Elvis is English…
Forty years ago this very day, David Bowie spent the evening of his 23rd birthday at London’s Speakeasy club, performing a solo set to a very small but appreciative crowd for the princely sum of £100!
To celebrate his 50th birthday 27 years and one day later (January 9th, 1997) he performed a very special show at New York’s Madison Square Garden to an ecstatic sell-out crowd.
By this point Bowie had played the venue several times but his first visit to Madison Square Garden was to see Elvis Presley perform in 1972 when he arrived late and in full Ziggy clobber, to the clear irritation of Elvis himself.
Later the same year, the New York Sunday News published a Bowie front cover with the headline: David Bowie: The Elvis Of The Seventies.
The following year in 1973, The Story of Pop magazine published the above front cover with the question…Bowie: the disturbing new King Of Rock?
The cover of the magazine, depicting Bowie and Elvis together, was created by Philip Castle…the man responsible for both the Clockwork Orange soundtrack cover and the airbrushed teardrop on the Aladdin Sane cover. Philip’s original rough for the Story of Pop cover is on the right above.
Approximately two years after Bowie saw Elvis at MSG, he played his very first show at the venue himself. This was in July 1974 as part of the Diamond Dogs Tour.
Actually, I don’t really know where I’m going with this…so I’ll just wish David Bowie a very happy 63rd birthday on what would have been Elvis’s 75th birthday.
You can join in the well-wishing yourself in
Speaking of David Bowie and Elvis Presley…