“They tell me, “Garson, we want you…””
The long-awaited Bowie’s Piano Man: The Life Of Mike Garson By Clifford Slapper, is published by Fantom Books in the UK on December 8, 2014.
• First-ever biography of Mike Garson, long-term pianist with David Bowie, who has played on 19 Bowie albums. If you take account of number of live appearances, number of recordings and length of time from first until most recent work with Bowie, then Garson is easily Bowie’s most prolific band member.
• Book contains interviews with many fellow Bowie musicians and producers, including Tony Visconti, Earl Slick, Gail Ann Dorsey, Reeves Gabrels, Sterling Campbell, Zachary Alford, Gerry Leonard, and Maggi Ronson, sister of Mick Ronson, as well as others with whom Garson has worked, such as Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.
• With 52 great photographs, many never seen before, of Garson with Bowie and others!
WEBSITE EXCLUSIVE – Bowie’s Piano Man will be exclusively available via the Fantom website until its trade release in March 2015.
Visit: http://smarturl.it/BPMphantom to pre-order a signed copy and to read more about the book and author Clifford Slapper.
We’ll leave you with a collection of quotations about Mike from various musical associates, including David Bowie himself.
“It is pointless to talk about his ability as a pianist. He is exceptional. However, there are very, very few musicians, let alone pianists, who naturally understand the movement and free thinking necessary to hurl themselves into experimental or traditional areas of music, sometimes, ironically, at the same time. Mike does this with such enthusiasm that it makes my heart glad just to be in the same room with him.”
David Bowie on Mike Garson
“I had told Bowie about the avant-garde thing. When I was recording the “Aladdin Sane” track for Bowie, it was just two chords, an A and a G chord, and the band was playing very simple English rock and roll. And Bowie said: ‘play a solo on this’. I had just met him, so I played a blues solo, but then he said: ‘No, that’s not what I want’. And then I played a Latin solo. Again, Bowie said: ‘No, no, that’s not what I want’. He then continued: “You told me you play that avant-garde music. Play that stuff!’ And I said: ‘Are you sure? Because you might not be working anymore!’…So I did the solo that everybody knows today, in one take. And to this day, I still receive emails about it. Every day. I always tell people that Bowie is the best producer I ever met, because he lets me do my thing.”
Mike Garson on David Bowie
“I personally think Mike gives one of his best-ever performances on this piece and it thrills on every listening, confirming to me at least, that he is still one of the most extraordinary pianists playing today.”
David Bowie on Mike Garson, on “South Horizon”, The Buddha Of Suburbia
“David Bowie has the ability to absorb art and be it, whether painting, sculpture, lyrics, song writing, singing, entertaining, acting. He is art and he knows how to become it, bigger than life. That’s not the kind of artist I am, but he’s got a ridiculous gift, that’s probably been there all along, like a pool of creativity that, if he jumps in he just comes out being it. It sits there, it’s available to him at any second.”
Mike Garson on David Bowie
“Mike Garson listens attentively…then plays whatever the hell he wants”
Producer, Tony Visconti
“Mike Garson is a cathedral of music”
Jérôme Soligny, Editorial Consultant, Rock&Folk magazine, France
“My latest thing I’m hot to do is collaborate with some other people. Probably at the top of my list this second is Mike Garson from Bowie’s band… I don’t understand how that sound’s coming out of his instrument…”
Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails
“Of the whole lot, Mike is the true genius; we are all just toys in his atonal wonderland”
Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins
“Mikey, what he can do, is he can go from classical jazz and then he can sit down and play raucous barrelhouse piano like a real guy, he’s not faking it! That’s a rare bird…I don’t really know anyone on this planet that I’ve sat in a room with or even listened to for that matter, who can do what he does, the way that he does it…”
Earl Slick on Mike Garson
