From: Mike Garson

Thank you Bob,

I received your Bowie analysis from so many people.

They didn’t know I subscribe to your newsletter.

I thought it was wonderful.

You see I know VERY little about Rock n roll and continuously learn much from you.

I grew up in a Jewish home in Brooklyn and many families had pianos. Thus peer pressure but I took to it playing only classical piano from 7-14 then getting the jazz bug at 14 after hearing Brubeck Andre Previn Bill Evans Coltrane miles etc.

Somehow bowie got my name and I didn’t know who he was. He liked my playing so I occasionally became the icing on the cake.

I was hired for 8 weeks and somehow lasted 20 albums and around 1000 concerts. (more than any other musician)
Go figure.

Between every tour all I did was a few jazz gigs and compose classical music. (Over 5000 works of which maybe 300 are worthwhile. Nobody really cares but I LOVE COMPOSING. (A few classical pianist perform my works around the world.

This January 8 is David’s birthday and 5 years since his passing. I was scheduled to be on tour but obviously due to Covid I will hopefully wait until 2022.

Instead I’m putting on a live 24 hour streaming concert.

I located 37 alumni who will all contribute and 30 singers from Ian Hunter to Duran Duran, billy Corgan, Peter Frampton, trent Reznor etc.

All these artists were so deeply affected by David.

I’ve also found some new generation young talent.

It’s a bit risky as there’s only one David but he was a great songwriter so singers should sing his songs like Sinatra sang gershwin porter hammerstein.

The big problem is gershwin wasn’t a performer so comparison becomes a problem.

All I can do is hope I’ve chosen singer each with their OWN VOICE.

At the least it will be a nice distraction as I’m recording arranging and mixing 15 hours a day as it’s a massive project.

I DO LOVE MUSIC SO ZERO COMPLAINTS ESPECIALLY WITH THE BACKDROP WE ARE SEEING VIRUS WISE AND POLITICALLY. (I think the rvirus is also mental and spiritual.

Lastly In England when I was playing with David in 1973 in the major newspaper at the time David was quoted as saying MIKE IS THE BEST ROCK PIANIST IN THE WORLD BECAUSE HE DOESN’T PLAY ROCK.

David was also 1/5 Jewish he told me!!

All the best

Mike

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From: Randall Wixen

Re: Arnold Corns Pseudonym

Did you ever hear these versions?

 

 

 

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Great stuff on Bowie.

I wouldn’t say that Blackstar was that jazzy. Just guys known for a certain electronica-leaning segment of jazz. Guiliana happens to be a great rock drummer (we both played on matt Cameron’s solo record). Lindner is from outer space genius. We’ve all kinda come out of jazz world a bit. McCaslin really added the jazz element with the saxophone stuff.

We used to cover “it ain’t easy” with tedeschi trucks band. Always one of my favorites.

Anyway hope shows happen next summer with the Crowes. We’ll see what happens. Stay healthy.

Tim Lefebvre

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David Bowie – Lady Grinning Soul | “The Runaways” stage scene HQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP2fZdErF84 from the Runaways movie few years back

George Drakoulias

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Hunky Dory and Ziggy were life changing for me. I was working at a record store when Ziggy came out (yes I was far too young to actually have a job but I was Eddie Rosenblatt’s kid so they made an exception) we played it instore nonstop for weeks. I saw the Ziggy tour and was blown away, that sealed the deal for me, I was a Bowie fan for life.

The instrumental fade of Moonage Daydream for me is the highlight of the Ziggy album. Yes Mick Ronson’s guitar part is unmatched anywhere but the string arrangement takes the song to a whole other level. I think that Radiohead based their career on the last 90 seconds of the song.

For me you missed it with Station to Station and Low, they were also ground breaking and brilliantly executed. I still listen to those albums on a regular basis. Carlos Alomar’s guitar work is stellar, listen to him on Station to Station and Stay. Blackstar was a truly special album and a great coda to his recording career.

Michael

ps….In the 80’s I had a meeting with Tony Visconti about producing a band I was working with in London. He was a true gentleman and was willing to answer questions I asked about some of the artists he had worked with. He said that most of those records (Bowie/T-Rex among others) were recorded in the studio we were in at the time. I tried to hold it together as the fanboy inside of me was freaking the fuck out. I did ask him if I could touch the control board and he said yes of course.

Michael Rosenblatt

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Subject: That time I crowdsurfed with David Bowie:

October 13, 1997, I was a college freshman, and attended a David Bowie concert at The Supper Club with my best friend Brian Cancellieri (for whom I’m eternally grateful for many things, especially for bringing me to MSG for Bowie’s 50th bday concert earlier that year…a fine introduction to Bowie…and who poetically passed away FIVE YEARS before Bowie…both far too young…Oh Brian would have loved and dissected The Next Day and Blackstar…I still have all Brian’s bowie vinyl, including his signed Diamond Dogs.)

On our way out of the club, Brian and I were gifted tickets/recruited to a free Bowie show the very next night at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY. It was the series premiere of a new MTV program, Live From The 10 Spot. (Apparently The Rolling Stones were booked, but cancelled days earlier, and Bowie stepped in…)

October 14, 1997, Brian couldn’t make it to Port Chester, but I was happy to ditch night class, and I wrangled my concert mischief buddy Joe Letz to tag along. Matt Pinfield, the legendary bald-headed VJ, did a live audience interview outside before doors opened, and asked Joe if he liked Bowie. Joe told him “No, but I love Nine Inch Nails.” (Not entirely non-sequitur, as Bowie and NIN had toured together in ’95.) Then Joe changed the subject, asking Matt if he liked chillin’ in the massive Times Square Cup Noodle steaming billboard.

We were right near the front of the line, and ended up quite close to the stage. Waiting for the lights to come down, we met some of the “Sigma Kids” who’d waited outside of Bowie’s Philly recording sessions.  They told us that one night Bowie actually invited them in to get their reactions to the tracks!

Throughout the show, Joe, quite tall and determined, tried to hoist me up for a little crowdsurfing. The overwhelmingly older crowd didn’t seem so into it. We failed until the very last song, All the Young Dudes. I was finally airborne and so damn close to the stage. Bowie reached out, flashed one of his huge trademark grins and clasped MY hand! The contact only lasted a second, but it felt much longer, quite magical, as if i was at the center of it all. (You can relive it it in this video clip, broadcast live nationwide, around the 2:20 mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDuLcohz5fU&list=PLE9076154FD9EEFEE)

For the rest of my crowdsurf, I kept reaching for The Thin White Duke, until my tiger-print shirt, skinny black pants, green socks, and I fell to Earth.

Daniel Bowman Simon

P.S. Someone once told me about a hotel maid who collected whatever was left behind in celebrity hotel rooms. Legend had it she had scored Mickey Mantle’s fingernail clippings.

In 1999, I scored tickets to the intimate taping of bowie VH1 storytellers via BowieNet, his official online fanclub.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKx_PH3M0ho (It was later released as a Live Album.)

Bowie smoked all the way through, and after the taping i grabbed a cigarette butt out of his ashtray.  I’m pretty sure  it was no longer filterless Gitannes he was smoking, but rather Marlboro Lights, smoked all the way down to the filter.  I saved the butt for a while. But one of the perils of traveling the world and stashing stuff at one’s parents’ place is that moms throw stuff away indiscriminately, including bowie butts.

P.P.S. mostly unrelated…smoking tangent? any thoughts on How To…With John Wilson on HBO?   here’s a way before prime time clip of his, “How To Keep Smoking” https://vimeo.com/86527457