Audio Autopsy, 1971: Who Was Arnold Corns & Why Did David Bowie Produce His Single?
While we're at it, who on earth was Freddy Burretti, and why should we care? A pretty cool single I picked up in a record store's import section in 1974 turned out to be a mystery to me for decades!
Sometime in my first year at college (N. Texas State U. in Denton, TX) in 1974 (I was 19), I bought a single in a record store’s import section: Arnold Corns and what appeared to be two David Bowie covers. Plus, both sides were produced by Bowie. That’s all I knew.
At the time, I figured Bowie had found a fawning, new recording artist, one Mr. A. Corns, who wanted to record two of his hero’s songs, and the man himself produced!
It looked exactly like this (the one on the right, below)…a 1974 “import” single from the UK on Mooncrest Records, a re-issue from the original 1972 release by UK label, B&C Records:
And, it sounded like this:
You’ll hear more, meet the main characters, and discover the story of how it all came together, starting here, with this quick synopsis:
Discogs explains: “Arnold Corns was a band formed by David Bowie in 1971. Bowie played guitar and did most of the vocals, although his costume designer, Freddie Burretti, was considered as a lead vocalist. Mick Ronson on guitar, Trevor Bolder on bass, Mick Woodmansey on drums and Mark Pritchett on guitar, Arnold Corns was one of Bowie’s side projects at the time, and something of a dry run for Ziggy Stardust.
“This collaboration released three tracks - early versions of ‘Moonage Daydream’ and ‘Hang Onto Yourself,’ and the song, ‘Man in the Middle.’ The name, ‘Arnold Corns,’ was inspired by Bowie’s favourite Pink Floyd song, ‘Arnold Layne’”:
The MainMan Who Would Be Bowie
🎵Fashion - Turn to the left
Fashion - Turn to the right
Ooh, fashion
We are the goon squad and we're coming to town
Beep-beep
Beep-beep🎵—David Bowie, 1980, “Fashion,” from Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) album
Freddie….Ready?
Tony Defries (David’s former manager, now 81), paints this word-picture of Freddie on his MainManLabel.com website: “Freddie Burretti was a very important figure in David Bowie’s transformation from pop wannabe to rock megastar, creating a visual representation to match David’s evolving music explorations.
“Freddie was a talented designer who not only created flamboyant stage costumes for David, but was also very aware of how to use contemporary fashion to make original and very striking street wear.”
Defries on the walk-up to the Arnold Corns single: “Because Freddie was very striking and incredibly good looking, David persuaded himself that Freddie could become a singing star, and set out to launch him as Rudi Valentino, ‘the new Mick Jagger’ as front man for a band that would be ‘the next Rolling Stones.’ But it wasn’t to be.”
And, a large part of that turned out to be that Freddie just couldn’t sing.
Defries: “When David arrived back from his very successful promo tour of the U.S. in February of 1971, he was excited about the potential for the new music he was inspired to write, and had begun drawing up plans for his new character, Ziggy Stardust.
“Because he was unable to record or perform while his manager, Tony Defries, was extricating him from his existing contracts [Mercury Records in both UK and U.S.], to enable him to pursue more creative options, David decided that he would record some of his new songs for a group he called Arnold Corns, and he wanted Freddie to be the lead singer.”
Defries was concerned that anything with David’s voice on it could be legally construed by Mercury as being rightfully their property; this, while Defries was searching for a more lucrative deal for his prized client. Enter RCA Records, worldwide, in spring 1971.
Defries continues: “On February 25, 1971, a week after arriving back from America, David’s publisher, Bob Grace, arranged for a session at London’s Radio Luxembourg studios to record two new songs David had written that Bob was very impressed with: “Moonage Daydream” and “Hang On to Yourself”. Bob was right about the songs being great, but David was wrong in believing Freddie could sing them!
“To support Freddie, David brought in Mark Pritchett on guitar [we’ll hear from him, via video, below], Pete De Somogyl on bass and Tim Broadbent on drums. It soon became very evident that Freddie had no vocal abilities at all – and David had to sing vocals.
“The Arnold Corns single, with “Moonage Daydream” on Side A and “Hang on To Yourself” on Side B was released on May 7, 1971, with a credit for David Bowie as producer.”
The first session by the band (soon-to-be Spiders from Mars, Woody Woodmansey on drums, bassist Trevor Bolder, and Mick Ronson, guitar), on March 10, 1971, which included “Lady Stardust,” “Right on Mother” and “Moonage Daydream,” was recorded at the Radio Luxembourg Studios. This was followed by a session, recorded at the Trident Studios on June 4, 1971, which included “Man in the Middle” and “Looking for a Friend”:
Guitarist, Mark Pritchett, on the original sessions, talks about and plays “Man in the Middle” in 2019:
Defries concludes: “On June 17, Bob Grace booked another session for Arnold Corns at Trident Studios, where David was already working with Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey on tracks that would eventually be released on Hunky Dory.
“With Freddie on vocals and Mark Pritchett joining on guitar, the band recorded the songs, ‘Looking for a Friend’ and ‘Man in the Middle.’ These were intended for an album tentatively titled Looking for Rudi, but it soon became obvious, even to David, that Freddie’s Rudi Valentino was never going to be ‘the next Mick Jagger’, and so the Arnold Corns project died a miserable death.
“But, that didn’t really matter to David, as his own plans were gathering momentum, his new band was sounding fantastic, and he could sense that success was just around the corner. And, Freddie’s design skills, which were considerably greater than his vocal skills, were about to become a very important part of David’s evolution…”
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Hey, you have merch now! Very cool.
I can't get over how thin everyone was back in those days, and how great they could make those ultra fashions look. Bowie looked like a high fashion model.
Some very interesting Bowie history I was unaware of. Thanks for enlightening me, Brad!