Maracy watson
b. 1947 – d. 1977 · 2 books
Biography
Bolan grew up in Hackney, east London, the son of Phyllis Winifred and Simeon Feld, a lorry driver. His father was an Ashkenazi Jew of Russian and Polish ancestry. Later moving to Wimbledon, southwest London, he fell in love with rock and roll and hung around coffee bars.
Bolan appeared as an extra in an episode of the television show Orlando, dressed as a mod. At the age of nine, he was given his first guitar and began a skiffle band. While at school, he played guitar in "Susie and the Hula Hoops," a trio whose vocalist was a 12-year-old Helen Shapiro. At 15, he was expelled from school for bad behaviour.
Bolan briefly joined a modelling agency and became a "John Temple Boy", appearing in a clothing catalogue for the menswear store. Town magazine featured him as an early example of the mod movement in a photo spread with two other models. In 1964, Bolan met his first manager, Geoffrey Delaroy-Hall, and recorded a slick commercial track, which is one of Bolan's first professional recordings.
Bolan then changed his stage name to Marc Bolan, he signed to Decca Records in August 1965 and recorded his debut single "The Wizard".
In 1966, Bolan turned up at Simon Napier-Bell's front door with his guitar and proclaimed that he was going to be a big star and he needed someone to make all of the arrangements. Napier-Bell invited Bolan in and listened to his songs. A recording session was immediately booked and the songs were very simply recorded. Only "Hippy Gumbo", a sinister-sounding, baroque folk-song, was released at the time as Bolan's third unsuccessful single. Napier-Bell managed The Yardbirds and John's Children and was at first going to slot Bolan into the Yardbirds. In early 1967 he eventually settled instead for John's Children because they needed a songwriter and he admired Bolan's writing ability. The band achieved some success as a live act but sold few records.
His tenure with the band was brief. When the band split following an ill-fated German gig with The Who, Bolan took some time to reassess his situation. Bolan's imagination was filled with new ideas and he began to write fantasy novels (The Krakenmist and Pictures Of Purple People) as well as poems and songs. He famously claimed to have spent time with a wizard in Paris who gave him secret knowledge and could levitate. Given time to reinvent himself, after John's Children, Bolan's songwriting took off and he began writing many of the poetic and neo-romantic songs that would appear on his first albums with T. Rex.
Bolan rallied to create Tyrannosaurus Rex, his own rock band together with guitarist Ben Cartland, drummer Steve Peregrin Took and an unknown bass player. Foollowing their first concert, Bolan pared the band down to just himself and Took, and they continued as a psychedelic-folk rock acoustic duo, playing Bolan's songs, with Took playing assorted hand and kit percussion and occasional bass to Bolan's acoustic guitars and voice.
The original version of Tyrannosaurus Rex released three albums and four singles, flirting with the charts, reaching as high as number fifteen and supported with airplay by Radio 1 DJ John Peel.
In 1969, Bolan published his first and only book of poetry entitled The Warlock of Love. Although some critics dismissed it as self-indulgence, it was full of Bolan's florid prose and wordplay, selling 40,000 copies and in 1969-70 became one of Britain's best-selling books of poetry. It was reprinted in 1992 by the Tyrannosaurus Rex Appreciation Society.
In keeping with his early rock and roll interests, Bolan began bringing amplified guitar lines into the duo's music. After replacing Took with Mickey Finn, he let the electric influences come forward even further on A Beard of Stars, the final album to be credited to Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Bolan married his girlfriend, June Child, who was influential in raising her new husband's profile in the music business. Becoming more adventurous musically, Marc wrote and recorded his first hit "Ride a White Swan." At this time he also shortened the group's name to T. Rex.
Bolan followed "Ride a White Swan" and T. Rex by expanding the group to a quartet with bassist Steve Currie and drummer Bill Legend, and cutting a five-minute single, "Hot Love". It was number one for six weeks and was quickly followed by "Get It On", a grittier, more adult tune that spent four weeks in the top spot. The song was renamed "Bang a Gong (Get It On)" when released in the United States, to avoid confusion with another song of the same name. The song reached No. 10 in the United States in early 1972, the only top 40 single the band had in America.
In 1972, Bolan achieved two more British number ones with "Telegram Sam" and "Metal Guru" and two more number twos in "Children of the Revolution" and "Solid Gold Easy Action".
