lot more
fun than anything they had. This America existed more in
the mind than on the map, but that didn't matter.
(28:38):
It helped British kids dream a bit bigger, and without
that we wouldn't have had Swinging London, or, for that matter,
Ziggy Stardust. As a team, David grew obsessed with all
things American and did everything he could to copy the
latest looks from across the ocean. Once, when visiting his
local barber, he requested his hair be cut like the
newly inaugurated President Kennedy's. He and George would adopt American
(29:01):
accents when trying to left with local girls. David even
fell in love with American football. He would later say,
I had America Mania when I was a kid, but
I loved all the things that America rejects. It was
black music, it was the beat, nick poets, it was
all the stuff that I thought was the true rebellious
and subversive side. An early role model was James Byron Dean,
(29:24):
the doomed Hollywood heartthrob who cemented his reputation with just
three movies before his fatal car wreck in nineteen He
didn't live to see the full flourish of rock and roll,
but he knew what it was all about. Dean was
a fast living, spiritually searching hurricane of emotions, capped off
with raw sex appeal, underscored by his delicately pretty, almost
androgyn his facial features. David especially like Dean's performance in
(29:47):
the adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden. He related
to Dean's character cal Trask, an emotionally tormented young man
stranded in a small town, desperate for love but completely
unsure how to ask for it. It reminded David of
himself and his older half brother Terry Terry's sense of
isolation in the Jones family helped to make him an
(30:09):
enthusiastic disciple of the American Beat poets. Tearing through the
works of Alan Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burrows, he
shared their ethos of freedom and individuality with his eager
young sibling. Through the Beats, David began to explore Buddhism
and meditation. For his history class, he wrote an essay
condemning Chairman Mao's invasion of Tibet, not exactly run of
(30:30):
the mill topic for a Bromley text student to tackle.
Through Terry, David received the kind of education he wasn't
gonna get in school. David later said, Terry introduced me
to the outside things. He had shown me that there's
always been a history of the outsider, of the rebel,
of not being in the center and not being drawn
into the tyranny of the mainstream. Then one fateful day,
(30:52):
Terry passed David his copy of Jack Carouas on the Road.
For David, it was like receiving holy scripture, and he
would cite it as a defining moment went in his adolescence.
The dog eared pages sent him on a speed fueled
cross country adventure with renegades like Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise,
whose copious appetites for sex, drugs and jazz took David
the world's you could scarcely imagine if he couldn't get
(31:14):
out of Bromley, then on the road was the next
best thing. Before long, Terry was taking his brother David
out of Bromley for real. This dairy new literature had
Terry hooked on free jazz, the untamed music favored by
his beat heroes. Soon Terry was getting it live from
the source, the dank and smoky music clubs in Soho,
London's bohemian enclave. David frequently tagged along for the Saturday
(31:38):
night excursion, taking the forty five minute train in the
London's Victoria station and then down the exit ramp and
the frenetic urban oblivion. Two misfits, one older and taller
with his hair creeping past his collar, the other younger,
barely fourteen, clad in the school uniform, out way past
his bedtime, in the epicenter on London's Pleasure District. After
years of wartime austerity, London was becoming color will again.
(32:00):
In this case, it was the neon hughes of the
red light zone. Soho's club land was strewing the strip
joints and sex magazine emporiums, entertainment that flattered the rules
of conventional society. This was his exciting The schoolboy David
is the wild jazz they heard at the Flamingo Ronnie
Scott's the one hundred Club. When he and Terry weren't
engaged in debates about left bank philosophers like Sarto and Camu,
(32:24):
they were discussing the merits of jazzers like West Montgomery
and Jerry Mulligan. Sure, some of the weirder stuff like
John Coltran may have gone over David's head, but Terry's
enthusiasm is enough to carry him through. These nights on
the town stoked David's desire to make music of his own.
It seemed like a natural expression of this new outsider consciousness.
(32:45):
He later say, I wanted to be a musician because
it seemed rebellious. It's what link little Richard, but James
Dean caroact with Coltrane and even the Tibetan monks. At heart,
they're all rebels. Though David had messed aroun on the
guitar in ukulele, he was drawn to the saxophone. It
was good enough for John Coltrane and little Richard, he
figured it was good enough for him. His father John
(33:05):
happily obliged, giving him glamorous Italian design, cream colored Grafton model.
It looked cool as hell, but he still needs someone
to teach him how to play it. After scanning the
music papers, he came up with the address of Ronnie Ross,
a local jazz legend who played baritone sacks alongside Woody
Herman and other greats. Ronnie wasn't actually offering lessons, but
David was fearless and called him up anyway. Hello, my
(33:28):
name is David Jones, and my dad's helped me buy
a new saxophone, and I need some lessons, he said
breathlessly on the phone. I don't give lessons, I'm a
jazz player, Ronnie said, but I really want to learn. Well,
what are you doing Saturday morning? Nothing? Well, if you
can get yourself over here, I'll have a look at you.
(33:49):
David caught the bus to Ronnie's house every Saturday morning
for two months, but then his teenage enthusiasm more off
no kid wants to work on the weekend after all. Musically,
he didn't learn very much, but Ronnie did him part
of very important concept. Music is not about playing notes
on a page. It's about creating a new language and
communicating the visions in your mind without speaking them. This
(34:10):
would prove to be a very valuable lesson for David,
so we'd figure out the finger rings later. Instead of
going to Ronnie's, David spent his saturdays at Furlong's Records,
Bromley's musical mecca. Entire weekends were spent pruising the aisles
looking for disc from eclectic jazz greats like Charlie Parker
and Charles Mingus and the latest R and B sounds
(34:30):
from James Brown and Jackie Wilson, then unknown the most Brits.
