TITLE - THE LONDON BOYS | DAVID BOWIE, MARC BOLAN & THE 60s TEENAGE DREAM
WRITTEN BY - MARC BURROWS
GENRE - '60s BRITISH MUSIC/BIOGRAPHY
PUBLISHED BY - PEN & SWORD
PUBLICATION DATE - 30TH OCTOBER 2022
“The London Boys” is a penetratingly thorough history of the deep but often turbulent friendship/rivalry between the nascent rock stars David Bowie and Marc Bolan, from their early years to their eventual first flush of fame. The introduction sets the scene with a depiction of the historic yet chaotic reconciliation of Bowie and Bolan on the latter’s TV show “Marc”, mere days before his death. The book evokes the shattered post-WWII London landscape that both Bolan and Bowie grew up in through vivid descriptions, and explores how the city and its rapid cultural development in the ‘60s shaped their future careers.
On the whole, “The London Boys” is a very detailed and workmanlike biography of both legends, but also a deep and intoxicating (it may even be eye-opening to a millennial reader) social history of Britain and its cultural heritage and development, hugely influenced by American music. There are also some very entertaining footnotes in which many myths are busted. Special mention must be given to chapter nineteen which has a unique structure that got made this old Bowie fan giddily excited, but you’ll have to read it yourself to find out why.
A dense, deep book but immensely scholarly and readable, with an uplifting ending (really, “the beginning”) “The London Boys” is an original, fabulous and moving, even slightly irreverent, addition to the written history of both artists, both of whom burst from the page so vividly that we get to know them better than ever.
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