It’s Turntable Tuesday because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV off! It is time to fire the turntable and crank up some great tunes! This week the classic album released in June of 1972 is the featured conversation and all that is needed is you!
The photograph for the cover originated during a photo shoot in January 1972 at Ward’s Heddon Street studio in London, just off Regent Street. It was suggested that photos be taken outside before natural light was lost, the band chose to stay inside while Bowie, who was reportedly ill with flu went outside just as it started to rain. Bowie stood outside the home of a fur company “K. West” at 23 Heddon Street. As the story goes the “K” stands for Konn, the surname of the company’s founder Henry Konn, and the “West” indicated it was on the west end of London. Soon after “Ziggy Stardust” went up the charts the directors of K. West were not happy with their company’s name appearing on a pop album. A lawyer for K. West wrote a letter to RCA saying: “Our clients are Furriers of highest caliber who deal with a clientele generally far removed from the pop music world. Our clients certainly have no wish to be associated with Mr. Bowie or this record as it might be assumed that there was some connection between our client’s firm and Mr. Bowie, which is certainly not the case.” The company soon became accustomed to tourists photographing themselves on the doorstep constantly. K. West moved out of the Heddon Street location in 1991 and the sign was taken down but the site remains a popular “place of pilgrimage” for Bowie fans. Bowie said of the sign, “It’s such a shame that sign taken down. People read so much into it. They thought ‘K. West’ must be some sort of code for “quest” as in a story with mystical overtones”.
If you would like to listen to my companion podcast you can listen here or subscribe for free on any of the streaming services you use. My podcast is easily searchable on any streaming service where you get your podcasts by searching “Andrew Talbert.” Look for the World Wide Music Media logo. I’ll talk to you on your mobile device!
1973. I was living in Meridian, Mississippi and visiting three blocks from my house listening to music with a friend. Ronnie James was about my age and was one of three kids in his house. His older brother happened to like music and was collecting some very cool vinyl. I was over for the weekend to hang out and listen to music. We were listening to David Bowie and trying to imagine who this person was that was producing this exciting rock and roll music. “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” had singles all over the radio and David Bowie was becoming a household name on the FM radio channels all over the world. We were also listening to Elton John’s latest album “Honky Château” as I recall so it was a time that this American listener thought that all the cool rock music was coming from people who had a British accent. I still remember so much about spending hours listening to music in this house. It was a traditional southern house with a concrete floor or “slab” foundation that is a common construction method in the deep south of the United States. This is best described as a house with no crawl space. This house had neat textured white tile floors and the kids bedrooms had custom hand-made beds their Dad had built in the garage. Over one of those beds was about six Edison “records” as in cylinder boxes with decoration on them. These were made in the first decade of 1900 and as I recall at the time you could see these for sale in “junk” antique shops for a few dollars. These are still sold on Ebay today. Hard wax cylinders were sold in cardboard tubes with cardboard caps on each end, the upper one a removable lid. Like cylindrical containers for hats, they were simply called “boxes”, the word still used by experienced collectors. I say all that as those are just some of the details I remember from this time. I also remember Ronnie’s Mom who worked at Peavey Electronics as most of the Peavey guitar amplifiers of the time were being built in Meridian so I thought she was cool. It was also cool that Hartley Peavey’s mother’s florist shop was next door to my Dad’s finance company. Those were the days as many years later the manufacturing mostly moved to Asia with the headquarters still located in Meridian.
Be sure to tune into the podcast this week for the background on the tracks on this vinyl and some of the details of the production of this classic. Don’t forget to subscribe to the companion podcast so you can listen on any mobile device or at home.
Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.