He even worked it forlongs, briefly sementing his status as
a local tastemaker among his fellow teens, but the job
was short lived. He spent most of the time trying
to build up his own record collection rather than actually,
you know, selling stuff. After his boss called him chatting
up customers one too many times, he got the acts.
(34:54):
David knew firsthand that record stores were great places to
pick up girls. One time he was trolling the racks,
a young shopkeeper's assistant took a liking to him. Together,
they'd cozy up in one of the listening booths, fogging
up the windows to the sounds of Ray Charles. She
was seventeen and David was thirteen. My first older woman
who'd recall with pride. David was ten when he felt
(35:15):
his first sexual stirrings, and devoted considerable energy to the
attraction of local females. But when speaking to journalist Cameron
Crow in nineteen seventy six, he claimed that his first
sexual experience was with a boy, a pretty boy to
use his words, that he took up to his childhood
bedroom at age fourteen. He explained the Crow it didn't
really matter who were what it was with, as long
as it was a sexual experience. But considering this was
(35:38):
the same interview where he dubbed Hitler quote the first
rock star, he may have just been going for shock value.
Whatever the case, David's talent for seducing girls is well documented.
In nineteen sixty, around the same time he was steaming
up the listening booths with the shopkeeper's assistant, David took
a class trip to Spain. Well most of the boys
(35:59):
played soccer with the Spanish kids. David is best remembered
chatting with the local girls in a school newspaper article
about the trip. He's reverently referred to as Don Jones
the lover last scene pursued by thirteen Senoritas, keenly aware
of his powers of persuasion, he could be quite the
lady killer. As an adult, David lamented what he called
terrible behavior, which included swapping partners midway through a double
(36:22):
date without getting permission from any of the parties involved,
and then, of course, as the whole Carol Goldsmith incident,
which earned him a punch in the eye from George Underwood.
They'd patch things up by the time George started playing
with the Conrads, a local rock and roll outfit that
had taken Bromley Tech by storm, or at least a
light breeze. David desperately wanted to join, and he begged
(36:44):
George to put in a good word. They eventually let
him in, not as the front man, but as a
humble Sacks player. I'm the singer, George ashored him. But
you can do a few numbers. Knowing an opportunity when
he saw one, David agreed to be a sideman. He
played his first gig with the on Radzi Bromley text
p t A Fair in June. It was the social
(37:05):
event of the season. The p t A even shelled
out for a new sound system. This was big news.
Some four thousand kids and parents were on hand to
watch David make his formal stage debut, blasting out instrumentals
and the cream colored sacks slung coolly over his shoulder,
his towering blonde pompadoura threatening to collapse as he bounced
his head in time. The covers by the shadows, Little
(37:27):
Richard and Sam cooked. He didn't sing a note, but
it didn't matter. David KNEWI of the crowd mesmerized, and
he liked it a lot. David needed a name for
this confident new character that appeared when he performed so
at odds with his calm, cool, and somewhat shy daily demeanor.
For a time he was Dave J, which morphed in
the Luther J and then Alexis J. He also briefly
(37:51):
considered a flash ear name inspired by a hero of
the Alamo called Jim Bowie, but that one didn't catch on,
at least not yet. That name belonged to someone else.
The man who would defy convention through his sound style
and constant chameleonic reinvention. The man who would elevate rock
concerts to the level of performance art. The man who
(38:11):
gave the LGBTQ community a badly needed hero by openly
embracing his fluid sexuality. The man who would struggle with
drug abuse, pushing himself to the brink of sanity with
a diet of cocaine, milk and red peppers. The man
who performed and partied with the likes of John Lennon,
Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reid and
somehow lived to tell the tale. The man who endured
(38:35):
the dissolution of his marriage on the front page of
every tabloid. The man who indirectly helped bring down the
Berlin Wall and predicted the creative potential of the Internet,
The man who channeled his impending death, and the one
final masterpiece. We'll get to know that man very well
over the course of this series. But David Bowie didn't
exist back in June two for now, he was David Jones,
(38:59):
fifteen years old old and playing rock and roll on
stage with his friends. As far as he was concerned,
he couldn't get any better than this. We hope you
enjoyed the first episode of Off the Record. Each Monday
will explore one of David Bowie's unique personas, from Major
(39:19):
Tom and the Thin White Duke, the Ziggy Stardust, the
Latin Saying, and beyond, in addition well of weekly bonus
episodes featuring interviews with major figures from that week's installment.
First Up, I talked to George Underwood, David's childhood best
friend who's playground punch resulted in David's trademark extraterrestrial Eyes.
Despite the whack, the pair stay close for the rest
(39:41):
of David's life. If you want to get to know
the boy who would be Bowie, George Underwood is a
great place to start. I'm Jordan Runtub. Thanks for listening.
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
The executive producers are Noel Brown and Sean ty Tone.
The supervising producers so Taylor Coin and Tristan McNeil. The
show was written and hosted by me Jordan run tug
(40:04):
and edited, scored and sound designed by Tristan McNeil. If
you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave us
a review. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
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