Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

This was no Danny Kaye.
“A wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom,” the gritty
caterwaul declared—words that meant everything
and nothing at once. The band fell in with the piano,
sax, bass and drums and David Jones felt his entire
body rise and shake. It was an electrifying moment.
“My heart nearly burst with excitement,” he said. “It
filled the room with energy and color and outrageous
defiance.”
Rooted in gospel and gruff like a blues singer, but
also pliant, flexible and light like an opera singer,
with the winking, naughty wit of a cabaret star,
Richard’s voice is still unique in its twisted,
somewhat insane timbre and phrasing. He sang like
a man who could never sing any other way. It
possesses urgency, confidence, bravado and deep,
almost biblical need. “I tried to take voice lessons
but I found I couldn’t because the way I sing, a voice
teacher can’t deal with it,” Richard has said of his
phrasing. “I’m out of control.”
As epochal as it was, Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” was
not a number one hit in America. A watered-down
cover version by Pat Boone had topped the charts
instead. Richard was an African American and
androgynous. He was a double threat to many
parents at the time.
“I had heard God. Now I wanted to see him,” David
recalled. And he finally did, in hit films like Don’t
Knock the Rock and The Girl Can’t Help It, both
from 1956. In Don’t Knock the Rock, featuring
seminal and soon to be scandalized Cleveland disc