Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

heads, saying, ‘How do we do this?’ It’s a very
difficult thing to fight for in a large corporation like
that if nobody understands where they’re going with
it. It really wasn’t fair, certainly not to David. There
were certain things you knew you weren’t going to
get your hands on in those days and that was one of
them. You were struggling in the trenches most of the
time. You’d see the writing on the wall during
meetings, when you’d ask a question and people
would just turn away from you. But I loved Hunky
Dory. It was unique and strange and very
unorthodox. But if you tried to explain British music
hall tradition to the executives, they just wouldn’t get
it. I was really disappointed I couldn’t do anything at
Warner’s with him. I think later on in the seventies
when I saw the thing build with Bowie, it all started to
make sense to people.”
Defries was undeterred by this rejection and
remained confident that this material would result in
a superstar deal. “David was an almost totally
unknown name but Tony had grand ideas,” Gillespie
says today. “Defries was good; he created this
mystique, you know. He talked big and people
became—they got hooked in on what he was talking
about. They liked how he was talking.”
Defries made good on half his claim. RCA’s
Dennis Katz passed on Gillespie but could not deny
the power of David Bowie’s new material. RCA at
the time had Elvis Presley, but their rock division
was lackluster as far as new young stars were
concerned. Katz could see how Bowie would be