knife.”
Given that David still lived at home, it was certain that he had consulted his father, who micromanaged every detail of his career, about the choice of his new name. And, as it happened, at Dr. Barnardo’s, where John had worked for many years, one of the most important supporters was named Norman Bowie, a war hero who’d won the Burma Star and was a well-established businessman as a trustee of the charity and later became head of Barnardo’s council. So it’s highly likely that David’s father may well have suggested the name Bowie and that David, who implicitly trusted his father’s instincts, instantly took up his suggestion.
“I came home to Warwick Square early one afternoon, and David and Ralph were in the living room,” Kenny Bell recalled. “And David said, ‘Oh, I’ve got myself a new name.’ I said, ‘What is it, then?’ And David said, ‘I’m calling myself ‘David Bowie.’ So I said, ‘That’s a stupid name. That’s a knife. The Bowie knife. It’s American.’
“David didn’t say ‘I know.’ He just shrugged and said, ‘Well, I’m going to call myself ‘Bowie’ anyway. . . .’ I was the one who, after he’d changed his name to Bowie, first told David about the Bowie knife,” Kenny Bell said.
Naturally, it would follow that either Ralph or Ken Pitt or David’s father would likely seize on Kenny Bell’s explanation of the name Bowie, and decide that claiming David’s last name had been inspired by a knife, rather than by an executive of a children’s charity, would play far better in the media.
So David soldiered on under the name Bowie, and “Can’t Help Thinking About Me,” a rock song that he wrote, then recorded with the Lower Third, was released. But after Ralph Horton refused to pay the other members of the band for a gig, telling them that he’d had to recoup his expenses, all the Lower Third, except for David, refused to play anymore. The end result was that the Lower Third, who were also annoyed that David had higher billing than they did, finally split up in January 1966.
Almost immediately afterward, David formed a new group, theBuzz, along with Derek “Dek” Fearnley, Derek Boyes, and John Eager. At Ralph Horton’s suggestion, they were all transformed into new-look mods, and although the change in their image was radical, there was very little tension between Ralph and the members of the Buzz.
“Ralph could be very funny, the way he took people off and minced around,” Boyes recalled before he passed away in 2011.
Ralph was less than amused, or amusing, though, when he learned of David’s romantic involvement with Dana Gillespie, whose career David was trying to help by teaching her guitar chords and arranging for her to make a guest appearance on the TV show Ready Steady Go!
Using an alibi that would pay dividends for David in the future, whenever he intended to spend time with Dana, he told Ralph that he was going to visit his parents in Bromley. When Ralph discovered the truth, he hit the roof, claiming that Dana was a bad influence on him, but David carried on seeing her regardless.
At the same time, now that David was in full flower of his good looks, according to Leni and Peter Gillman’s seminal 1986 book, Alias David Bowie , he had become a magnet for gay men and was surrounded by a coterie of male admirers, all of whom clustered around him in Horton’s basement. “One suitor was an actor who plied David with barley wines at the Marquis of Westminster in Warwick Square; another was a journalist who managed to insert regular items about David in Melody Maker ; a third was a commercial radio disc-jockey who played his records with embarrassing frequency,” Leni and Peter Gillman said.
Lionel Bart, creator of Oliver and a musical giant, was also charmed by David, sending him congratulations on his record releases, making it clear that he was firmly on his team, and appearing so regularly in his company that Paul Trynka,
Given that David still lived at home, it was certain that he had consulted his father, who micromanaged every detail of his career, about the choice of his new name. And, as it happened, at Dr. Barnardo’s, where John had worked for many years, one of the most important supporters was named Norman Bowie, a war hero who’d won the Burma Star and was a well-established businessman as a trustee of the charity and later became head of Barnardo’s council. So it’s highly likely that David’s father may well have suggested the name Bowie and that David, who implicitly trusted his father’s instincts, instantly took up his suggestion.
“I came home to Warwick Square early one afternoon, and David and Ralph were in the living room,” Kenny Bell recalled. “And David said, ‘Oh, I’ve got myself a new name.’ I said, ‘What is it, then?’ And David said, ‘I’m calling myself ‘David Bowie.’ So I said, ‘That’s a stupid name. That’s a knife. The Bowie knife. It’s American.’
“David didn’t say ‘I know.’ He just shrugged and said, ‘Well, I’m going to call myself ‘Bowie’ anyway. . . .’ I was the one who, after he’d changed his name to Bowie, first told David about the Bowie knife,” Kenny Bell said.
Naturally, it would follow that either Ralph or Ken Pitt or David’s father would likely seize on Kenny Bell’s explanation of the name Bowie, and decide that claiming David’s last name had been inspired by a knife, rather than by an executive of a children’s charity, would play far better in the media.
So David soldiered on under the name Bowie, and “Can’t Help Thinking About Me,” a rock song that he wrote, then recorded with the Lower Third, was released. But after Ralph Horton refused to pay the other members of the band for a gig, telling them that he’d had to recoup his expenses, all the Lower Third, except for David, refused to play anymore. The end result was that the Lower Third, who were also annoyed that David had higher billing than they did, finally split up in January 1966.
Almost immediately afterward, David formed a new group, theBuzz, along with Derek “Dek” Fearnley, Derek Boyes, and John Eager. At Ralph Horton’s suggestion, they were all transformed into new-look mods, and although the change in their image was radical, there was very little tension between Ralph and the members of the Buzz.
“Ralph could be very funny, the way he took people off and minced around,” Boyes recalled before he passed away in 2011.
Ralph was less than amused, or amusing, though, when he learned of David’s romantic involvement with Dana Gillespie, whose career David was trying to help by teaching her guitar chords and arranging for her to make a guest appearance on the TV show Ready Steady Go!
Using an alibi that would pay dividends for David in the future, whenever he intended to spend time with Dana, he told Ralph that he was going to visit his parents in Bromley. When Ralph discovered the truth, he hit the roof, claiming that Dana was a bad influence on him, but David carried on seeing her regardless.
At the same time, now that David was in full flower of his good looks, according to Leni and Peter Gillman’s seminal 1986 book, Alias David Bowie , he had become a magnet for gay men and was surrounded by a coterie of male admirers, all of whom clustered around him in Horton’s basement. “One suitor was an actor who plied David with barley wines at the Marquis of Westminster in Warwick Square; another was a journalist who managed to insert regular items about David in Melody Maker ; a third was a commercial radio disc-jockey who played his records with embarrassing frequency,” Leni and Peter Gillman said.
Lionel Bart, creator of Oliver and a musical giant, was also charmed by David, sending him congratulations on his record releases, making it clear that he was firmly on his team, and appearing so regularly in his company that Paul Trynka,
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