Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

moved on to something new. “After all the effort, I
honestly don’t know why,” Ravitz says. “Maybe it was
too much to deal with. The trooping around was too
much. Or maybe it just didn’t fit anymore with the new
music that he was hearing.”
“I
f You Only Knew” by Patti Labelle; “Me and Mrs.
Jones” by Billy Paul; “Wake Up Everybody” and
“Bad Luck” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes
(with Teddy Pendergrass on vocals); “When Will I
See You Again?” by the Three Degrees: this is the
wonderful sound of Philadelphia. “TSOP.” It’s
elegant strings, a gently vibrating electric piano,
velvety drums, a sax nuzzling in to fill a pocket of
silence in the arrangement, filling up the mind with
images of cognac-warm romance, fur rugs, a
crackling Dura flame log, high heels and long,
glossy leather coats with elaborate buckles and
belts. Even the Philly soul that takes on man’s
inhumanity toward man (like the O’Jays’ “Back
Stabbers”) is arranged like a lusty and plush pop
suite. This kind of stuff ruled the radio in the first
half of the 1970s, and post-Ziggy David Bowie fell
in love with these records so much that he started
making them. When I was five years old, this same
Philly soul nurtured me like Jif peanut butter and
Kool-Aid did. With the exception of Chicago, Led
Zeppelin, Elton John, Jethro Tull, Carole King and
Wings, this is all I can remember listening to as a