the Lower Third, in the process teaching David exactly how far his own sexual charisma could carry him in the London music scene.
As Derek Boyes, who went on to join the Buzz with David, put it, “In the business, agents, impresarios, ninety-nine percent of them were bent anyway. There was no point in getting uptight.”
David had never been uptight about sex, and now he was about to exploit his lack of inhibition to his full advantage. After all, he had spent more than three years fighting to make it in the business, but tono avail. Ralph Horton’s passion for him had finally shown him the way.
T oward the end of the summer of 1965, Ralph Horton, then managing seventeen-year-old Davie Jones (as David was then calling himself), was broke. Desperate for financing, he set about searching for a business partner to help him manage Davie Jones and the Lower Third. Consequently, Ralph invited rock manager Simon Napier-Bell for a meeting at his home/office, a rented basement apartment at 79A Warwick Square, intending to offer him a fifty-fifty deal if he agreed to become Davie Jones and the Lower Third’s comanager.
At the time, Napier-Bell, then managing the Yardbirds, and who went on to manage Marc Bolan and, much later on, Wham!, was far more of an established manager than Ralph Horton. Hence Ralph’s invitation to Simon, with whom he wanted to split his representation of David, in exchange for an injection of cash.
Today, Simon Napier-Bell still remembers every detail of what happened when he arrived at Horton’s apartment to find him and David waiting there for him. “Davie sat demurely in a corner,” Simon remembered. Then, without so much as introducing Simon to David, Ralph took him aside and, according to Napier-Bell, without making any bones about it, put forward the following proposition to him: “[Horton] said that if I were to agree to come in on the management, he would allow me to have sex with his young protégé.
“I had no idea whether [David] was in on the proposition or not,” Napier-Bell said afterward.
Given that David was in the room at the time Ralph Horton made the proposal to Napier-Bell, it seems highly unlikely that Horton would have offered him sex with David unless David had agreed in advance to honor that offer. It would seem that, at seventeen, David Jones had traveled inordinately far from the tousle-haired, winsome,saxophone-playing thirteen-year-old boy who was already his school’s Casanova, and whose desires had in those early days appeared to be directed exclusively at girls, and only girls.
Then again, according to Alan Dodds, who was the guitarist in the Kon-rads and wrote the lyrics to “I Never Dreamed,” when David was sixteen, “he was telling everyone that he was bisexual.”
FOUR
SEXUAL LABYRINTH
A fter Simon Napier-Bell rejected Ralph Horton’s proposal, Horton turned to another manager for help. His name was Ken Pitt; he was in his early forties and had worked as a publicist for Frank Sinatra, and with Liberace, Vic Damone, Mel Tormé, and none other than Anthony Newley, David’s then idol.
But at that stage, Pitt simply wasn’t interested in signing any clients and refused Horton’s request. As a parting shot, he advised Horton to change David’s name, as another Davy Jones, an actor who had already won acclaim as the Artful Dodger in the theatrical production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver , and who’d found fame as one of the Monkees, was doing extremely well, and he felt that there could be confusion between them.
Ralph Horton took Ken’s suggestion to heart. “He came into the Roebuck Pub on Tottenham Court Road (where we always rehearsed) one night and told David that he should change his name and we should change ours, and that we all should go away and come up with a new name,” Phil Lancaster said. “David went away and the next morning came back and told us his new name was ‘Bowie,’ but didn’t say anything about it being do with a
As Derek Boyes, who went on to join the Buzz with David, put it, “In the business, agents, impresarios, ninety-nine percent of them were bent anyway. There was no point in getting uptight.”
David had never been uptight about sex, and now he was about to exploit his lack of inhibition to his full advantage. After all, he had spent more than three years fighting to make it in the business, but tono avail. Ralph Horton’s passion for him had finally shown him the way.
T oward the end of the summer of 1965, Ralph Horton, then managing seventeen-year-old Davie Jones (as David was then calling himself), was broke. Desperate for financing, he set about searching for a business partner to help him manage Davie Jones and the Lower Third. Consequently, Ralph invited rock manager Simon Napier-Bell for a meeting at his home/office, a rented basement apartment at 79A Warwick Square, intending to offer him a fifty-fifty deal if he agreed to become Davie Jones and the Lower Third’s comanager.
At the time, Napier-Bell, then managing the Yardbirds, and who went on to manage Marc Bolan and, much later on, Wham!, was far more of an established manager than Ralph Horton. Hence Ralph’s invitation to Simon, with whom he wanted to split his representation of David, in exchange for an injection of cash.
Today, Simon Napier-Bell still remembers every detail of what happened when he arrived at Horton’s apartment to find him and David waiting there for him. “Davie sat demurely in a corner,” Simon remembered. Then, without so much as introducing Simon to David, Ralph took him aside and, according to Napier-Bell, without making any bones about it, put forward the following proposition to him: “[Horton] said that if I were to agree to come in on the management, he would allow me to have sex with his young protégé.
“I had no idea whether [David] was in on the proposition or not,” Napier-Bell said afterward.
Given that David was in the room at the time Ralph Horton made the proposal to Napier-Bell, it seems highly unlikely that Horton would have offered him sex with David unless David had agreed in advance to honor that offer. It would seem that, at seventeen, David Jones had traveled inordinately far from the tousle-haired, winsome,saxophone-playing thirteen-year-old boy who was already his school’s Casanova, and whose desires had in those early days appeared to be directed exclusively at girls, and only girls.
Then again, according to Alan Dodds, who was the guitarist in the Kon-rads and wrote the lyrics to “I Never Dreamed,” when David was sixteen, “he was telling everyone that he was bisexual.”
FOUR
SEXUAL LABYRINTH
A fter Simon Napier-Bell rejected Ralph Horton’s proposal, Horton turned to another manager for help. His name was Ken Pitt; he was in his early forties and had worked as a publicist for Frank Sinatra, and with Liberace, Vic Damone, Mel Tormé, and none other than Anthony Newley, David’s then idol.
But at that stage, Pitt simply wasn’t interested in signing any clients and refused Horton’s request. As a parting shot, he advised Horton to change David’s name, as another Davy Jones, an actor who had already won acclaim as the Artful Dodger in the theatrical production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver , and who’d found fame as one of the Monkees, was doing extremely well, and he felt that there could be confusion between them.
Ralph Horton took Ken’s suggestion to heart. “He came into the Roebuck Pub on Tottenham Court Road (where we always rehearsed) one night and told David that he should change his name and we should change ours, and that we all should go away and come up with a new name,” Phil Lancaster said. “David went away and the next morning came back and told us his new name was ‘Bowie,’ but didn’t say anything about it being do with a
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