by Carl Halling

Created on: July 04, 2007   Last Updated: December 21, 2010

Glam Rock had begun to infiltrate the British charts as early as ‘71, while making little impact on the US, despite the fact that many of its pioneers were American, and its true roots were to be found in the Blues and early Rock and Roll, more of which later. It had been carried into the mainstream by one Marc Bolan,  born Mark Feld in 1947 in working class East London to Simeon and Phyllis Feld.

 Bolan had been featured in 1962 in a magazine called “Town”, as one of the Faces, or leading Mods of Stamford Hill to the north east of the city, although by then he'd moved with his family to a council house in Summerstown near the pleasant and affluent suburb of Wimbledon.

 He went on to achieve major success as one half of the acoustic duo, Tyrannosaurus Rex, the other being multi-instrumentalist Steve Peregrin Took who, like Bolan, was a leading figure of London’s Hippie Underground centred on Ladbroke Grove. In 1970, though, Took was replaced by photogenic percussionist  Mickey Finn.

  Soon afterwards, Bolan shortened the name of the band to T.Rex, and they had their first top 5 hit in the shape of “Ride a White Swan”. By the time of their first number one the following year, T. Rex were a four-piece band, and Bolan was a teenage idol, hauntingly immortalised in song by his close friend Elton John in 1972. The Bolan phenomenon was at some stage dubbed T Rextasy by the British press, while all throughout the land, the bedroom walls of teenage girls were adorned with Bolan’s extraordinarily beautiful fallen angel’s face.

 However, for the true roots of Glam one must return to the very earliest days of Rock and Roll, and specifically to a certain Rhythm and Blues shouter by the name of Little Richard.

 As a boy, Richard had attended the New Hope Baptist Church in his native Macon, Georgia, and sang Gospel songs with his family as The Penniman Singers, his favourite singers being Gospel legends Mahalia Jackson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. He joined Sister Rosetta onstage in Macon at the age of 13, in 1945 after she heard him singing before the concert. What's more, he had serious ambitions of becoming a preacher.

 By 1951, however, the world had begun to beckon, and he won a talent contest in Atlanta that led to a recording contract with RCA Victor, but the four records he subsequently released all flopped. Around about the same time, he came under the sway of an outrageous

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