Marc Bolan 30th anniversary (1947-1977-2007)

[Carol Baynes]

Just a brief mention of the fact that it's 30 years to the day since Marc tragically died in a car accident. Thought it'd be nice if anyone wanted to pay tribute that there was a little thread on PS to do so.
I've always loved T-rex's music, and he seemed quite a nice bloke as well, even when stardom briefly went to his head (and very cute). I've noticed there's yet another greatest hits album been released, which actually looks quite good.

[WhiteCrow]

Wierd, I remember the day Elvis died, but this wasn't a big thing at the time.

I was 6, and I knew the name Marc Bolan and the T-Rex, it was grafitied in large letters several places around Winshill where I grew up.

As I've grown up and realised that most modern songs are just samples of older ones, I've explored the musical roots. It's sometimes quite hip to say the 70s were a bit naff, like some kind of polyester nightmare, that the 60s set the world alight, but it just drifted in the 70s.

A lot of his songs in some ways havent seemed to age. I remember everyone getting excited when they used 20th Century Boy in an add in the 90s, and in every respect it seemed as fresh and cutting edge as when it was released.

He's one of those iconic people who seemed to die tragically young, and yet because of it achieved a kind of immortality in our minds.

[MacNimon]

Marc Bolan is one of those enduring childhood memories, just like Star Trek and Doctor Who. I used to love watching Top Of The Pops in those days, even though they were all miming there was just an overall feeling of fun to the series with all those wacky and wonderful hairdos, get-ups and make-up. That was TOTP's heyday, with the likes of Bolan, Bowie, Roxy Music, Slade, The Sweet etc all keeping us well entertained.

Those were the days!

It's sometimes quite hip to say the 70s were a bit naff, like some kind of polyester nightmare, that the 60s set the world alight, but it just drifted in the 70s.

No way...the 70s rocked!!!! Deep Purple...Led Zep...Sabbath...Queen...Genesis...Free/Bad Company...Bowie....and that's just for starters. All the 60s had to offer were the Beatles and The Stones...the 70's was a much better decade imo, with a much more diverse range of music.

The less said about Disco, the better, though...

[Carol Baynes]

All the 60s had to offer were the Beatles and The Stones...

Whoah! Major bullshit there!

[Wayne]

We should have a 60's vs 70's thread! 60's best for Pop - 70's best for Rock. (Although the 60's had Hendrix, & the 70's had ABBA) That's my loose & not wholly accurate quickie verdict. But then who cares about Pop.

Um yes... Bolan..... Ok pop music. Nice hair, but too shaped & neat. Robert Plant's wild mane was much cooler.

[Stephen Morgan]

Wish I'd seen this thread sooner.

I spent most of the weekend listening to and watching Marc well aware of the 30th anniversary.

Listening to the album Electric Warrior, surely his finest, Cosmic Dancer and Girl are stunning tracks, and surrounded by rockers Jeepster and Get It On shows Bolan's diversity. The Slider, released in mid 1972, is an excellent follow up, and tracks like Metal Guru and Telegram Sam, both #1s in that year deserved their chart placings. Other tracks, Cadillac, Baby Strange, Main Man, Rock On, Rabbit Fighter, come over well as live tracks, evidenced by the DVD of his Wembley concerts in June of '72 in which he also does a blistering live version of Get It On. In these you can see Bolan is happy with his position, he's top of the tree in the pop world, he can't go any higher, he is adored by his girl fans, you can hardly hear Bolan for the screaming, thankfully the new surround mix by producer Tony Visconti sorts all that out.

I loved Bolan, I well remember the morning he died, I could go into detail but it's something for the temple rather than a thread in these boards, needless to say I remember my mother shouting up the stairs that he had been killed in a car crash. And I also remember Alan Freeman's tribute on his rock show the following Saturday when he played Debora and a track by Maria Callas who also died the same day as Bolan.

I watched the docu on Bolan on BBC4 on Friday evening, and I was touched by Steve Harley's final words, "I miss him". Wheather as a friend or as a fan, these word rung true, Bolan was a huge talent in the early seventies, he defined music at this time, where the Beatles were the sixties, I think Bolan was the seventies, he spawned Glam Rock, music was fun, watching Top Of The Pops was fun, all that glitter and glam. But it's ironic to think that during the height of the era that he spawned (Glam) he couldn't get a number one hit, during 1973 his hits stalled at number two or number three, stopped from getting to number 1 by Slade or the Osmonds, Jimmy Osmond was number 1 over Christmas 1972 with Long Haired Lover while T Rex were at 2 with Solid Gold Easy Action, and so it went. But even so, Bolan was ever present, never giving in, and always bringing out good singles. I miss him, as I miss Freddie Mercury, both massive talents who, in my lifetime, will never be forgotten.

