B is for Bowie – part one – the life and death of Ziggy Stardust

Thursday 11th September

You have to hand it to the young David Jones, he was certainly a try-er.  From the early 1960’s he formed several bands and made a handful of singles which all flopped, and an album which sounded like Anthony Newley on speed.  But despite failing he believed in himself and especially that he could write and play great music.  Completely out of the blue he came up with a mini-opus about a Major lost on space and recorded it with an orchestra (or five orchestra’s double tracked if he is to be believed) and Space Oddity was born.  It was a top five hit.  Then I heard nothing until the single ‘Life On Mars’.  This was more interesting but it wasn’t until ‘Starman’ his first single from the album ‘Ziggy Stardust’ that he truly had arrived.  Like almost everyone else I was hooked, by this strange and beautiful man in a green sparkly jumpsuit and bright red spiky hair singing incredible songs about a pop-star from Mars.  I bought the album and then worked back through “Hunky Dory” and “The Man Who Sold The World” and ”Space Oddity” (the album) itself.

Wow.  Incredible changes of style and music, but all shot through with a weirdness and an incredibly expressive voice.  We had quite simply never come across anything quite like him before.   Bowie was morphing into Ziggy before our very eyes and continued with the album “Aladdin Sane” and then “Pin Ups” – a tribute to his favourite songs with a brilliant photo of Ziggy and Twiggy on the cover.

Then suddenly Ziggy was dead, killed off one night at Hammersmith Odeon in 1973.  And Bowie attempted to extricate himself from the madness that he and Ziggy had created.  Not that that was the end by any means, Bowie was unstoppable and raced off to pursue other musical styles and personae.  But the Ziggy period was truly remarkable; he almost single handedly invented Glam-Rock, he spawned many many bands of imitators, his hairstyle has been copied by millions and through it all like gold through quartz his songs shone through.  My favourite record is actually Hunky Dory, the precursor to Ziggy, with songs like “Kooks” and “Ch..ch..changes” and “The Bewlay Brothers”.    Sheer sheer brilliance.   And this was only the start…..

Ziggy Stardust Ziggy