Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

einvent Iggy and Iggy would reenergize Bowie. For
the next year, Bowie would record two albums of his
own and one more of Iggy’s, tour the world as Pop’s
keyboard player and plan another massive arena
tour of his own. Both of them, by the almost
immovable logic of rock ’n’ roll, should have burned
way out by ’77 as the Stones were doing with Keith
Richards losing himself to heroin and facing jail time
in Toronto. They not only inspired each other, they
inspired the very punks who were taking potshots at
their peers, like Rod Stewart and Robert Plant, daily.
Of all the British rock titans, only the Who would
survive punk in a similar state of grace. Compare
Bowie’s after-punk fate to that of Mick Ronson, still
given to fringe and sequined glam wear, having
spent most of ’75 playing arenas as part of Bob
Dylan’s mighty Rolling Thunder Revue tour. His
platinum shag was intact as well. “Punk came in, and
when it came in, it came in with a vengeance,” his
widow, Suzi Ronson, recalls. “A total changing of the
guard. Went to Wardour Street one night in ’76 or
’77. Mick was still wearing glitter stuff and high heels.
We were standing there getting our drinks. It was
scary as hell. Safety pins everywhere and kids taking
the piss: ‘Look at ’im in ’is glitter gear.’ Pushing us a
little bit. ‘You’re not doing so good now, are you?’
We ran down the street in our high-heel platforms
terrified of these people coming after us. That was
our introduction to punk. David was very smart, you
see. He disappeared. Regrouped and absorbed in
order to be able to create again.”