Loved this book ! It was so Interesting and just impossible to put down !

A vital piece of musical history

A well documented and well overdue look at the friendship and rivalry of two music game changers David Bowie and Marc Bolan and the creation of glam rock.
Meeting as teenagers in 1965, and growing up in post-war England, the London Boys played gigs, survived disappointment after disappointment yet persevered to bring color and imagination to a once dreary world.
Marc Burrows research and numerous interviews sheds a new light on Bowie and Bolan. From the genesis of being yet another new name in the swinging London scene to planting their individual roots at a time of rejuvenation, creativity, style, culture fashion and yes, androgyny this is a view of these quickly changing times through their eyes.
This dual Bowie/Bolan journey takes us to ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Ride the White Swan’. This reader would love the author to brings us into the next chapter of these influential artists.
Highly recommended with thanks to Net Galley, the author and Pen and Sword for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.

Fabulous insight for all music lovers alike! Rock n roll fanatics, mods, beat group wannabes, underground hippies, glam rock icons: David Bowie and Marc Bolan spent the first part of their careers following remarkably similar paths. From the day they met in 1965 as Davie Jones and Mark Feld, rock n roll wannabes painting their manager's office in London’s Denmark Street, they would remain friends and rivals, each watching closely and learning from the other. In the years before they launched an unbeatable run of era-defining glam rock masterpieces at the charts, they were both just another face on the scene, meeting for coffee in Soho, hanging out at happenings and jamming in parks. Here, they are our guides through the decade that changed everything, as the gloom of post-war London exploded into the technicolour dream of the swinging sixties, a revolution in music, fashion, art and sexuality. Part duel-biography, part social history, part musical celebration of an era, The London Boys follows the British youth culture explosion through they eyes of two remarkable young men on the front lines of history.

1947 was a vintage year, seeing the births of Elton John, Brian May, Mick Fleetwood, Greg Lake and, of course, David Bowie and Marc Bolan. They didn’t quite grow up together, but they met as teenagers in 1965, painting the new office of Les Conn, David’s manager. Marc Burrows’s book (yes, his parents named him Marc after Bolan when he was born in the early 80s), The London Boys, takes us through their careers up to the point where Bowie had released Space Oddity and Bolan was recording Ride a White Swan.
It's astonishing to read how the two future stars released flop after flop for several years, despite both playing gigs in public before even reaching their teens. Burrows shows us the early influences: Little Richard, Bill Haley, jazz. However, both boys were convinced they would be stars and kept writing and recording until they each issued records that resonated with the public enough to reach the Top 10.
Burrows has interviewed people who knew Marc and has documented the original sources of information when they’re known. This is a thorough book, packed with information, but is a surprisingly easy read. Burrows’s jokey asides sometimes don’t sit well with the careful historic approach and I confess some grated with me, but then others made me laugh. You can’t please all of the people…
The book’s not perfect: Radio Luxembourg wasn’t a pirate station; I’m not sure that the film Summer Holiday should be described as milquetoast, but it IS a very well researched book and will be an eye-opener for T.Rex and David Bowie fans who weren’t following them in the 1960s. However, I couldn’t see any explanation for why the book stops at the point it does. Is this meant to be volume one of two? Did Burrows just want to publish what he’d written? I'd like to give the book four stars but that unexplained chop means it only gets three - sorry.
#TheLondonBoys #NetGalley

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Pen & Sword Books for an advanced copy of The London Boys.

Mark Feld and David Jones had much in common both were born in 1947 both were brought up around the bombsites of a war torn London, both would grow up to be rockstars, and both made a change to their names one would be known as Marc Bolin, the other known as David Bowie.

The London boys covers the highs and lows of both their lives, along side their careers, but not only that it also covers the social history of the time.

The author Mark Burroughs has created a fascinating and informative biography of both their lives and I'm going to recommend to quit a few music lovers I know who will be interested in reading it to. I would add it's not going to be for everyone's cup of tea but I for enjoyed it.

Mark Feld and David Jones were both born after World War II in 1947 in award torn London. They would both go up to be rockstars one would be Mark Bolin and the other David Bowie they were equals rivals but more portly they were musicians and had talent. London boys covers both their lives their careers mistakes and successes. The author Mark Burroughs has done a great job covering their lives and just the right amount of juicy tidbits to keep the reader going. Before reading this book I had never heard of Mark Bolling but since reading this I have listen to his music on YouTube and can see the appeal and of course I already knew about David Bowie but the author cover things I didn’t know and that’s what’s so great about reading books like this I grew up listening to him and loved his music and now as an older adult I love breeding about those I grew up with and this is one book that I would highly recommend. It’s not only a great autobiography but it chronicles their childhood And interaction with each other. It really is a great book for fans and if you’re not a fan it’s still an interesting book to read about life after the war growing up and the musicians that were popular. I love this book and will definitely read more by this author. I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

