It has been more than 40 years since the release of David Bowie's Space Oddity single in the UK, a song which was to finally launch the career of probably the most innovative, charismatic and talented English rock star.
At this time, 1969, local Steveston resident Ralph Mace was working for the pop department of Philips Records in London which was riding high in the charts with such artists as Scott Walker, Dusty Springfield and Manfred Mann. One of their new signings was David Bowie who had previously been signed to Decca Records without much success.
In the swinging sixties, London was exploding with music, trendy fashion, mini skirts, Mini cars and young people making their mark.
There was a confidence and vitality in the air!
Part of Mace's job was to arrange and promote concerts for new artists at Philips, so he needed to know what his artists were all about. Bowie was, and still is, a bit of a music chameleon. He was writing a lot of new songs and trying to form a group, find his musical image and a sound that suited him. An important part of Bowie's set up at this point was his American girlfriend Angie, who was full of ideas as to what was needed for success and would hassle managers, promoters and record companies to promote Bowie. They were not making much money and, amidst all this, Bowie and his girlfriend decided to get married, having their wedding breakfast complete with cans of beer in Ralph's office.
Bowie's fortunes were to change with the record Space Oddity.
"Like all new releases at Philips, its success was monitored at our weekly marketing meeting," recalls Mace. The only real way of promoting the record in England at that time was to get it played on the stuffy old BBC, which had woken up a bit after the pirate radio stations had ruled the waves for a couple of years. Still, airplay was difficult in a country exploding with new artists and records every week. Unlike today, there was no iTunes or YouTube to help promote artists, only vinyl records."
After several weeks, Space Oddity had received no radio play or sales and there were calls to drop the record, but one promotion man, Dick Leahy, who would later work with George Michael, refused to drop the song, saying it was too good a record to let go. His persistence paid off with a few plays on BBC Radio One. But the song went stratospheric when BBC TV used it as the background music to the TV news report of the first landing on the moon by Apollo 11 space crew, July 20, 1969. The record took off like a rocket - sorry. I suppose the idea that an astronaut might just float away off into space fired up the public's imagination and the record finally landed at the top of the UK charts.
By 1971, Bowie's star was well set in the firmament, and he began preparing tracks for a new album in the famous Trident Studios in London just down the street from the Marquee Club. Bowie and his producer, Tony Visconti, regularly visited Mace's office and invited him down to the recording studio.
One evening after work, David and the group were in the control room trying to overdub a new keyboard part that Visconti had written to be played on a revolutionary new instrument called the Moog Synthesizer.
"The Moog part for Memory of a Free Festival was a little tricky. It needed pianistic fingers and none of the group made a very good job of it, I suggested to David that if they wanted to be home before breakfast, it might be a good idea to let me have a stab at it. David smiled and nodded and I sat down in front of a moog for the first time. My fingers were in pretty good shape and after a couple of trial runs we had the part in the can. Then the parts from several other tracks appeared and I put those tracks down too."
When the self titled album David Bowie and The Man Who Sold The World was released the credits on the album covers stated: David Bowie, Guitar, Vocals; Tony Visconti, Electric Bass, Piano, Guitar; Mick Ronson.
Guitar; Mick Woodmansey, Drums and Ralph Mace, Moog Synthesizer.
"And that's how I became a Spider From Mars," says Mace.
David Bowie's 37th album is called The Next Day and is available now.
