Tony Visconti left Brooklyn for London in 1967, began working with the Move and Marc Bolan and formed a life-long friendship with the teenage David Bowie, playing on his first two albums and producing 10 of ones that followed. And in 2014 he formed Holy Holy with Woody Woodmansey, a live celebration of Bowie’s music from 1970 to Blackstar. They’re touring again in September with Glenn Gregory as lead singer – “you can’t mourn forever.” He talks to us here about …
… the gig they played the night Bowie died
… life at Bowie’s commune at Haddon Hall – “I kept my door firmly locked!”
… Marc Bolan at Middle Earth, “a hundred spellbound kids sitting cross-legged on the floor”
… hearing Flowers In The Rain (which he arranged) as the first record on Radio One
… “A little chinwag?” How Bowie broke the news about his illness
… his dislike of Space Oddity, “I told him it was novelty, a sell-out”
… producing The Man Who Sold The World and the emotional Blackstar
… the night he met the teenage Bowie and they wound up in a Chelsea cinema
… “Why are you doing this?” Bowie’s reaction to the first Holy Holy tour in 2014
… his time as the red-caped Hypeman and Ronson and Woody’s resistance to make-up, “macho boys from Hull”
… walking round New York with a cassette of secret The Next Day album in his pocket
… and the big emotional moments in the Holy Holy set list
Order Holy Holy tickets here: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/holy-holy-tickets/artist/2096354
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