On Saturday September 16 fans will gather at Golders Green crematorium to remember the rock star Marc Bolan.
The singer died forty-six years ago, when a mini driven by his girlfriend hit a tree on Barnes common. Four days later, shocked and weeping fans gathered at the cemetery in Hoop Lane for his funeral.
Mourners included Rod Stewart and David Bowie - one floral tribute was a giant white swan, in memory of the T Rex star's breakthrough 1970 single.
A new documentary celebrates the life, legacy, and songwriting talent of the Hackney-born star, who grew up in Stoke Newington and reinvented himself from East End Mod Mark Feld into a rock legend.
The sometime catalogue model left school at 15 and started performing on the hallucinatory hippy folk scene before hitting his stride with electric guitars, fantasy lyrics and make-up - his 1971 appearance on Top of The Pops wearing glitter and eyeliner is credited with the birth of glam rock.
Angelheaded Hipster splices together historic footage of gigs and interviews, with stars such as Bono and The Edge, Beth Orton, Nick Cave, Joan Jett, Ringo Starr, and Bolan's son Rolan, recording songs for an album. It was a labour of love for New York director Ethan Silverman, "an ignorant Yankee" who was introduced to songs like Hot Love, I Love To Boogie, Children of the Revolution and 20th Century Boy and embarked "on a mission to educate my country and the world."
"It was the music that led me on this journey, it started when Bill Curbishley who has managed great artists like The Who and Jimmy Page introduced me to the music. I was blown away. I felt his influence was so strong I couldn't believe what I felt I had been hearing in other people's music for 50 years, just like he was inspired by Little Richard, Eddie Cochran and Jimi Hendrix, a lot of people of his era were incredibly influenced by him."
Direct contemporaries, Bolan and Bowie were rivals and friends. In the film Bowie recalls their meeting before they were famous, when mutual manager Leslie Conn got the budding singers to paint his office. After trading insults about their fashion sense, Bolan took Bowie dustbin diving along Carnaby Street where as Bowie says, the fashion shops would "rather than replace buttons on their shirts or zippers on their trousers, they’d just throw it away in the dustbins".
"So we used to go up and down Carnaby Street and go through all the dustbins, around nine, ten o’clock, and get our wardrobes together."
"It was a bromance, a relationship that runs the gamut," says Silverman adding that the stars' mutual publicist once told him they were "two peas on a pod".
"I think Marc was like a brother, a really loving relationship, and you could be really pissed off at each other."
Self-taught and self-invented, Bolan had charm in spades; his camp, gentle voice in interviews betrays little of his East End origins: "I think he created his own time and place wherever he was, but I don't think that tough boy hanging out on the East End streets showing off his Mod clothes ever left him," says Silverman. "Nor did the honesty, directness and perseverance."
"A lot of creative people teach themselves and then they teach us. He didn't need to be in a high school or University. He was a great innovator, leaps and bounds beyond most other pop stars. He had a certain something that came out of him when he danced and sang and played that was so unique and authentic. A lot of it was wild, airy fairy made up stuff, but even with all that he was authentic in his love of music and words."
Silverman says Bolan hailed from a line of eccentric British artists who "take things a step further."
"They come from such an ordered society the people who rebel do it with great panache. He was revolutionary in saying 'I am beyond labels, everyone should focus on love and the connection between humans, to me that's very moving. He doesn't feel dated, his music is as modern and relevant as anything that's out there, and it all came from his attitude and personality."
Silverman was relieved when former girlfriend Gloria Jones took part in the film and said the project was: "Exactly what Marc would have loved, other peple reinventing his music."
As for the unknowable question of what Bolan would he have done had he lived longer, Silverman says: "He would have done whatever he wanted, he was unafraid to champion Punk, he embraced Black culture, soul music, he would have done what felt right - whether that was embraced commerically I don't know - the pop industry has always been rough, you get promoted for a certain presentation and a catchy song, but how many people can keep that up? But I don't think he lost his spirit of creativity and integrity."
The film he says is "not the final word on Bolan" it's just one filmmaker's interpreation of his story: "It's for the fans and the non fans, the people who know and the people who don't know."
AngelHeaded Hipster The Songs of Marc Bolan and T.Rex is in cinemas on September 22.
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