“Switch on the TV we may pick him up on…”
We’ve been talking about Brian Ward’s January 1972 Bowie photo session for the sleeve of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars album in London’s Heddon Street and the studio shots created by Ward for the promotion of Ziggy Stardust and the Starman release.
It seems the first use of a picture from this session was for an interview feature by Danny Holloway in NME dated Jan 29th, 1972. It was the same image as used for the Starman single sleeve three months later.
Though the album title was mentioned in the Holloway article, there was not much more said about it, aside from this brief synopsis of the concept…
“As we sat in the living room of the huge Victorian house he shares, David played the new Biff Rose album, followed by tapes of his next – titled “The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.” It`s about the adventures and eventual break-up of a pop group. Ziggy Stardust is the lead singer and The Spiders From Mars are his back-up group (David is trying to persuade his group to call themselves the Spiders.)”
The music press adverts for Starman in April were still plugging Hunky Dory, with no hint of the upcoming Ziggy album whatsoever.
Released on April 28th, Starman gave fans their first Bowie picture sleeve in the UK and two tunes from Ziggy Stardust ahead of the album’s release. The B-side was Suffragette City.
The single finally scraped into the Top 50 UK singles chart two months after its release and after a slow accent it reached the Top Ten, no doubt helped by this …among other things.
Listen to Ziggy Stardust here now.
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