Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

Mercury’s Robin McBride flew over that winter to
collect the masters and artwork directly from Bowie.
David handed him two illustrations by Arts Lab
regular Mike Weller, which depicted Cane Hill – later
to be replaced by a photo of David reclining at
Haddon Hall in his Mr Fish dress.
Soon David’s London press contacts would be
informed that the album was being ‘acclaimed in
America … a sudden holocaust’. The reality was
rather more modest. David’s American fans were
mainly confined to Mercury staff, principally the newly
appointed press officer Ron Oberman, who, as
‘torch-carrier’ for David, arranged a US promotional
tour for The Man Who Sold the World, from 27
January, 1971.
David arrived unaccompanied for his first trip to the
USA – Angie was five months pregnant and decided
to remain at Haddon Hall. He was in his element
travelling solo, un-phased by his reception at Dulles,
where Immigration detained him for an hour,
suspicious of his fey manner and flowing pre-
Raphaelite locks. ‘For some reason, they seemed to
think I looked strange,’ he informed Ron Oberman,
who’d been waiting in the terminal for an hour. He
spent the next few days bubbling with the enthusiasm
of a child, accompanied by Ron to radio and press
interviews in Washington DC and Chicago, partying,
or going out for meals with Ron’s parents, who found
him every bit as charming as the Manish Boys’
parents had, a decade before. Oberman soon
picked up on David’s tastes, taking him up to 54th