It's odd to think now that had he lived he would have been sixty this year, Bolan always had a premonition he would die young, strange to think that he's been dead longer than he lived.

[MacNimon]

Whoah! Major bullshit there!

Yeah, ok, I admit that I maybe exagerrated a bit ...of course there was more to the 60s than the Beatles and the Stones (both of whom i like, btw!), in fact there was a great deal of good music around during that decade. What I was getting at was that, particularly when it came to chart music, much of the stuff just sounded too much alike. I'm finding it hard to put into words exactly what I mean, but it was just a general 60s sound which many of those groups had. For someone who doesn't really know much about 60s pop songs it would be hard to tell much difference between, say, Herman's Hermits, Manfred Mann, Wayne Fontana etc. I'm not putting any of these guys down, but as a decade there isn't the same diversity of music in the 60s that we saw in the 70s.

[Carol Baynes]

I'm finding it hard to put into words exactly what I mean, but it was just a general 60s sound which many of those groups had. For someone who doesn't really know much about 60s pop songs it would be hard to tell much difference between, say, Herman's Hermits, Manfred Mann, Wayne Fontana etc..

Scrape out the barrel why don't you?

I'm not putting any of these guys down, but as a decade there isn't the same diversity of music in the 60s that we saw in the 70s.

Just not true! I can't agree at all! It's not the place to go into this in too much detail, but loving and knowing the decade's music so well it's just...no! Bear in mind I'm not suggesting the '70s were any less diverse, or comparing the two decades. But a whole lot more happened in the '60s and in the arts especially- we're still feeling the seismic shocks.

[Wayne]

Apart from The Beatles, all the best 60's music happened between 1967 & 1969.
(Needless to say, i'm a 70's man. The decade where bands really learned to play their instruments.)

[Carol Baynes]

Interesting links...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...bmbolan130.xml

http://www.pbase.com/john_cooper/marc_bolan_died_here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/2519173.stm

[Si Hunt]

Just been reading about him, inspired by this thread. Interesting that thanks to a very specifically set up (by Bolan) legal situation, nobody has ever got their hands on his money.

Si.

[Carol Baynes]

Wish I'd seen this thread sooner.

I spent most of the weekend listening to and watching Marc well aware of the 30th anniversary.

Listening to the album Electric Warrior, surely his finest, Cosmic Dancer and Girl are stunning tracks, and surrounded by rockers Jeepster and Get It On shows Bolan's diversity. The Slider, released in mid 1972, is an excellent follow up, and tracks like Metal Guru and Telegram Sam, both #1s in that year deserved their chart placings. Other tracks, Cadillac, Baby Strange, Main Man, Rock On, Rabbit Fighter, come over well as live tracks, evidenced by the DVD of his Wembley concerts in June of '72 in which he also does a blistering live version of Get It On. In these you can see Bolan is happy with his position, he's top of the tree in the pop world, he can't go any higher, he is adored by his girl fans, you can hardly hear Bolan for the screaming, thankfully the new surround mix by producer Tony Visconti sorts all that out.

I loved Bolan, I well remember the morning he died, I could go into detail but it's something for the temple rather than a thread in these boards, needless to say I remember my mother shouting up the stairs that he had been killed in a car crash. And I also remember Alan Freeman's tribute on his rock show the following Saturday when he played Debora and a track by Maria Callas who also died the same day as Bolan.

I watched the docu on Bolan on BBC4 on Friday evening, and I was touched by Steve Harley's final words, "I miss him". Wheather as a friend or as a fan, these word rung true, Bolan was a huge talent in the early seventies, he defined music at this time, where the Beatles were the sixties, I think Bolan was the seventies, he spawned Glam Rock, music was fun, watching Top Of The Pops was fun, all that glitter and glam. But it's ironic to think that during the height of the era that he spawned (Glam) he couldn't get a number one hit, during 1973 his hits stalled at number two or number three, stopped from getting to number 1 by Slade or the Osmonds, Jimmy Osmond was number 1 over Christmas 1972 with Long Haired Lover while T Rex were at 2 with Solid Gold Easy Action, and so it went. But even so, Bolan was ever present, never giving in, and always bringing out good singles. I miss him, as I miss Freddie Mercury, both massive talents who, in my lifetime, will never be forgotten.

It's odd to think now that had he lived he would have been sixty this year, Bolan always had a premonition he would die young, strange to think that he's been dead longer than he lived.

