Having received his first guitar at the age of nine (after which he promptly formed his own skiffle band), Mark Feld's formative years were spent in Northeast London (Hackney) and South London (Wimbledon) worshiping at the musical altars of Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry. As he later recalled, "[A] film that made a big impression on me was
Untamed Youth which starred Eddie Cochran. I was a great fan of his, loved 'Summertime Blues' and used to have photos of him and Gene Vincent on my bedroom wall. I saw them both when they appeared in this country. When we lived in Stoke Newington we weren't very far from the Hackney Empire when the theatre was used for producing the
Oh Boy! TV series. I saw Billy Fury, Marty Wilde and Adam Faith down there, all the new British rock 'n' rollers as well as the American guest stars they used to have some weeks. They always used to allow fans into the theatre to make up the studio audience. Then I started going to the touring pop shows and kept up with that when we moved to South London when I used to catch most of the package shows that visited Tooting Granada. Brenda Lee, Brian Hyland, The Rolling Stones, Bo Diddley, The Everly Brothers- I saw them all at Tooting." Having left school at the age of fifteen, Feld became a familiar face on the local mod scene and briefly found work as a model for a menswear catalog, an experience that resulted in his first name change (Toby Tyler) and in meeting child actor and future photographer Allan Warren, who would play a key role in nurturing Feld/Tyler's burgeoning musical aspirations. Marc Bolan: "I was a John Temple boy, if you can believe it. At the time they thought me outrageous because I had quite long hair. The flash was that I was in their shop windows as a cardboard cut-out, and that was very odd to see. I didn't much like it. I didn't like the suits, they were terrible and I told them so, actually. But it was like a job to me and it was worth a grand!" Toby Tyler ended up moving in with his new friend Warren, who, quite willing to indulge Tyler's growing obsession with becoming a music star, financed his friend's first recording session at I.B.C. Studios, where Tyler recorded a Cliff Richard knock-off titled "All at Once."
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| Marc Bolan in 1965 |
Armed with a new acoustic guitar purchased with earnings from his modeling work, Tyler immersed himself in the folk music of the time, especially the work of Bob Dylan, whose "Blowin' in the Wind" numbered among the several songs he chose for his next recording session, this time at Regent Studios. While no recording contracts materialized as a result, Tyler did receive an invite to record a test session for Columbia at Abbey Road Studios; however the legendary label was unimpressed. Nevertheless, Tyler, soon to metamorphose into Marc Bolan after releasing a one-off single, "The Wizard" on Decca, remained undeterred. Bolan: "I began to realise I had an ego that I wanted to satisfy. I was either going to be an actor, a poet or a musician in the end and I began to see that it would be a faster road to freedom of any sort, not financially but with the ability to sit in a flat and not have to do anything other than what I wanted to do, to be a musician." In 1967, after having spent several months in Paris, Bolan caught the attention of Yardbirds manager Simon Napier-Bell, who also managed a notorious band of misfits known as John's Children, famous for their onstage fisticuffs and anarchic stage act that often included donning fake blood and feathers, as well as destroying their instruments. When their guitarist was fired in early 1967, Napier-Bell decided to replace him with his newest client: Marc Bolan. While Bolan's time in John's Children would be brief (four months), he was around long enough to record his first great song, the single "Desdemona," which ended up being banned, quite ridiculously, by the BBC for the lyric, "Lift up your skirt and fly." Napier-Bell, eager to capitalize on the buzz surrounding the single, secured John's Children a spot supporting The Who on the latter's spring German tour. Not unpredictably, there were problems from the start: John's Children were received well by German concert-goers, but The Who, particularly their management, were not happy that the band's stage act was more outlandish than the headliners (who were also known to smash an instrument or two); for example, Bolan took to beating his guitar with a heavy chain while other band members staged fights that included smashing capsules of fake blood. Even worse, in Ludwigshafen, the antics of John's Children incited an audience riot, which resulted in the band being promptly fired from the tour.