In the same year he appeared in Ringo Starr's film Born to Boogie, a documentary showing a concert at Wembley Empire Pool on 18 March 1972. Mixed in were surreal scenes shot at John Lennon's mansion in Ascot and a session with T. Rex joined by Ringo Starr on a second drum kit and Elton John on piano. At this time T. Rex record sales accounted for about six percent of total British domestic record sales.
By late 1973, his pop star fame gradually began to wane. Eventually, the vintage T. Rex line-up disintegrated and Bolan's marriage came to an end because of his affair with backing singer Gloria Jones. He spent a good deal of his time in the US during this period, continuing to release singles and albums which, while not reaching major commercial success, were full of unusual lyrics and sometimes eccentric musical experiments.
In September 1975 Gloria Jones gave birth to Bolan's son, whom they named Rolan Bolan. That same year, Bolan returned to the UK from tax exile in the US and Monaco and to the public eye with a low-key tour. Bolan made regular appearances on the LWT pop show Supersonic, directed by his old friend Mike Mansfield and released a succession of singles. The last remaining member of Bolan's halcyon era T. Rex, Currie, left the group in late 1976. In early 1977, Bolan got a new band together, released a new album, Dandy in the Underworld, and set out on a fresh UK tour, taking along punk band the Damned as support.
Later in 1977, Granada Television commissioned Bolan to front a six-part series called Marc in which he hosted a mix of new and established bands and performed his own songs. The show was broadcast during the post-school half-hour on ITV earmarked for children and teenagers and it was a big success.
On 16 September 1977, Bolan was riding in a Mini 1275GT driven by Gloria Jones as they headed home from Mortons drinking club and restaurant in Berkeley Square. After failing to negotiate a small humpback bridge near Gipsy Lane on Queens Ride, Barnes, southwest London, the car struck a fence post and then a tree. Bolan was killed instantly, while Jones suffered a broken arm and broken jaw.
His funeral service was at the Golders Green Crematorium, a secular provision in north London, where his ashes were buried. The car crash site has subsequently become a shrine to his memory.
Bolan never learned to drive, fearing a premature death. Despite this fear, cars or automotive components are at least mentioned in, if not the subject of, many of his songs. He also owned a number of vehicles.
Bolan appeared as an extra in an episode of the television show Orlando, dressed as a mod. At the age of nine, he was given his first guitar and began a skiffle band. While at school, he played guitar in "Susie and the Hula Hoops," a trio whose vocalist was a 12-year-old Helen Shapiro. At 15, he was expelled from school for bad behaviour.
Bolan briefly joined a modelling agency and became a "John Temple Boy", appearing in a clothing catalogue for the menswear store. Town magazine featured him as an early example of the mod movement in a photo spread with two other models. In 1964, Bolan met his first manager, Geoffrey Delaroy-Hall, and recorded a slick commercial track, which is one of Bolan's first professional recordings.
Bolan then changed his stage name to Marc Bolan, he signed to Decca Records in August 1965 and recorded his debut single "The Wizard".
In 1966, Bolan turned up at Simon Napier-Bell's front door with his guitar and proclaimed that he was going to be a big star and he needed someone to make all of the arrangements. Napier-Bell invited Bolan in and listened to his songs. A recording session was immediately booked and the songs were very simply recorded. Only "Hippy Gumbo", a sinister-sounding, baroque folk-song, was released at the time as Bolan's third unsuccessful single. Napier-Bell managed The Yardbirds and John's Children and was at first going to slot Bolan into the Yardbirds. In early 1967 he eventually settled instead for John's Children because they needed a songwriter and he admired Bolan's writing ability. The band achieved some success as a live act but sold few records.
His tenure with the band was brief. When the band split following an ill-fated German gig with The Who, Bolan took some time to reassess his situation. Bolan's imagination was filled with new ideas and he began to write fantasy novels (The Krakenmist and Pictures Of Purple People) as well as poems and songs. He famously claimed to have spent time with a wizard in Paris who gave him secret knowledge and could levitate. Given time to reinvent himself, after John's Children, Bolan's songwriting took off and he began writing many of the poetic and neo-romantic songs that would appear on his first albums with T. Rex.