1973 was an odd year for T.rex, I always thought. "20th century boy" was undoubtedly a huge hit, and I know the follow up ("The Groover", a personal fave) still sold 100,000 in it's first day despite 'only' reaching no.4. Not sure what was keeping them getting any higher at that point, but "Truck on (Tyke)" stalled at no.12, so perhaps the novelty of the group had worn off.

I did hear once that T.rex could (and perhaps should) have scored 8 number one UK singles (rather than the 4) if it hadn't been for several really bad novelty singles. Clive Dunn's "Grandad" and Benny Hill's "Ernie" spring to mind.

[Stephen Morgan]

1973 was an odd year for T.rex, I always thought. "20th century boy" was undoubtedly a huge hit, and I know the follow up ("The Groover", a personal fave) still sold 100,000 in it's first day despite 'only' reaching no.4. Not sure what was keeping them getting any higher at that point, but "Truck on (Tyke)" stalled at no.12, so perhaps the novelty of the group had worn off.

I did hear once that T.rex could (and perhaps should) have scored 8 number one UK singles (rather than the 4) if it hadn't been for several really bad novelty singles. Clive Dunn's "Grandad" and Benny Hill's "Ernie" spring to mind.

The way that Ride A White Swan glided up the chart in the latter part of 1970/early '71, eventually taking almost three months to reach #2, it should have been a #1 hit, ironic that Herbie Flowers wrote Clive Dunn's Grandad as he became a member of T Rex later in the 70's. In '73, an odd year for T Rex as you state, 20th Century Boy was kept off the top by Donny Osmond's 12th Of Never and Slade's Cum On Feel The Noize, both novelty hits surely? But there was no underestimating their chart performances, each and every one of them appealed to virtually the same audience as T Rex, the Teenyboppers who were buying all their records. Ah yes! 1973 was surely a great year.

[Carol Baynes]

"Cum on feel the noize" is a fantastic single, I'd say! Not sure about the Donny Osmond one though...

And course '73 was a great year. I was born!

I've figured only one T.rex single has been in the Uk top ten in my lifetime- "The Groover". I always think "20th century boy" could have been a no.1 on it's re-issue in 1991, after it's use in a Levis ad. Most Levi tracks got there, but T.rex's re-issue inexplicably stalled at no.13.

[Stephen Morgan]

[QUOTE=Carol Baynes;65793 I always think "20th century boy" could have been a no.1 on it's re-issue in 1991, after it's use in a Levis ad. Most Levi tracks got there, but T.rex's re-issue inexplicably stalled at no.13. [/QUOTE]


So did I. I was gutted when it stalled. It had the promotion, the single was well plugged, and of course the Levi's ads back then were a popular campaign, why the single failed is anybody's guess.

[Carol Baynes]

So did I. I was gutted when it stalled. It had the promotion, the single was well plugged, and of course the Levi's ads back then were a popular campaign, why the single failed is anybody's guess.

Maybe the kids of '91 didn't 'get' Bolan that much, I'm not sure. I certainly did, and I was 18 1968at the time. I can't say I particularly grew up with Marc and co, but I always semed to know there was a band called T.rex, so perhaps there are subliminal memories there. I'm still sure to this day that my older cousin had a poster of him on his wall.

For the fellow Rex geeks here- here's all the hits! Well, I think I've missed a few remixes out.

1968 "Debora" No. 34
1968 "One Inch Rock" No. 28
1969 "King of the Rumbling Spires" No. 44
1970 "Ride a White Swan" No. 2
1971 "Hot Love" No. 1
1971 "Get It On" No. 1
1971 "Debora"/"One inch rock" (re-issue)No. 7
1971 "Jeepster" No. 2
1972 "Telegram Sam" No. 1
1972 "Metal Guru" No. 1
1972 "Children of the Revolution" No. 2
1972 "Solid Gold Easy Action" No. 2
1973 "20th Century Boy" No. 3
1973 "The Groover" No. 4
1973 "Truck On (Tyke)" No. 12
1974 "Teenage Dream" No. 13
1974 "Light of Love" No. 22
1974 "Zip Gun Boogie" No. 41
1975 "New York City" No. 15
1975 "Dreamy Lady" No. 30
1976 "London Boys" No. 40
1976 "I Love to Boogie" No. 13
1976 "Laser Love" No. 41
1977 "The Soul of My Suit" No. 42
1991 "20th century boy"(re-issue) No. 13

[Captain Tancredi]

The first time I became aware of Marc Bolan was when I was very little, probably only a year or two after he'd died, and the reason is that I was seriously into dinosaurs when I was about 6 or 7 so my ears naturally pricked up anytime somebody mentioned T Rex until my mum explained for the 59th time that they were talking about a band. What strikes me now is that he seemed to reach fame having already worked out his "thing", in particular the style of dress and make-up, but doing it in such a way that his masculinity was never in doubt. That said, he would surely have had to adapt to the times had he lived and thirty years on is probably too long a time to speculate about how he would and whether, for example, he could have lost some of the visual eccentricity and gone mainstream like David Bowie, to use a rough contemporary as an example.

