Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

y his interest in people and how they ticked; Marc
was far more abrasive. Over the next decade, their
careers became intertwined; friends, like the DJ and
scenester Jeff Dexter, described them as ‘like
brothers’. Each took pride in, and was sometimes
tortured by jealousy of, the other’s achievements. For
the time being, their relationship revolved around
trading grandiose fantasies in La Gioconda, over
cups of coffee cadged from Les Conn.
Over the spring of 1964, Conn used his contacts
to arrange The King Bees’ first West End gigs,
including the Roundhouse. When it came to sorting
out publishing and record deals he stayed close to
home. Dick James Music looked after the
publishing, while Conn used his freelance A&R role
at Decca to arrange a session at the company’s
studios in Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead.
For the A-side, the band were presented with an
acetate of a song by Paul Revere and The Raiders,
‘Louie Louie Go Home’ – published, naturally, by
Dick James Music. ‘We were simply given the single
and told to learn it,’ says Underwood, adding that in
the hurried production process the band ‘soon
started to feel like cogs in a machine’. The band
were left to arrange their own B-side, for which
David and George reworked the traditional folk
song, ‘Little Liza Jane’, modifying the lyrics and
adding a guitar line borrowed from Howlin’ Wolf’s
‘Smokestack Lightning’. ‘It took around fifteen
minutes, sitting in my mum’s kitchen,’ says
Underwood, ‘the big influence was Huey “Piano”
Smith’s version.’