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| MARC 7 |
T Rex's Slider is 45 years old this year; last week, in fact. I know that because
The Swede told me.
However, a more sobering anniversary is lying in wait just around the corner: this September will mark 40 years since Marc Bolan bought the farm.
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| MARC 2 |
Cut down in his prime, Bolan was on the up, as opposed to on his uppers. He'd been on the skids for a couple of years. But he was back. He was fit. He'd even got his own TV show. And he'd got a new band to take on the road. For support he hooked up with a bunch of young punks and let them open for him. The Damned didn't disappoint. And neither did Bolan.
Who knew what was round the corner - Bolan certainly didn't. Could he have been a contender again? I think he still had a trick or two left up those elfin sleeves of his.
When I went down to breakfast on the morning of 16th September 1977, Dad told me to sit down as he had something to tell me. He'd never done that before, even went relatives had died. He was well aware of how profoundly Bolan had impacted on my young life.
ReplyDeleteBolan died a month after Elvis? Was 1977 the 2016 of its day?
ReplyDeleteIn his weekly column for Record Mirror at the time of Elvis' death, Bolan wrote something flippant, along the lines of; 'I hope I don't die this week because I won't get any headlines'. The grim reaper obligingly granted him an extra month. Maria Callas also died on September 16th, but Marc made the front pages.
DeleteTS/R - Seems he'd predicted his own demise five years earlier (see the line about foxes in the Bolan Tree).
DeleteI'm waiting for Suzie to swing by. She saw Bolan in London (Hammersmith?) on the '77 tour. I'd love her to give us a few words about her recollections of the gig/night.
ReplyDeleteYes John it was Hammersmith, his penultimate gig, I was so excited but also apprehensive, after all I had been waiting for this moment ever since I heard the first chords of " Ride a White Swan" . I'm glad it was then because he had certainly got his mojo back. He was charming, impish, full of energy and seemed to know he was back on his game, there was of course the usual glitter that you expected of Bolan but there was an underlying steely edge.
ReplyDeleteI will never forget waking up to the radio news report of his death a short while afterwards, it was one of those , "if I go back to sleep and wake up again it will be a bad dream" moments.... But it's what he had always predicted.
Coincidentally, Spotify has just suggested I might like Bolan's Zip Gun & Futuristic Dragon (Outtakes).
ReplyDeleteThat quote of Bolan's following the death of Elvis sends a chill. Never heard that before. Forty years, sheesh!
ReplyDelete