Or I may be talking rubbish- I usually am when it comes to music.

[stephenhannan]

The 60's expiered somewhere around the end of 1973. It was universally felt that way ( I was 19 then ) at the time.

Fashion changed massively at that point when colour changed to pastels, greys and browns rather than bold and bright, hair became universally styled and shorter rather than just long. Flares became baggies, and hippydom was consigned to the dustbin. Disco started to appear and concept albums were no longer de rigour.

Bolan failed to move on as did some of his contempories and Bowie quite the Ziggy and Aladdin phase for a more sober "Thin white Duke" the 70's had arrived with Disco, hugh concerts :Zeppelin verses the Who ( Wembleys 1975 ) I can't remember who was the biggest? ( The NME Vote!) and in general the atmosphere changed as drink triumphed over weed for a while.


PS Can anybody remember the Vynyl crisis of 1974?

[Stephen Morgan]

Can anybody remember the Vynyl crisis of 1974?

Vaguely. Various worldwide energy crises would have affected the production of plastic in general back in the mid seventies, especially here in Britain due to all the industrial dissent. Certainly the power cuts wouldn't have helped, but I don't particularly recall there was a problem. If there was a vinyl crisis it would have affected smaller labels rather than the giants like CBS or EMI.
I shall have to look up some contemporary documentation on this one.

[WhiteCrow]

1968 "Debora" No. 34
1968 "One Inch Rock" No. 28
1969 "King of the Rumbling Spires" No. 44
1970 "Ride a White Swan" No. 2
1971 "Hot Love" No. 1
1971 "Get It On" No. 1
1971 "Debora"/"One inch rock" (re-issue)No. 7
1971 "Jeepster" No. 2
1972 "Telegram Sam" No. 1
1972 "Metal Guru" No. 1
1972 "Children of the Revolution" No. 2
1972 "Solid Gold Easy Action" No. 2
1973 "20th Century Boy" No. 3
1973 "The Groover" No. 4
1973 "Truck On (Tyke)" No. 12
1974 "Teenage Dream" No. 13
1974 "Light of Love" No. 22
1974 "Zip Gun Boogie" No. 41
1975 "New York City" No. 15
1975 "Dreamy Lady" No. 30
1976 "London Boys" No. 40
1976 "I Love to Boogie" No. 13
1976 "Laser Love" No. 41
1977 "The Soul of My Suit" No. 42
1991 "20th century boy"(re-issue) No. 13

And all these years people told be his last hit was "Tie a Yellow Mini round the old oak tree".

[Perry Vale]

I watched the docu on Bolan on BBC4 on Friday evening, and I was touched by Steve Harley's final words, "I miss him".

Watched it too, loved that ending.

Electric Warrior is a fantastic LP, but my fave is The Slider (and also like 'Dandy' quite a bit). I think my favourite single is 'The Soul Of My Suit', and also really love 'Sunken Rags' (a b-side?) which hardly ever gets on to any compilations.

[Stephen Morgan]

I think my favourite single is 'The Soul Of My Suit', and also really love 'Sunken Rags' (a b-side?) which hardly ever gets on to any compilations.

Soul of my Suit is an excellent single. Sunken Rags, if memory serves me correctly is the b side of The Groover, it's on the comp, Marc On Wax, The A's and B sides, which features all the As and B sides of the hits from Metal Guru to Dandy in the Underworld. I think its available from Amazon for about £6.

[Carol Baynes]

And all these years people told be his last hit was "Tie a Yellow Mini round the old oak tree".

You're not even funny.

"Soul of my suit" was a great single, I have to agree....shame it didn't crack the top 40. Why does anyone think they never re-released one of his biggest hits after he died as a tribute? Maybe it wasn't the ususal practice back then?

[Perry Vale]

Why does anyone think they never re-released one of his biggest hits after he died as a tribute? Maybe it wasn't the ususal practice back then?

I don't think it was, really. Back then, singles never got deleted anyway, so most of them would have still been available after his death.

[Stephen Morgan]

Back then, singles never got deleted anyway, so most of them would have still been available after his death.

That may be the case, but no singles re-entered the charts in the days/weeks after his death, unlike the Elvis singles of which a plethora got back into the top forty. Whether Bolan's singles were tied up in rights I can't recall, but we didn't get a new hits comp until 1979, and even then it didn't contain any of the stuff he'd recorded before 1972.