<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Having recently finished reading Woody Woodmansey book <\/span>Spider from Mars – My Life with Bowie <\/span><\/i>(<\/span>St. Martin\u2019s Press 2016)<\/span><\/i>, it seemed appropriate to update his story a bit. \u00a0We had passed along some information on his newly released book in April of 2017 based on a brief review of the book and a short interview with Woodmansey, both of which appeared in <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0It seems there were a couple of thing in those pieces that were a little off, so let me take this opportunity to set things straight and tell you more about Woody the Spider.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Michael Woodmansey was born to a single mother in what can only be described as the small, rural English town of Driffield, Yorkshire on February 4, 1950. \u00a0Her father\u2019s conventional thinking of the day would have sent her packing had not her strong willed mother intervened. \u00a0With his biological father in the armed forces, Michael Bradley (as he was called until his parents married some years later) would be molded in those early years by his maternal grandparents. \u00a0When his father left the service and they established their own home, young Michael found himself to be at odds with his father more than he had ever been with his grandparents. \u00a0He was an adequate student, but education lost most of its charm when it became apparent that the English class system of planning one\u2019s future rested more on where one came from and not what potential one might have. \u00a0Michael was from a working man\u2019s home and had already been pigeon-holed into the \u201cfind a trade, work until you die\u201d box because that is how the system worked at the time. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His apprenticeships at skilled trades like electrical work and plumbing were short lived. \u00a0He stumbled upon music accidentally. \u00a0A buddy\u2019s older brother rehearsed with a band in a shed called \u2018The Cave\u2019 at their father\u2019s farm machinery repair shop. \u00a0Michael\u2019s buddy got him inside the room for a Roadrunners rehearsal and the seed was planted: \u00a0\u00a0he would be involved in music. \u00a0A small group of his other mates decided to form a band and after finding no method of osmosis that worked to help him learn to play the guitar, he picked up a battered drum kit from the local Salvation Army and found out he had a knack for playing the drums. \u00a0Like most fledgling bands, they played a few house parties and dances as they rode the growing wave of rock music as it developed in the early 1960s. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Being fans of science fiction comics, the band called themselves The Mutations. \u00a0They secured permission to practice in The Roadrunners\u2019 Cave and began absorbing music of The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, John Mayall, and numerous artists from Tamla Motown label. \u00a0They had to look the part and as Woodmansey now recalls, \u201cI decided to grow my hair long, which was the start of the downward slope academically speaking. \u00a0The teachers hated it and wouldn\u2019t let us eat our lunch with everyone else; \u00a0they actually had a special table in the canteen for the long-haired boys. \u00a0I guess it\u2019s hard to imagine this nowadays, but back then the whole school would walk past you, chanting \u00a0\u201cUnclean! Unclean!\u201d and pretending to ring lepers\u2019 bells.\u201d \u00a0As he lost all interest in his schooling, Michael became the class comedian which didn\u2019t sit well with the school administration or his parents. \u00a0Threatened with expulsion, he pulled his act together for a semester, only to be told, \u201cLeave, or we will toss you out.\u201d \u00a0At the age of fifteen, he was forced to tell his mother and father he was leaving school to learn a trade. \u00a0His father accepted it as the best course but his mother did not.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the drum stool in The Roadrunners was offered to Woodmansey, even his Mutations bandmates agreed it was a move he needed to make. \u00a0When The Roadrunners had run out of steam, he was out of music for a while but still searching. \u00a0In those early days of rock and roll, there were a lot more semi-professional musicians working day jobs and gigging whenever they could. \u00a0After his failed attempt at trade apprenticeship, \u00a0he had joined his buddies working at the Vertex Spectacle factory. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He found he liked factory work and his knack for fixing machinery presented him with an opportunity to move up the ladder. \u00a0\u00a0Woodmansey was somewhat dismayed that he was offered a chance to work in more of a supervisory role at Vertex. \u00a0He wasn\u2019t sure how the older workers would take to having a much younger supervisor, so he said he would have to think about it over the weekend. \u00a0While he was mulling over whether or not to take the new position, he received a call from David Bowie asking him to join his new band. \u00a0Bowie was a folk singer with a one-hit wonder reputation after <\/span>Space Oddity<\/span><\/i> was released. \u00a0In the end, Woodmansey\u2019s internal dialog ping ponged back and forth as he compared a life of stability and a steady income to that of a musician in a new band with a future full of question marks. \u00a0He decided that he didn\u2019t want his future self to look back and say \u201cWhat if I had given this a shot?