A great insight into a specific time in history. Fab for any music lover Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

This is a solid overview of the overlapping development of David Bowie and Marc Bolan through the 1960s but it was a bit of a missed opportunity for me. Fans of both musicians will already know most of what is related here, although Burrows draws links with wider developments in the 1960s well throughout, and the more casual reader will probably wonder why the narrative stops (rather abruptly) in 1969 before both became really famous and effectively kickstarted British pop music in the early 1970s. The tone of the writing is also a bit uneven, particularly early on, and it could have done with a final edit to remove repetitions (e.g. we're told three times within a handful of pages that Bowie hero-worshipped his half-brother) and errors (the Jacques Brel song is about the port, not court, of Amsterdam; "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" has no "me at the end). Excellent collection of photos at the end though (if you can get the adobe file to play ball).

Loved it. A wonderful and insightful look at, not only two cultural legends, but at a specific era in time too. I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but I would if it was all like this.

4/5 stars

Though I've never been the biggest fan of either Bowie nor Bolan, I have always been intrigued by the 'rise to fame' stories of actors, singers and artists that made it big. The world before social media was a very *very* different place, and these are the kind of stories that showcase true talent and weave together a life story.

The London Boys was published on October 31, 2022. Thank you to Pen & Sword, NetGalley and the author for the ARC.

A fascinating and informative biography of Marc Bolan and David Bowie but also the story of their career, of what was happening in the music world and in the society.
The author loves these musicians and did and excellent job in writing this informative book.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

I absolutely adore David Bowie, and i'm a fan of Marc Bolan too - so was super intrigued and excited by this book.
However I didn't actually enjoy this book disappointingly. I found it very slow in pace, and a bit wishy washy in terms of having a strict narrative or point.
I didn't like this book at all - not for me.

This fascinating book explores the parallel lives of David Bowie and Marc Bolan, both born in 1947. It's a combination of biography and social history. I've read most of the Bowie biographies, being one of his most ardent fans, but there's still plenty of "new" info here from writer Burrows.

It starts with a blow-by-blow account of when Bowie graced his friend's fairly lowly TV show in 1977 and performed Heroes for the first time ever, which, according to the book, transfixed everyone in the studio. The day of rehearsals ended badly with Bolan drunk and the unions pulling the plug on the recording, meaning Eddie and the Hot Rods had to come back another day. Bowie's security had also been very heavy handed, evicting people from the studio.

A few days later Bolan met his death in a road accident, aged just 29. Bowie attended the funeral and wept, exhibiting a rare show of emotion, according to a friend who knew him.

I had no idea of the hideously complex family life of Bowie. When his father, known as John, married his second wife, they all lived in the same house as his first wife, a performer, plus a child of John's, born to another woman. Bowie's beloved stepbrother Terry, 10 years his senior, eventually joined them. It was not a happy family, and friends of Bowie said his emotional detachment and aloofness was a result of his fractured childhood.

What makes the book stand out is not just the biographical detail around two rock icons, but the social history of the time. It was not long after the war and Britain was changing fast, encouraging thousands of immigrants to start new lives in the UK, a move which was not always popular at the time. It was also a very creative time with plenty of other stars born in 1947, among them Elton John, Iggy Pop, Brian May, Jeff Lynne and Meat Loaf.

The story of how Mark Feld and David Jones took on the new identities by which they'd be remembered, but also of the times through which they ascended, their first, faltering attempts at fame weaving through the era and area which brought Britain out of its rubble-coloured post-War funk and left it pretty groovy for a while – even if the momentum of that fabulous half-century is now looking pretty thoroughly exhausted. Marc has done his research on his leads, reconciling elements which don't match in biographies of the two, and digging out details which were certainly new to me, who's read at least a couple of Bowie books and thought I had an OK handle on Bolan – stuff like David's time in the Riot Squad (the band, not the head-crackers, which would admittedly have been an even more surprising gig). But the further details about that band, how saxophonist Bob Evans refounded them after Joe Meek's death saw half the outfit quit, before going on to join the Bonzos, play the opening night of the Comedy Store, and provide Big Brother's face for the John Hurt 1984...none of that is really necessary to Bowie's story, or Bolan's for that matter. What it does contribute, though, apart from being an interesting digression in its own right, is a sense of the scene without which the leads would never have been able to to manage their own feats, astonishing individuals though they were. As ever, I'm left wishing there were a better word than 'scenius' because, Eno coinage or not, it's a godawful term for a crucial, fascinating phenomenon. Bowie and Bolan were definitely friends, and rivals, probably lovers or something like it at times – but they weren't a unique pairing, because fiction loves to narrow things down to duos of one or another flavour, but in real life the webs are wider and stranger, so yes, they'd hang out together, but equally they were hanging out with various other faces and/or musicians, because Soho then was like that (and it must be said, visiting its gentrified ruins while reading this was quite the melancholy trip, mostly in the non-psychedelic sense of the word). If people hadn't been in these huge and shifting webs of acquaintanceship, after all, then Bowie in 1964 would never have been able to go through bands like the modern UK goes through ministers.

