Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2017 13:20:07 GMT -5
Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of Marc Bolan's tragic death. Killed a crash of his Mini driven by his girlfriend Gloria Jones. Bolan was 29 year's old.
Here's an article from the archives of Britain's The Guardian:
"The young London pop fan, Mark Feld, first approached the glitter world of the pop star when he carried the guitar of Eddie Cochrane into a London concert hall 18 years ago.
Eddie Cochrane became one of the first of the rock legends whose fame rests as much upon the manner of his death – a car crash – as upon the matter of his music.
Mark Feld grew to fame as Marc Bolan, had the number one records, the dabblings with drugs and alcohol and kinky sex that are the first fruits of rock success, and he died in a car crash in the early hours of yesterday morning, just as he once foresaw.
Tony Visconti: 'What I saw in Marc Bolan was raw talent. I saw genius'
Read more
From his early passion for pop music, as a young East End kid, the young Mark Feld grew naturally into that most flamboyantly introspective of the moods of the 1960s – the cult of the young Mods. It was less to do with fighting Rockers at Clacton than with the pursuit of style. Fashion was a part of the phenomenon, so were the new, cool discos of Swinging London. As the scene rotted, male prostitution gnawed its edges, but in its dedicated pursuit of style – an image that could outstare the world – the Mod world groomed many a future star.
Mark Feld, like many another, got to make a record. He changed his name to Marc Bolan, released a flop of a record for Decca called The Wizard, and then, ever alert for a trend, joined the flower-power, LSD and mysticism cults that flowed around the Hippies of 1967.
He dabbled in some more groups, and in 1968, making a vague living by playing acoustic guitar around the clubs (and in restaurants for a free meal) he met Steven Took, and together they formed one of the classic groups of the Hippy era, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The songs, with their Tolkien-dense imagery and dream sequences, still evoke the indefatigable innocence and wonder of the Hippy days, but the transition from cult to cash was still to be made.
Steve Took dropped out in 1969, to be replaced by Micky Finn, whom Bolan met in a health food restaurant. Their first album, Beard of Stars, was a dramatic success, but again, limited to the cult market. But the extremely pretty young Marc Bolan had already enjoyed the fruits of that kind of triumph, and found them inadequate. His taste was for the big time.
He found it within a year, with a single called Ride a White Swan that combined the bizarre imagery of his Hippy days with a driving, insistent rhythm that spelled commercial success. It was his first real hit, and Bolan’s elfin face and wispily Afro hair style suddenly hit the front pages, dominated the music magazines and almost single-handedly created the teeny-bop phenomenon.
For very little girls, who had just outgrown their teddy bears, Marc Bolan became a replacement. There was an amazing trade in pillows silk-screened with his face. He was deluged with a fanmail of childish scrawls. The British Establishment clasped him to its grisly bosom, and he appeared in anti-litter advertisements.
“It can’t last,” he told me in 1972, when the hit parade was studded with his records. Hot Love, Keepster, Telegram Sam, The Slider. “They’ll grow up soon and change. Or find some other hero. It’s all cycles, but this one’s mine.”
He was right. The little girls soon started to scream for the singers whose music was aimed specifically at them – the Osmonds, David Cassidy. And in spite of tours and heavy promotion, Bolan never made the breakthrough into the American market. Their Hippy period had never been as fey as Britain’s, and there were no American DJs with dues to pay to their flower-power pasts. And America never really went for glitter, the spangles on the trousers and the facial cosmetics that dominated British stages in those years.
But there were drugs – mostly cocaine. And there was booze. By the end of 1973 he was drinking a bottle a day. There were decadent parties, times when he wallowed in bizarre sex. Pills to wake up and pills to go to sleep. They helped time to pass on the long, and unsuccessful US tours. In Britain, they bridged the stunning gap between the orgasmic excitement of concerts, and the boredom of hotel rooms that followed.
Over-drugged, fat and almost alcoholic, he was rescued by a lovely black American singer called Gloria Jones. She pulled him back to normality. They had a baby, and this year, Marc Bolan began to make a come-back. Last month, he was given his own television show again, featuring the punk bands who had learned so much from him.
Gloria Jones was driving the Mini 1275GT early yesterday morning when it crashed into a tree on Barnes Common. She is still in hospital, with a broken jaw and serious facial injuries. Marc Bolan was killed instantly. The car was written off, chunks of engine forced through into the passenger compartment.