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| The Notorious John's Children |
Simon Napier-Bell can best be described as the Malcolm McLaren of his time, as he was constantly looking for opportunities to manufacture and market the band's reputation for outrageous behavior, something Marc Bolan, who had genuinely artistic aspirations, quickly grew tired of. Following a dispute with Napier-Bell over the sound of what was to be his last single with John's Children, "A Midsummer Night's Scene," Bolan severed ties with the band. Napier-Bell: "He [Bolan] got a gig at the Electric Garden then put an ad in
Melody Maker [it was actually
International Times]
to get the musicians. The paper came out on Wednesday, the day of the gig. At 3 o-clock he was interviewing musicians, at five he was getting ready to go on stage. It was a disaster. He just got booed off the stage." To make matters worse, previous to the gig, Bolan had purchased some electric instruments and sound equipment for his makeshift band using a hire-purchase company, all of which was promptly repossessed after the ban's poor showing. All was not lost however; one of the musicians who has answered the advert was Steve Peregrin Took, a drummer who had previously played in a mod-band called The Waterproof Sparrows and who had named himself after the Pippin character in
The Lord of the Rings. Bolan, now armed only with a well-worn acoustic guitar, convinced Took to join forces with him as an acoustic folk duo called Tyrannosaurus Rex. Took: "[W]e couldn't afford anyone else, cos we weren't making much money. So then I sold me drum kit, so that we could pay the rent, which was a weird thing to do, as the fetes would have it, a pair of bongos sufficed. I don't really understand. I can't relate to that especially not when I'm tripping. Haunts me more than anything." To say the early days of Tyrannosaurus Rex were austere is an understatement. On the verge of destitution, Bolan and Took resorted to busking in a Hyde Park underpass, but thanks in large part to John Peel, whose patronage helped them land gigs at clubs such as the legendary Middle Earth, less than a year later, Tyrannosaurus Rex once again found themselves performing in Hyde Park, this time taking part in the first-ever free concert along with Pink Floyd, Roy Harper and Jethro Tull.
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| Steve Took & Marc Bolan in 1968 |
Bolan's lyrics had often taken on a mystical quality in the past, but with Tyrannosaurus Rex, his nonsensical word play and pagan fairytale themes took center-stage. Adding to the duo's singular style was their distinctive look, something best described as flower-power chic: Bolan sporting unruly curls, a fancy waistcoat and frilly shirts, with Took donning a cape or trademark long-coat and goatee. After recording a number of acoustic demos, which tended to mimic the same basic rock approach of Bolan's earlier work with John's Children (which can be found on
The Beginning of Doves), Tyrannosaurus Rex entered Advision Studios at the beginning of 1968 to record their debut album,
My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair...but Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows, with Tony Visconti as producer. Visconti, whose previous production work had included The Iveys (who later changed their name to Badfinger), caught Tyrannosaurus Rex's act for the first time at the UFO Club and knew instantaneously that they were more than just another hippie freak-folk duo. As Visconti has recounted, he saw "Marc sitting crosslegged on stage playing his strange little songs, while Steve Took was banging on his bongos." Visconti, looking to build his reputation as a music producer, had been "holding out for something really different and unusual" and "thought Marc was perhaps that." What Visconti helped Tyrannosaurus Rex capture in the studio was unusual to say the least, with Bolan's trademark warble in full-flower, Took's exotic percussive accents, and the acid-drenched, Tolkien-inspired lyrics married to Bolan's deceptively simple, yet emotionally heavy acoustic attack. Even John Peel got in on the action, reading the fairytale narrative at the heart of "Frowning Atahuallpa (My Inca Love)." In hindsight, older, reworked rockers such as "Mustang Ford" and "Hot Rod Mama" seem a little out of place given the album's overt psychedelic pretensions, but Bolan's songwriting genius is also occasionally on display, such as the lovely, self-mythologizing "Child Star."