Then too, it's an interesting period on which to focus because...well, we know the seventies story of Bowie and Bolan, don't we? And the sixties story of the Beatles et al. But the sixties story of Bowie and Bolan as something more than the hastily skipped through bit between childhood (though childhood is here too) and superstardom, that's novel. There's been a trend towards this sort of music auto/biography lately, ones that stop in the early days, leaving the 'Needless to say I had the last laugh' imperial phase implicit – Bracewell's Roxy book, Jarvis Cocker, Madness, Brett Anderson (though admittedly Brett did cave and do a sequel, and one is planned for this too). There are things here which sent my sense of time a little wobbly, like being made aware that both men started off big fans of Cliff Richard – so that not only Bolan's brief, meteoric defining of a moment, but Bowie's whole extensive, culture-shifting era of fame, can be encompassed within Sir Cliff's unending, tedious, creepy, but definitely not criminal career. And as time reshapes around us, so do critical assessments. I do think London Boys is too kind on some, though certainly not all, of Bowie and Bolan's early efforts, but simply by paying full attention to them it does come up with useful insights, like Carlos Alomar's assertion that there's an unexpected amount of the Velvets' I'm Waiting For The Man in The Laughing Gnome. And if Burrows' roots in performing as a comic and having previously published a biography of a comic author might be considered naturally to make him more sympathetic to a comedy song, well, they also mean he's the ideal person to write about the truly ludicrous career of the proto-punk racket that was John's Children. As one German paper responded: "Poor John." Elsewhere, though, he takes the reverse – and rare – approach in attempting, gods help us, a serious appreciation of Bowie's much-mocked mime period. I was particularly taken with the would-be revolutionaries heckling his performance on the theme of Tibet's occupation, because how dare he be beastly to Maoist imperialism – the tankies, like the poor, we have always with us.

So it goes: the story of Bowie and Bolan, picking up on overlooked indicators, scrutinising anecdotes which don't quite stand up without letting the book turn into a dry exercise in demythologising (this approach in particular is familiar from Marc's Pratchett book). Equally, he points out when the true story is stranger than has been fully appreciated; the chain of events which saw the young Mark Feld getting into rock'n'roll when he did, in particular, is so strange and tenuous as almost to make one believe in fate. Or consider Bolan's relationship with John Peel, where it's a commonplace that Peel made Bolan's career, but people tend not to pick up on the corollary of how close Bolan came to sinking Peel's – and imagine the mess British music would have been left in then. I did have occasional quibbles, many of them with little typo stuff (Brel's Court of Amsterdam, indeed) though one or two more substantial (the notion of Quentin Crisp as entirely comfortable with his own sexuality feels a little pat, given his insistence that the man for whom he longed would compromise that longed-for masculinity by reciprocating); I suspect the Bolan ultras in particular will have more, though for my money Burrows' portrait of someone whose absolute certainty of his own imminent stardom was probably more charming from a distance gets it about right. Conversely, people invested in the notion of Kenneth Pitt as bad for Bowie, perhaps because they somehow took Angie's book seriously, may not relish the rehabilitation he mostly gets here. But at the very least it's another piece of the mosaic, and for my money a lot more than that.

(Netgalley ARC)

David Bowie, Marc Bolan and the 60s Teenage Dream

Rock and Roll fanatics, mods. beat group wannabes, underground hippies, glam rock icons: David Bowie and Marc Bolan spent the first half of their careers following remarkably similar paths. From the day they met in the 1960s as Davie Jones and Mark Fled, rock and roll wannabes painting their managers office in London's Denmark Street, they would remain friends and rivals, each watching closely and learning from each other.

Although I was not a fan of David Bowie and Marc Bolan, I'm always intrigued by how people made it big. London in the 1960s, we find out what was happening around both men in their early years. This is a very detailed read. that has some entertaining footnotes. This is an interesting read.

I would like to thank #NetGallley #PenandSword and the author #MarcBurrows for my ARC of #TheLondonBoys in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Pen & Sword Books for an advanced copy of this dual biography and study on two musical icons, their friendship, rivalry and influence.

History has a habit of picking favorites, deciding on who should get all the accolades, while others might get passed over, more of a legend than a historical character. Dying early, doesn't help as the arts always have a time where people look back and go, hey wait a minute, that was a good book, movie, painting, record, and suddenly a career on hold becomes a comeback story. Some stars always shine, like David Bowie, some stars burn bright but fade in memory, like Marc Bolan, but with periodic flares. This two men, friends, influencers to each to each other and others, rivals and at their last meeting playing music changed music, the scene and a bit of history. The London Boys: David Bowie, Marc Bolan and the 60s Teenage Dream by author and musical historian Marc Burrows is both a dual biography of these icons, and a look at the music, art and fashions at a scene that was being created around them.

