Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

something to thrill over, but a collection of financially
unsuccessful singles was something troubling.
Certainly touring was hard work and a source of
income, but David would often return from a road trip
even more desperate and with less money than he’d
left with. The pop stars that John and Peggy Jones
saw on television all had broad smiles and seemed
healthy, wealthy and well provided for. The day-today
life of their impatient and wildly ambitious son
seemed something altogether different.
Even within this private culture of hope and
disappointment, David did not give up. As I said, he
could reliably be seen during this period in the
Giaconda café, poring over the music weeklies, the
New Musical Express and Melody Maker, and also
catching the sets of more successful bands in the
nearby clubs. He’d watch each lead singer and take
mental notes, studying what worked and why.
“When [lead singer] Phil May and I started the
Pretty Things, he came to the gigs quite a lot and
that was it really,” says Dick Taylor of the Pretty
Things. “By the time we got to the point where we
were well known, he’d latched on a bit. He’d follow
us around. You’d look up at the gigs and he’d be
there. He liked the rebellious image. We were fellow
art students who were doing it.” Although he was not
yet twenty, some front men, like Steve Winwood,
then of the Spencer Davis Group, were only fifteen
and enjoying a career in rapid ascent.
The Lower Third, David’s next step on the path to
becoming “somebody,” was, like the Manish Boys,