Bolan rallied to create Tyrannosaurus Rex, his own rock band together with guitarist Ben Cartland, drummer Steve Peregrin Took and an unknown bass player. Foollowing their first concert, Bolan pared the band down to just himself and Took, and they continued as a psychedelic-folk rock acoustic duo, playing Bolan's songs, with Took playing assorted hand and kit percussion and occasional bass to Bolan's acoustic guitars and voice.
The original version of Tyrannosaurus Rex released three albums and four singles, flirting with the charts, reaching as high as number fifteen and supported with airplay by Radio 1 DJ John Peel.
In 1969, Bolan published his first and only book of poetry entitled The Warlock of Love. Although some critics dismissed it as self-indulgence, it was full of Bolan's florid prose and wordplay, selling 40,000 copies and in 1969-70 became one of Britain's best-selling books of poetry. It was reprinted in 1992 by the Tyrannosaurus Rex Appreciation Society.
In keeping with his early rock and roll interests, Bolan began bringing amplified guitar lines into the duo's music. After replacing Took with Mickey Finn, he let the electric influences come forward even further on A Beard of Stars, the final album to be credited to Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Bolan married his girlfriend, June Child, who was influential in raising her new husband's profile in the music business. Becoming more adventurous musically, Marc wrote and recorded his first hit "Ride a White Swan." At this time he also shortened the group's name to T. Rex.
Bolan followed "Ride a White Swan" and T. Rex by expanding the group to a quartet with bassist Steve Currie and drummer Bill Legend, and cutting a five-minute single, "Hot Love". It was number one for six weeks and was quickly followed by "Get It On", a grittier, more adult tune that spent four weeks in the top spot. The song was renamed "Bang a Gong (Get It On)" when released in the United States, to avoid confusion with another song of the same name. The song reached No. 10 in the United States in early 1972, the only top 40 single the band had in America.
In 1972, Bolan achieved two more British number ones with "Telegram Sam" and "Metal Guru" and two more number twos in "Children of the Revolution" and "Solid Gold Easy Action".
In the same year he appeared in Ringo Starr's film Born to Boogie, a documentary showing a concert at Wembley Empire Pool on 18 March 1972. Mixed in were surreal scenes shot at John Lennon's mansion in Ascot and a session with T. Rex joined by Ringo Starr on a second drum kit and Elton John on piano. At this time T. Rex record sales accounted for about six percent of total British domestic record sales.
By late 1973, his pop star fame gradually began to wane. Eventually, the vintage T. Rex line-up disintegrated and Bolan's marriage came to an end because of his affair with backing singer Gloria Jones. He spent a good deal of his time in the US during this period, continuing to release singles and albums which, while not reaching major commercial success, were full of unusual lyrics and sometimes eccentric musical experiments.
In September 1975 Gloria Jones gave birth to Bolan's son, whom they named Rolan Bolan. That same year, Bolan returned to the UK from tax exile in the US and Monaco and to the public eye with a low-key tour. Bolan made regular appearances on the LWT pop show Supersonic, directed by his old friend Mike Mansfield and released a succession of singles. The last remaining member of Bolan's halcyon era T. Rex, Currie, left the group in late 1976. In early 1977, Bolan got a new band together, released a new album, Dandy in the Underworld, and set out on a fresh UK tour, taking along punk band the Damned as support.
Later in 1977, Granada Television commissioned Bolan to front a six-part series called Marc in which he hosted a mix of new and established bands and performed his own songs. The show was broadcast during the post-school half-hour on ITV earmarked for children and teenagers and it was a big success.
On 16 September 1977, Bolan was riding in a Mini 1275GT driven by Gloria Jones as they headed home from Mortons drinking club and restaurant in Berkeley Square. After failing to negotiate a small humpback bridge near Gipsy Lane on Queens Ride, Barnes, southwest London, the car struck a fence post and then a tree. Bolan was killed instantly, while Jones suffered a broken arm and broken jaw.
His funeral service was at the Golders Green Crematorium, a secular provision in north London, where his ashes were buried. The car crash site has subsequently become a shrine to his memory.
Bolan never learned to drive, fearing a premature death. Despite this fear, cars or automotive components are at least mentioned in, if not the subject of, many of his songs. He also owned a number of vehicles.