\u201d \u00a0With the Vertex factory in his rearview mirror, Woodmansey found himself living with Bowie and Angie at Haddon Hall while they pieced together music that would ultimately lead to the Spiders from Mars incarnation of Bowie\u2019s career. \u00a0It was a Spartan existence with Mick Ronson and Woodmansey sleeping on mattresses on the landing of the first floor flat apartment. \u00a0Producer Tony Visconti played bass on their earliest recording efforts as The Hype. \u00a0When bassist Trevor Bolder joined the band, the classic Spiders from Mars began to make a name for themselves. \u00a0Blazing new territory that would usher in the new musical wave of \u201cglam rock\u201d, they weren\u2019t an immediate phenomenon. \u00a0They did their road and recording work with due diligence through the albums <\/span>The Man Who Sold the World <\/span><\/i>(1970) and <\/span>Hunky Dory <\/span><\/i>(1971). \u00a0They found their golden glam rock gimmick with <\/span>The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust<\/span><\/i> (1972) which rose to number 5 on the record charts. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Touring relentlessly in the wake of Ziggy\u2019s success began to take a toll on the Spiders. \u00a0The \u00a0Bowie – band relations took a downturn when Woodmansey learned that some of the support musicians were being paid a lot more than the original Spiders. \u00a0Bowie\u2019s growing drug additions were making him more and more aloof. \u00a0When he and his manager were confronted with the pay disparity, the Spiders were disappointed that Bowie claimed that he could perform his music with any musicians. \u00a0The band that helped him create the entire Bowie catalog that led to Ziggy was now being deemed as \u201csuperfluous\u201d much to their disappointment. \u00a0With no leverage, the band carried on until Bowie took another right turn and announced that Ziggy was now history. \u00a0His manager called Woodmansey and in a display of utter spite, informed him on his wedding day that he was no longer in Bowie\u2019s band. \u00a0While one would not blame Woodmansey for being bitter at this unforeseen turn of events, he soon got over the anger and disappointment of being sacked and began to reflect on the events that ended with his termination from The Spiders: \u00a0\u201cIn retrospect, it\u2019s now obvious that events had been set in motion even before that (\u2018that\u2019 being his reactive outburst during the wages discussion that had not done Woodmansey any favors and put him at the top of the firing list)\u201d. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Woody further explained \u2018events\u2019 as follows: \u00a0\u201cI had also noticed his (Bowie\u2019s) inability to be in control of \u2018Ziggy\u2019 and that he appeared more and more in character 24\/7. \u00a0I had thought at the time that \u2018Ziggy in America\u2019, as he had described the <\/span>Aladdin Sane <\/span><\/i>album, was a bit of a compromise for him and he\u2019d wanted to move on. \u00a0I looked back now and realized even at that point that he was looking for a way out of Ziggy Stardust and back to David Bowie, but \u2019Ziggy\u2019 was so huge I don\u2019t think he could see how to do it without potentially disastrous consequences for his career. \u00a0Therefore, we had to go, along with \u2018Ziggy\u2019.\u201d Add the fact that RCA records refused to continue funding Bowie\u2019s massive tours and \u2018Ziggy\u2019 was on a final, slippery slope.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bassist Trevor Bolder eventually called out Bowie and his manager for what he termed, \u201cthe disgusting thing you did to Woody at his wedding,\u201d but Ronson took him aside and reminded him that at this point, this would only have them sacked as well. \u00a0\u00a0As it turned out, Bowie\u2019s <\/span>Pin Up<\/span><\/i> album was their last go around with him anyway. \u00a0Ronson went on to work with Mott the Hoople and made a name for himself as a producer and studio player. \u00a0Bolder and Woodmansey formed a band they called Spiders From Mars but when that group folded, they went off in different directions. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Woodmansey had a few misfires in his career. \u00a0Not showing up for an audition for Wings and turning down an offer from Meat Loaf were things he could have regretted, but as he did when he was fired from Bowie\u2019s band, he made a choice to move on to the next thing. \u00a0Over the years, he has done studio work with the likes of Dexie\u2019s Midnight Runners and toured with Edgar Winter and Art Garfunkel. \u00a0Pianist Nicky Hopkins had become a close friend and got him in the door with both Winter and Garfunkel. \u00a0He also made fast friends in the business like Joe Elliott of Def Lepperd who was a big fan. \u00a0Woodmansey found this out in 1997 when working with Elliot at a charity function. \u00a0Elliot showed Woodmansey a hat Woody had signed for him when Elliot attended a show by Woody\u2019s band U-Boat in 1976.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Woodmansey circled back in 2014 when he and Bowie\u2019s long time producer Tony Visconti began touring as Woody Woodmansey\u2019s Holy Holy. \u00a0Having been two of the principle architects of Bowie\u2019s early sound, they have played the whole of <\/span>The Man Who Sold the World <\/span><\/i>album with Visconti stepping out to tell anecdotes about those days. \u00a0At one such concert on January 8, 2016, Visconti called Bowie during the show to have the crowd sing <\/span>Happy Birthday <\/span><\/i>to him. \u00a0Bowie in turn asked Visconti to find out what they thought of his new album <\/span>Blackstar<\/span><\/i> and after they roared their approval, he wished Holy Holy well with the tour. \u00a0By the next stop in Toronto, Bowie was dead. \u00a0That night, Visconti and Woodmansey stepped out to explain that they were going to deal with their grief with music and to celebrate David and his music. \u00a0It was a fitting tribute that they continued to the end of the tour. \u00a0Woodmansey continues to take pride in his musical career \u00a0but still says his proudest accomplishment is his family.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Holy Holy with Tony Visconti & Woody Woodmansey performing Width Of A Circle from ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ album, at the Shepherds Bush Empire, London in 2014