“Too beautiful to live, too young to die,” he used to brag in the heady days. The bad years had taken little toll of his looks, but he would have been 30 next year."
Here's an article from the archives of Britain's The Guardian:
"The young London pop fan, Mark Feld, first approached the glitter world of the pop star when he carried the guitar of Eddie Cochrane into a London concert hall 18 years ago.
Eddie Cochrane became one of the first of the rock legends whose fame rests as much upon the manner of his death – a car crash – as upon the matter of his music.
Mark Feld grew to fame as Marc Bolan, had the number one records, the dabblings with drugs and alcohol and kinky sex that are the first fruits of rock success, and he died in a car crash in the early hours of yesterday morning, just as he once foresaw.
Tony Visconti: 'What I saw in Marc Bolan was raw talent. I saw genius'
Read more
From his early passion for pop music, as a young East End kid, the young Mark Feld grew naturally into that most flamboyantly introspective of the moods of the 1960s – the cult of the young Mods. It was less to do with fighting Rockers at Clacton than with the pursuit of style. Fashion was a part of the phenomenon, so were the new, cool discos of Swinging London. As the scene rotted, male prostitution gnawed its edges, but in its dedicated pursuit of style – an image that could outstare the world – the Mod world groomed many a future star.
Mark Feld, like many another, got to make a record. He changed his name to Marc Bolan, released a flop of a record for Decca called The Wizard, and then, ever alert for a trend, joined the flower-power, LSD and mysticism cults that flowed around the Hippies of 1967.
He dabbled in some more groups, and in 1968, making a vague living by playing acoustic guitar around the clubs (and in restaurants for a free meal) he met Steven Took, and together they formed one of the classic groups of the Hippy era, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The songs, with their Tolkien-dense imagery and dream sequences, still evoke the indefatigable innocence and wonder of the Hippy days, but the transition from cult to cash was still to be made.
Steve Took dropped out in 1969, to be replaced by Micky Finn, whom Bolan met in a health food restaurant. Their first album, Beard of Stars, was a dramatic success, but again, limited to the cult market. But the extremely pretty young Marc Bolan had already enjoyed the fruits of that kind of triumph, and found them inadequate. His taste was for the big time.
He found it within a year, with a single called Ride a White Swan that combined the bizarre imagery of his Hippy days with a driving, insistent rhythm that spelled commercial success. It was his first real hit, and Bolan’s elfin face and wispily Afro hair style suddenly hit the front pages, dominated the music magazines and almost single-handedly created the teeny-bop phenomenon.
For very little girls, who had just outgrown their teddy bears, Marc Bolan became a replacement. There was an amazing trade in pillows silk-screened with his face. He was deluged with a fanmail of childish scrawls. The British Establishment clasped him to its grisly bosom, and he appeared in anti-litter advertisements.
“It can’t last,” he told me in 1972, when the hit parade was studded with his records. Hot Love, Keepster, Telegram Sam, The Slider. “They’ll grow up soon and change. Or find some other hero. It’s all cycles, but this one’s mine.”
He was right. The little girls soon started to scream for the singers whose music was aimed specifically at them – the Osmonds, David Cassidy. And in spite of tours and heavy promotion, Bolan never made the breakthrough into the American market. Their Hippy period had never been as fey as Britain’s, and there were no American DJs with dues to pay to their flower-power pasts. And America never really went for glitter, the spangles on the trousers and the facial cosmetics that dominated British stages in those years.
But there were drugs – mostly cocaine. And there was booze. By the end of 1973 he was drinking a bottle a day. There were decadent parties, times when he wallowed in bizarre sex. Pills to wake up and pills to go to sleep. They helped time to pass on the long, and unsuccessful US tours. In Britain, they bridged the stunning gap between the orgasmic excitement of concerts, and the boredom of hotel rooms that followed.
Over-drugged, fat and almost alcoholic, he was rescued by a lovely black American singer called Gloria Jones. She pulled him back to normality. They had a baby, and this year, Marc Bolan began to make a come-back. Last month, he was given his own television show again, featuring the punk bands who had learned so much from him.
Gloria Jones was driving the Mini 1275GT early yesterday morning when it crashed into a tree on Barnes Common. She is still in hospital, with a broken jaw and serious facial injuries. Marc Bolan was killed instantly. The car was written off, chunks of engine forced through into the passenger compartment.
“Too beautiful to live, too young to die,” he used to brag in the heady days. The bad years had taken little toll of his looks, but he would have been 30 next year."