Fast Forward, Play, and Rewind by Michael Oberman

Author:Michael Oberman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Backbeat
Published: 2020-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Musings . . . End of January 1971 . . . My

Brother Brings David Bowie to the United

States . . . David Becomes Ziggy Stardust

DAVID’S DEATH IN JANUARY 2016 WAS LIKE A PUNCH IN THE GUT TO ME. I first wrote about David in 1969. I had spoken with him on the phone before I wrote my column about him in 1969. It was a brief conversation centered around his song “Space Oddity.” My brother had sent me a copy of the single and encouraged me to write about David. David and I were contemporaries, at least in terms of age. We were both born in 1947.

A number of artists I interviewed between 1967 and 1973 had died young—Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Otis Redding—whether accidental overdose or, as in the case of Otis Redding, a plane crash. If you survived drug abuse and the fast life of rock ’n’ roll and made it past age fifty, you had a chance to live another few decades, unless illness or accident befell you.

Cancer took David at age sixty-nine. The gut punch to me was that I knew David personally, as he spent his first day in the United States, in January 1971, with me, my brother, and my parents. My brother, Ron, was director of publicity for Mercury Records (Bowie’s American label at the time). David was already a star in Great Britain and Europe, but he hadn’t really broken big in the United States. Ron decided to bring David to America to do a promotional tour and meet the press, deejays, and others who could help David’s career in the United States.

David flew from London to Dulles Airport in Virginia. Ron had flown in from Chicago (where Mercury Records was headquartered). David had told Ron that he wanted to spend his first day in the United States with an American family. Ron saw that as an opportunity for me and my parents to spend time with David; after all, I had already written about Bowie, and this would give Ron a chance to spend some time with his own family while giving David a chance to spend time with an American family.

So, the Oberman family went to Dulles Airport to pick up David. When David’s flight arrived, he was held up in customs for a bit longer than we expected. It might have been his hair or his clothing or maybe just chance that caused the slight delay before he came out of customs. He wasn’t upset; in fact, he had a huge smile when he saw my brother and my parents. Ron had previously been to England and spent time with David there. Ron believed in David as an artist and really wanted to see him achieve success in the United States, success that had eluded him in this country so far.

After arriving at my parents’ home on Admiralty Drive in Silver Spring, we all sat in the living room to have some refreshments and chat. Conversation flowed smoothly.

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