With your long blond hair and your eyes of blue…
In February 1974, a two and three-quarter-year-old Zowie Bowie accompanied his father on a three-day trip to Amsterdam to promote the single, Rebel Rebel. (See above)
Though we had been used to seeing pictures of the little chap in the UK press, (he even had his own fan club) it wasn’t until this trip that the inspiration for his flowing locks came to light.
Some cynically presumed it was a publicity drive to highlight the ‘not sure if you’re a boy or a girl’ lyric of the new single…and some even suggested Zowie was simply trying to ape the look of his father on the sleeve of the album that contained his favourite song, Kooks.
I, however, was never convinced by these theories, as the Duncan we now know has proved to be an independent thinker and certainly not really one content to plough the same furrow as his father.
And so, it was a Eureka! moment for me when I stumbled upon the picture below (taken on this same Amsterdam trip) in a 1970s hairstyles catalogue.
It’s of Little Z holding up the cover of the Dutch Popfoto magazine with the true inspiration for his impressive hairdo: Brian Connolly, lead singer with Bowie’s RCA stablemates The Sweet!