This is Later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear weekday
Afternoons on the Drive. Susie Robson is an author, songwriter and former hairdresser
and stylist. At fifteen, she enrolled in the Evelyn Paget School College of
Hair and Beauty and went on to become David Bowie's stylist. She's written about
it in a memoir called Me and Mister Jones. Susie Ronson, good to
have you here. Well, thanks for having me Lee. Well let's go
back to the beginning. How did you hook up in the first place with
a ZIGGI startist. Well, it's a strange story really. I was a
typical suburban hairdresser working, you know, to roll up sets in a typical
British salon in Beckenham, and one of my clients happened to be David Bowie's
mother, And when she would come in, I would give her a shampoo
and set and she would chat to me about her son, David artistic.
He was what a wonderful guitar player, He wrote beautiful songs and she seemed
really proud of him. I didn't pay that much attention at first, you
know, I'd smile and nod and carry on doing her hair. It wasn't
until she mentioned Space Oddity I began to realize exactly who we were talking about.
It was David Bowie. But you know, David wasn't famous at that
point. He wasn't. He was a young man playing folk music in a
pub in Beckenham. He'd had the hit Space Oddity, but that was it.
I wasn't sure if he wasn't a one hit wonder. To be honest
with you, he had. Nothing had happened for a couple of years.
But that's when I met him, and that's when I created that aircut.
So yeah, he had already had the iconic record out that I think he's
known for, not only because of the subject matter and the poetry in the
song, but the production value. He produced a song that nobody had ever
heard before. Yes, exactly. It was a great song, wasn't it.
I mean, this was a really wonderful song. It jumped out of
the radio at you, Me and missus Jones. My Life with David Bowie
and the Spiders from Mars is Susie Ronson's memoir. So did he just happen
to come in and need a trim. No, no, Missus Jones.
I saw him walking down Beckenham High Street wearing a dress. He was with
this girl who had these skinny black pants on and a great fur jacket,
and she came into the salon with Missus Jones. Well, you know,
I liked her immediately a she was American. We never met any Americans in
England at that time, at least I hadn't. And she looked great.
She looked so cool and comfortable. I was fascinated by her and I did
her hair. I did little three bright stripes of color down the side of
her head and she said she'd be back. Well, she didn't come back
until Christmas week. Christmas Week, every salon in the world is busy because
Christmas Week. So when she walked out the salon, I followed her and
I said to her, listen, I can come to your house to do
your hair. So off I went to Hadden Hall and that's when I met
David, and that very same night I cut his hair. It was a
complete failure. At first, all well, so was cautiously optimistic, but
it didn't stand up. It just kind of flopped to one side. It
took me a couple of times before I got that final brilliant red color and
that brush that stood up on his head because he had kind of thin,
fine hair, didn't he No, it wasn't really thin. It was fine,
wasn't really thin. He had a lot of hair, but no one
could make their hair stand up straight. We didn't have We didn't have put
products in the days like you know that we have today. I think we
had dippity do that wasn't going to I used. I used this anti dandruff
treatment called God and the side effect of that was it set hair like stone.
So I used that on him, me and Missus Jones My Life with
David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars. So it was you that came up
with the ziggy stardust style, Not exactly he. I was met him.
I was in the front room with him and they were deciding. Angie and
him were tossing it about should we cut his hair short or not or whatever,
and he came over and showed me a photograph in a magazine of a
girl with the short, red, spiky hair, and he said to me,
can you do that? As I'm saying yes, I'm thinking to myself,
that's a girl's hairstyle, and how am I going to actually do it?
So it was a bit of a surprise that I mean, I was
cautiously optimistic, but as I say, it took me a couple of times
to get it completely red and completely standing up. All the while. When
you were doing David Bowie's hair and coming up with this look, did you
get any idea that you were dealing with someone who was really on the edge,
on the front edge of pop music and changing the way we look at
pop music. Well, not really, I didn't. It was only after
hanging out with them for a little while I realized, I mean, the
energy around this thing, the energy at the house, the band, the
Spiders, Oh my god, my husband Mick Ronson, what an incredible musician.
And when I saw them in London, the first time I saw them
in London at a college, That's when I knew. I thought this is
something else. I mean, the crowd went crazy, I went crazy,
and I just thought, I've got to figure out a way to get to
work with them. That was my dream was to work with them. Oh,
my friends told me I was crazy because girls didn't go on the road
and they were right. No girls were on the road except you know girlfriends
every once in a while and group is who were at some gigs. But
there was no one, no girls working on the road. So I think
I broke some ground there well, having to get a job with them.
Yeah, Susie Ronson, author of Me and Mister Jones My Life with David
Bowie and the Spiders from Mars. And so because his his his act,
if you will, was so it required a lot of makeup and a lot
of preparation from a looks stamded. I mean he just didn't comb his hair
and jump out on stage. You were there exact to prep him for every
singles performance. I imagine I was, And in a way when I realized
after I'd done his hair and I had this ambition to work with him,
I did think to myself, well, where's he going to go to get
a touch up? Where's he going to go to get his hair trimmed?
I mean it needed attention that hair. He certainly couldn't drop into somewhere in
Newcastle and say can you touch up my hair? And after the boys started
wearing makeup and these costumes, they needed someone to do pretty much everything for
them. They couldn't go to the shops, they couldn't do much. Because
after I joined them, the acceleration in his career was enormous. Within a
year, we were selling out everywhere in America and over here. We had
I think during the time I was with them, there was like five records
and sold the world. Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, a Ladd Insane Pinups,
and the Fantastic Transformer album that Mick Ronson and David Brow produced for Lou
Reed. That was an incredible record. So there was a lot going on
in that time. Susie Ronson, me and mister Jones. In My Life
with David Boy and the Spiders from Mars is the memoir, And I imagine
you became kind of a confidante, as most hairdressers do. You're sitting there,
you're working with them, and they're telling you all about, oh I
have a headache today or and now. In the course of making him up,
did you notice him becoming the character? Well, I didn't actually do
his makeup. He had makeup artists, okay a lot of the time,
and he did his own makeup a lot. I mean, I might do
a little bit here and there. But I wasn't really his makeup artist,
but I would be in the dressing room with him before every show, see
him on stage. I mean, originally I was going to call the book
only his hairdresser knows for sure, but I changed that. I think the
name I have but it's better now. Yes, I think I was really
close to David. I was the only one he saw because he changed his
clothes many times, many costume changes. One I would do any guitar solo.
I would take the clothes to the side of the stage and while Mick
Ronson was wailing, not ten feet from where we're standing, David and I
would change his costume. It was pretty intense, as you can tell.
It has a lot of behind the scenes information about the life of David Bowie,
Me and mister Jones. My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from
Mars. Susie Ronson, thank you for joining us and thanks for the memoir.
Well, thank you so much for having me. Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to
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