Music Book Review: Bowie at the BBC: A Life in Interview edited by Tom Hagler

Bowie at the BBC: A Life in Interviews

by Tom Hagler (Music 781.66 Bowie)

After the long, illustrious career of David Bowie, which ended on a high note with the release of the acclaimed “Blackstar” album just days before his passing in 2016, there have been lots of think pieces about the meaning and relevance of his work, and quite a few books published, too. As a somewhat unusual artist among his classic rock peers, Bowie reinvented himself several times along the course of his career, sometimes being called the “chameleon of rock” for his shifts in personae and style. This can make it somewhat difficult to follow along with his work. The BBC may have simplified this process for us all, though, having recently published a 4-decade spanning collection of interviews with Bowie as Bowie at the BBC, which you can borrow from the Polley Music Library.

 

A book consisting of interviews can be tricky to navigate sometimes, but BBC reporter and Bowie authority Tom Hagler was brought in to provide context and a degree of narrative structure to this book’s astonishing 36 radio and television interviews spanning 1964 to 2005. Hagler writes a short introduction and conclusion, but perhaps more importantly, he sets up each interview with the circumstances of the time and place in Bowie’s life. In his introduction, he makes a startling point that I think is probably news to most audiences outside of the British Isles: we may never have had David Bowie the artist if it weren’t for the BBC, since they dominated all radio and television coverage in England at the time he launched into music. And he got off to a rough start with them, as well: at first, the BBC panel who selected artists for radio play rejected Bowie’s music as not being compelling enough. DJ John Peel had to intervene and ask them to reconsider! Of course, they did, and their relationship became a mutually beneficial one: Hagler notes that Bowie’s appearance of Top of the Pops in 1972, for example, both helped to make him a household name in England, and gave kids the impression that the show was still “cool.”

 

Speaking of Top of the Pops, the first interview featured in the book dates to November 12, 1964, which was an early night in the broadcast history of that show. Bowie wasn’t a guest that night, though — instead, he was on the show immediately preceding it, called “Tonight.” He was only 17, and he was still Davy Jones, not David Bowie. And he wasn’t a musical guest! Instead, he had started a somewhat tongue-in-cheek organization called The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men, ostensibly concerned about getting kicked out of taverns or not getting hired at factories for their choice of hairstyle. Hagler’s introduction notes that Bowie must have gotten the idea from some of the heckling he received while performing with his first band, and that this was an interesting way for him to look for more publicity since David Jones and the King Bees hadn’t captured the public’s imagination. The next interview jumps five years ahead to 1969, in a moment that Hagler notes was especially difficult for Bowie, as his father had just died, his girlfriend had left him, his first solo record had flopped, and his manager had abandoned him. “Space Oddity” had just entered the top 10, but typical for Bowie, he was always looking ahead, and he chose different tunes for his appearance on the DLT Show. This is followed by his band’s first appearance on John Peel’s show, a headlining concert that was broadcast live on BBC radio.

 

The next entry in the book isn’t an interview, but it documents that famous 1972 performance of “Starman” on Top of the Pops, which many regard as a kind of sea change in pop music. Glam rock had officially made it to the mainstream with this performance, complete with the bright, tight-fitting clothes and makeup. Many of the important bands of the 70s and 80s attributed their musical aspirations to catching this performance on TV when they were kids. It was a new thing, with a little of the 60s hippie sentiments of peace and love left over, but the new look, outer space lyrics, and more of a funky hard rock sound opened the doors to new musical approaches. A clip from this performance is featured on the cover of the book, too.

 

But the BBC was still a bit of a stodgy old organization, even when they knew a good thing. The following year, a special edition of “Nationwide” featured Bowie, and host Bernard Falk was somewhat rude and condescending to his subject. BBC Radio was more receptive, though, hosting several friendly interviews with Bowie throughout the rest of the 70s. Of note, these document Bowie’s “Berlin trilogy” period, somewhat misunderstood by the record-buying public at first, but now generally regarded as the pinnacle of his work. Then we launch into the 1980s, which was a relatively slow decade for coverage of Bowie. He was still quite busy, but had branched into acting, and there wasn’t as much music to talk about with the BBC. Of course, there is another sad reason: two days after the December 1980 BBC radio interview featured in the book, Bowie’s mentor, hero, and friend John Lennon was assassinated outside of his NYC apartment. As police investigated the plans of murderer Mark David Chapman, they discovered that Bowie was also on his hit list, and that he had tickets to the next day’s performance of “The Elephant Man,” where Bowie was making his Broadway debut. If his plans hadn’t worked out with Lennon, it’s very possible that Bowie would have been his victim instead. At the next performance, Bowie noted that there were three empty seats in the front row, belonging to Yoko Ono, Lennon, and Chapman. This led to Bowie becoming a more private and guarded person during the 80s.

 

The bulk of the book, though, documents interviews and appearances with the BBC from the 90s and Oughts. Even within the context of such a regularly-transformative career, Bowie’s run in the 90s was astonishing. He started the decade with a retrospective of his work in the form of a reissue series and a worldwide tour, after which he vowed to leave his previous material behind and strike out in new directions. Renowned composer Philip Glass began turning his “Berlin trilogy” albums into symphonies. And Bowie created some of his most interesting work, though not his most popular, such as the cyberpunk-inspired “Outside,” and the straight-ahead modern rock band Tin Machine, in which he refused to take top billing. Industrial, hip-hop, and EDM genres were incorporated into his music throughout the decade. And he toured with the hippest bands of the day like Nine Inch Nails. Overall, these interviews show an artist navigating a difficult crossroads for many artists of the classic rock era: instead of settling for becoming a kind of rock music elder statesman, Bowie managed to both retain his previous audience and their love for his music of the 70s and 80s, while putting himself in front of brand new audiences with his latest music. As a child of the 90s, I especially enjoyed this period in the book, too, and I remember how Bowie was thought of as much “cooler” than other artists of the classic rock era: he collaborated with Trent Reznor. Nirvana covered “The Man Who Sold the World.” He was embraced as both an influence and a part of the new musical generation.

 

The interviews featured in the book end in 2005, when Bowie entered a period of mostly private life. Some of this was probably related to his health—he suffered a heart attack in 2004, and pulled away from large tours and making records after that. In fact, there was a 10-year gap between his 2003 album “Reality” and his return in 2013 with “The Next Day.” He completed a final burst of activity in his remaining few years, with the debut of the musical “Lazarus” in 2015, and the release of the album “Blackstar” in 2016, upon which we soon learned that he had been fighting cancer. Though there are periods of his life that aren’t as well-documented by the interviews in this book, it’s fair to say that those periods aren’t more comprehensively covered anywhere else, either. Inevitably, there will be periods in the life and world of a chameleon like Bowie that forever remain a mystery.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try David Bowie All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track by Benoit Clerc, Bowie on Bowie: Interviews and Encounters with David Bowie by Sean Egan, or David Bowie in Darkness: A Study of “1. Outside” and the Late Career by Nicholas P. Grego.)

 

See Scott C.’s review of The Best of Bowie in the January 2016 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide.

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

 

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