David Jones, later David Bowie and a lot of other names, and Mark Feld, later Marc Bolan, were both born in London in 1947. England had won the war, but in many ways had seemed to have lost the peace, with austerity, food rationing and a society that seemed at a loss. Both men enjoyed the arts, Bolan with an almost fanatical need to be famous, but not exactly sure how to gain it, except for being discovered. Bowie, whose family was more financially secure grew up with art, studying design, art and music before finally entering the music world in 1969. Bowie also wanted fame and all that came with it, but his artistic sense would get in the way, and a lack of good songs, for that matter. By 1969 things were going for both men. Bowie had a semi-hit with Space Oddity, Bolan and his band T-Rex were making the scene and selling records, dressing in woman's clothing and creating the glam scene almost by chance. By the mid-seventies Bowie was ascendent, with Bolan drifting, due to band, marriage and health issues, before staging a comeback. The two reunited for a concert performance on a BBC show Bolan was hosting, before Bolan was killed in a car accident a month later.

A very interesting book on both music, London and its numerous problems, and of these two men, friends, rivals, and friends again, as Bowie's star kept rising, and Bolan's wasn't falling but, was never near Bowie. Writing a book about both men must have been difficult, as both were known to dance around the truth, the myth being for more interesting, and satisfying to the ego. When these occasions occur, Burrows will list all the stories, and let the reader decide, unless something was so obviously true, or the lie really that bad. The plotting is very good, sharing both men's lives together and never confusing or muddling the narrative. Plus the music really comes through, and you can tell the writer, who was named for Marc Bolan, really cares about getting his subjects correct and telling their story.

A wonderful book for fans of both men, which is novel as London itself is made a character, and readers can see what that town's effect had on both men. Recommended for music fans, and for fans of well written interesting biographies.

A detailed look at David Bowie and (my #1 love) Marc Bolan and youth culture in London, from their early years, before fame and to their ascent, leading to their reunion on the television show "Marc'.... where they played a blowout performance shortly before Marc's untimely death.

Burrows does a fabulous job inserting British history and the political goings-on during Bowie & Bolan's lives. This is not just a rock & roll history, this is a pop culture and British history study.

So many Bowie fans will pick this up, but THIS BOLAN fan will sleep even better know that Marc's story is being told to more and more people.

GET IT ON. BANG A GONG.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The London Boys
By Marc Burrows

London in the 1960s, the music, the fashion, the faces about town. Nothing encapsulates that time like David Bowie and Marc Bolan. I was instantly drawn to this book because I was such a huge fan of glam rock, it was the soundtrack to my early childhood. In this ambitious undertaking, the author wants to put us right back into that state of mind, that time and place, not necessarily promising the life stories of these two London boys, but more capturing the mood of moment.

This is a fact heavy piece of work. He walks us through what was going on around both men, what they were born into and grew up with, what informed their ambitions and aspirations. As a piece of narrative fiction, it gives lots and lots of information, plenty of notes, there are hundreds of memories, but for me what was missing was the narrative arc. It felt like a series of articles rather than a cohesive story, often repetitive, which impacted on the pacing. I know I am probably being very picky, because this will be absolutely devoured by fans, but maybe it was a missed opportunity.

Because I read an eARC, I can't tell what the finished book will be like, but I really hope it will be stuffed with artwork and photos. If it is, I will certainly purchase a few copies because it would be the perfect christmas present for the Gen Xer in your life.

Publication Date: 31th October 2022
Thanks so much to #netgalley for sending me this ARC

detailed look at the London boys Bolan and Bowie from their origins in London charting their careers up to the point Bolan died after the fatal car crash. the book itself was interesting.

A fascinating origin study of David Bowie and Marc Bolan’s early years focusing on their largely unsuccessful attempts to make names for themselves during the 1960s. The author has obviously done his homework and is therefore able to offer us 5 plausible reasons for Marc’s choice of Bolan as his stage name. I was impressed that Burrows is willing to embrace such uncertainty and avoid pedalling half truths, acknowledging that Bolan and Bowie’s tendencies to self-mythologise make it tricky to establish the actual facts on occasion.
Having read several Bowie biographies and watched the documentary about his early career, I didn’t feel I learnt very much I didn’t already know about him. However, this book accomplishes the no mean feat of looking at his and Bolan’s formative years in tandem and putting their development into its social context. It’s particularly intriguing where their paths intersect. Burrows is also very even-handed and devotes as much space to Bolan as Bowie. I don’t think critics have given Bolan’s musical achievements as much credit as they deserve and this book goes some way to redressing the balance.