Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

David was lucky to have a hip boss, Ian – an
indulgent, Chelsea-booted, crop-haired blues fan –
who sent David on errands to the celebrated
Dobell’s Record Shop, ten minutes’ walk away on
Charing Cross Road. This was the mother-lode of
hip blues, the place Eric Clapton shopped for
obscure imports which he’d then replicate,
astounding audiences who figured he’d invented the
riffs he’d lifted from Albert King or Buddy Guy. David
embarked on a similar search for source material;
when Ian suggested he pick up John Lee Hooker’s
Country Blues on Riverside, he spotted Bob Dylan’s
debut on the racks, too. ‘Within weeks George and I
had changed the name of our little R&B outfit to “The
Hooker Brothers”, and included both Hooker’s
“Tupelo” and Dylan’s “House of the Rising Sun” in
our set.’ The pair were so carried away with
enthusiasm that they started playing shows as a trio
with drummer Viv Andrews before they’d even got a
proper band together. Billed as The Hooker
Brothers, or David’s Red and Blues (a druggy
reference to the Mods’ favourite barbiturate pills)
they guested between sets at the Bromel Club, at
Bromley’s Royal Court Hotel. Today, as Underwood
admits, the notion of two kids from Bromley
reinventing themselves as Mississippi Bluesmen
seems ludicrous, ‘but it was something we needed
to get out of our system!’ David’s first compliment
from an ‘experienced’ musician came from those
early shows, when The Hooker Brothers shared a bill
with jazzman Mike Cotton at the Bromel Club. It was
a brief performance, sandwiched between the two