BOWIE ODYSSEY 76 by Simon Goddard

There was only ever one picture for the front cover of Bowie Odyssey 76, the coolest mug shot ever taken, this one on 21 March in Rochester, NY, after he and others were busted for drugs at the Americana hotel. As is the way with touring musicians, members of his entourage had invited a pair of likely looking girls back to the hotel, perhaps to enjoy a post-gig romp, only to discover they were plain clothes cops out to bust that notorious drug abuser David Bowie who was bound to have a sack of cocaine on his person.

In the event all they found was a bag of marijuana but it was still a pickle that David could do without and it wasn’t the only pickle that David found himself in during 1976. There was a cash-flow problem stemming from his fall out with ex-manager Tony Defries, an ongoing dispute with wife Angie, now largely absent from his life and soon to be shown the door, and an alarming pre-occupation with all things Nazi which, unhappily, coincided with the rise of the English National Front whose cause was championed by a bigoted bus driver called Robert Relf. 

All of this – not least the trials and tribulations of Mr Relf – are covered in forensic detail by Simon Goddard in this most recent episode of his fly-on-the-wall Bowie Odyssey series. As with the previous six books, it’s another eye-opening read, no quarter given as David’s topsy-turvy life is exposed as not quite as wonderful as it might seem to those outside the glass bubble in which he exists. Only two are permitted inside: Coco, his indispensable, devoted handmaiden who tends to his domestic requirements and diary, making sure he’s where and when he’s supposed to be and maybe warming his bed if no other candidates are available, and Jim, aka Iggy, brought on board as a playmate and musical foil, with whom Coco doesn’t necessarily see eye to eye. 

It’s the year of the Thin White Duke, the black and white tour that promoted Station To Station, which is a roaring success and fills empty coffers, and resettlement in Berlin where, having grown an unsightly moustache, David can mingle without being recognised, some of the time anyway. Romy Haag is lurking, England stinks of right wing dung, the punks are waiting in the wings and aside from a pre-occupation with that loathsome Relf fellow, Odyssey 76 is, like 70 to 75, riveting stuff.