“He wasn’t this musical genius”: Why did The Rolling Stones dismiss David Bowie?
Although he rose to global stardom as the zany flare-clad alien from Mars, David Bowie set out on a humble note, failing to garner much attention for his 1960s releases. The young lad, born David Jones, was undoubtedly a little different, but like most of his edgy peers, he was entranced by Andy Warhol’s pop art, Bob Dylan’s poetic lyricism and Stanley Kubrick’s filmmaking.
Bowie’s music was otherworldly and progressive, but he liked to ground himself with plenty of references to those he admired most. Within Hunky Dory alone, he recorded ‘Andy Warhol’ and ‘Song for Bob Dylan’. The Rolling Stones were also a regular muse for the Starman. He famously covered ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ as a side two filler on Aladdin Sane and mentioned the band in ‘All the Young Dudes’.
It is safe to say that Bowie was a fan of the Stones, especially during the glam era, but was the feeling mutual? Indeed, when I think of Bowie and the Stones, I sadly can’t stop my mind from revisiting that putrid ‘Dancing in the Street’ cover Bowie and Jagger put out in 1985. The pair of singers were evidently close, but Jagger didn’t exactly idolise the Starman.
In 1974, following the release of David Live, Jagger described the live LP as “awful”, taking a particularly feisty swing at ‘Knock on Wood’. “If I got the kind of reviews that he got for that album, I would honestly never record again,” Jagger added. “Never!”
It’s reasonable to assume that Jagger enjoyed some of Bowie’s material here and there, but some of his bandmates wouldn’t yield an inch. As an old-school blues devotee, guitarist Keith Richards found it difficult to buy into Bowie’s futuristic front of androgyny and correlating appetite for sonic experimentation.
Speaking to Uncut in 2008, Richards said he “was not a huge fan” of Bowie, admitting that he could only really remember the Hunky Dory cut ‘Changes’. “It’s all pose. It’s all fucking posing,” he added, taking aim at Bowie’s penchant for stage personas. “It’s nothing to do with music. He knows it, too. I can’t think of anything else he’s done that would make my hair stand up.”
Richards certainly didn’t hold back, but after Bowie passed away in 2016, he followed customs to appreciate the musician’s admirable creative drive. “David was a true original in everything he did and, along with many others, I’m going to miss him,” he wrote in a post shared on social media. “Another goodbye to another good friend.”
Speaking of late legends, the Stones’ founding drummer, Charlie Watts, too, was never too keen on Bowie’s music. While Richards came from an angle rooted in the blues tradition, Watts was a jazz connoisseur. It frequently surprises fans that the drummer never even took too much to rock ‘n’ roll, ironically as it sounds.
Watts had an astute eye for percussion and enjoyed playing with the Stones, but his jazz records far outweighed his pop-rock collection. “I love playing the drums and I love playing with Mick and Keith and Ronnie, I don’t know about the rest of it,” Watts told The Guardian in 2018. “It wouldn’t bother me if the Rolling Stones said that’s it … enough.”
Elsewhere in the same interview, the drummer addressed Bowie’s death with a seemingly crucial two years of breathing space. “I thought people would have been very sad, obviously, and he was a lovely guy, and he wrote a couple of good songs,” Watts said. But for me, he wasn’t this musical genius.”
Watts’ assessment was from the heart as an old acquaintance of Bowie’s. If the Black Star is reading this now from another spiritual plane, I will implore him not to take it too hard, though, since instrumental virtuosity on the level of Buddy Rich is presumably what one needed to really impress Mr. Watts.
Listen to David Bowie’s cover of ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ below.