How Tony Visconti keeps the Bowie flag flying

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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