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 Rhythm and Blues musician by the name of Esquerita, who shaped his unique piano style.
Esquerita is also believed to have influenced his increasingly flamboyant image, although self-styled King of the Blues Billy Wright, who piled his pomaded hair high on his head and wore eye liner and face powder, was also an influence in this respect.
Real success came for Richard in 1955 with “Tutti Frutti”, which has been cited as the true starting point for the Rock and Roll revolution; but within two years, he'd quit the business and returned to his faith.
Few Rock stars have been as vocal in their condemnation of Rock and Roll as he has been. He’s been quoted as saying that “Rock and Roll is driving people from Christ”, and that he himself “was directed and commanded by
another power” at the height of his fame, which he has identified as “a power of darkness”. This was a startling admission from one of the most beloved pioneers of the rebel music of Rock and Roll.
Yet, in his wake, androgyny went on to become one of its major features, affecting many acts and artists throughout the sixties, including the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Syd Barrett, Jim Morrison, and Alice Cooper. They were among the foremost pioneers of what became known as Glam Rock…which swept a host of gifted young musicians who'd been striving for major success for several years to fresh levels of stardom, artists such as David Bowie and Elton John, and Rod “The Mod” Stewart.
For all three had been previously involved with Progressive, Art or Album Rock, and first appeared on record as part of the British Blues Boom…Bowie and Stewart in ’64, and John in ’65. And despite being idolised at the height of Glam, they continued to be admired as much as artists as glittering Pop dandies, and as a result, they became major names in America where they maintain their legendary status to this day.
In fact, thanks in some measure to their efforts, Pop underwent something of a rehabilitation in Britain from about 1971 or '72, with its leading stars
strutting around on TV in stack-heeled boots, while assailing the Pop charts with intelligent and imaginative singles.
Effectively there were two major strands of Glam in its hay day of 1971-‘74, one being allied to a serious, nay consciously artistic tradition, the other, to the more commercial end of Rock…Pop in other words. And among those acts and artists affiliated to the former were David Bowie, Roxy Music and the Alex Harvey Band; as well as Queen, who despite being a little late to the part, went on to become one of the most successful British bands to emerge from Glam. While those who were more Pop-inclined included T.Rex, the Sweet, Gary Glitter, Slade and Wizzard
Stateside Glam went on to include – in addition to its chief pioneer Alice Cooper - Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, the New York Dolls, Jobriath and Brett Smiley; as well as Aerosmith and Kiss, who were briefly touched by it, as was genius singer-songwriter, Todd Rundgren, a serious candidate for the most gifted Rock artist of all time.
Also among those who enthusiastically joined the Glam Rock bandwagon was the band that effectively invented the genre, the Rolling Stones; while the Strawbs proved that even Progressive acts were not immune to its charms.
By ’74, Glam had almost entirely shed its revolutionary trappings, having entered the mainstream as pure Pop, even if an avant garde form continued to exist throughout that year, although no longer as Glam per se.
It did so in the shape of a nostalgic love affair with Europe’s immediate past shared by acts and artists as diverse as old hands David Bowie and Roxy Music, and newcomers Sparks and Cockney Rebel, who were lavished with critical praise in that year in some quarters of the British press.
In terms of both their music and image, Roxy were especially indebted to the decadent café and cabaret culture of pre-Rock Europe, when Modernism was at its point of maximum intensity. At the same time, the persona Bowie adopted in 1976, and which he enigmatically termed “The Thin White Duke” was effectively the apotheosis of this romantic Europhilia. But little of this was in evidence in the happy world of Pop, barring the occasional appearance on legendary British music show Top of the Pops of one or the other of these phenomena.
In Britain and Europe, pure Pop continued to mine the Glam Rock craze, propelling a multitude of entertainers into the charts in the process, while in the US, Glam remained a minority interest; and would do until the ‘80s. Then, it entered the mainstream courtesy of Glam Metal, which fostered such internationally successful acts as Van Halen, Jon Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses.
In the meantime, Glam was experiencing a revival in Britain in the shape of the New Romantic cult, and the New Pop idols that emerged from it, such as Duran Duran and Culture Club. By the end of the ‘80s, however, its overt androgyny was largely a thing of the past, although it continued to undergo minor revivals which persist to this day.
That its power to shock has been effectively reduced to nothing is a testament to which the West has become inured to outrage, and part of the responsibility for this state of affairs can perhaps be laid at the platform soles of Glam. Because for a time, Glam was at the forefront of a cultural upheaval centring on the way gender roles were perceived, and truly insurrectionary as such. In other words, it was part of the sexual revolution of the ‘60s, carried over into the ‘70s and beyond; and a successful one to boot.
Thence for some, Glam’s legacy may be viewed as utterly tragic; while for others, altogether positive, but whichever side of the debate a person stands according to their beliefs, moral, spiritual and so on, once they study the facts, they cannot deny Glam’s place, not just in musical history, but in the cultural history of the West as a whole.
Afterword: The preceding essay has been created in a spirit of truth and integrity to the best of my ability as a Christian.