Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

and later, of course, obsessed fans. David Jones,
and later David Bowie, pursued such things
doggedly. Marc puffed out his chest and simply
accepted them as tribute to his magical charisma.
This isn’t to suggest that Marc the musician
remained completely sedentary. He was gifted and
intuitive in both his writing and guitar playing (both of
which remain quite underrated). Like David, he was
highly adept at picking and choosing from other
artists and arranging a sort of magpie’s nest full of
style. There are photos of him clutching a guitar and
wearing the same type of snap-brim cap that Bob
Dylan wore during his Woody Guthrie–influenced
phase. Marc called himself “Toby Tyler” then and for
a brief time played the city’s folk venues. An early
outfit, John’s Children, combined Who-style protopunk
with the startling, tremulous baritone borrowed
from soul man Billy Eckstine (an effect Bolan would
refine throughout his career, developing a tone that
would be much imitated in itself). His restrained
playing on the pastoral Tyrannosaurus Rex albums
(“The Throat of Winter” on 1969’s Unicorn out–Nick
Drakes Nick Drake for foliage-hued folk splendor) is
as gentle as the tough, salivating and hypersexual
fifties-style riffs on Electric Warrior and The Slider
by T. Rex. Bolan defenders point out that this indeed
amounts to a complex and varied body of early work.
Still, even if he hadn’t gone spangly and a bit static
with the bubblegum once he hit on a working
formula, Bolan’s versatility and musicianship were
certain to be upstaged by his Napoleonic ego and