Our manager Ralph Horton was trying to force us to perform while our erstwhile lead singer, future solo superstar, David Bowie kept his distance. He dearly wanted the gig to go ahead, but at the same time he was upset we were making a stand. So there he was, walking, schoolboy-like, back and forth along the Bromley Court Hotel’s boundary wall and listening warily as the exchange became increasingly heated. The dispute had begun earlier that afternoon when Ralph told the band – me the drummer, lead guitarist Denis “T-cup” Taylor and bassist Graham Rivens – there would be no pay for the gig because he needed the money “for expenses”. Whether our 19-year-old singer would be paid was not discussed. But it didn’t help that this was an important location for David, outside The Bromel Club in Bromley, south-east London, and a short hop from his family home.

It was an impasse. We weren’t going to budge, but nor was Ralph.

Our courage to do the unthinkable, renege on a gig commitment, came as the last straw in our dealings with Ralph and changing relationships between David and the rest of us.

“Well, if you are not going to play, then I want the equipment I’ve paid for,” said Ralph. With that, Denis and Graham unloaded the remaining amps due to Ralph from the ambulance (our tour bus).

We were finished as David Bowie and The Lower Third. I was never certain whether we’d been fired or quit. I offered my hand to Dave as a parting gesture, but he declined it.

I wish we’d stayed with Dave for another six months, if nothing more. It would have been nice to have made another record or two with him. You never knew what he was going to come up with.

I felt he was always on the edge of something special. It just took another six or seven years for him to properly work it out and finally make himself known to the world.

The three of us resolved that night to continue to give it a go, even without our charismatic frontman. But in truth, the band’s spirit was broken that afternoon.

I first met David seven months before that final, fateful showdown. It was 1965 and I was a drummer seeking a band. After receiving a call from Graham,

I was directed to the Gioconda café at No 8 Denmark Street, off London’s Charing Cross Road.

I recall walking up to the counter at the far end of the café to ask if they knew of a bloke called Davie Jones. “That’s him on the phone by the door,” came the reply. I’d walked right past him on the way in.

Standing by the door was indeed a skinny bloke with bleached hair that had partly grown out, his darker roots giving a sort of half-and-half look.

He was immediately engaging, had a great sense of humour and carried himself with real style. We found a table, ordered a cup of tea – and perhaps even egg and chips (later one of our mutual meals of choice) – and then settled down to talk about music.

The Lower Third had started life a few years earlier as a group in their native Margate, Kent. Having cut their teeth on the local circuit, they decided the time was right to try to make it in London, recruiting the then David Jones as their singer.

A month after Dave joined the band, drummer Les Mighall departed and I was drafted in. Having finished our egg and chips, the deal was done and not a musical note exchanged.

It was agreed he and the band would pick me up from home for my first gig on the coming Saturday.

It came and David, Denis and Graham turned up at my parents’ house in Walthamstow in the new group van, an ex-London County Council ambulance still emblazoned with its sign above the windscreen and the bell on the front.

We seemed to hit it off right away. I was buzzing with excitement and, I’m sure, with some anticipation. It certainly wasn’t the usual thing to start in a new band without any rehearsals.

The only time I would get a feel of what was needed was in conversation with Dave during the journey and at a brief sound check at the venue, which turned out to be the Starlight Rooms in Brighton.

All I can remember is that the show went well. The rest of the night is a blur. But, in any case, it was a good one to get under my belt.

Despite his air of mystery, I was starting to settle in with Dave and the boys. Very quickly it felt like we had been working together for months rather than a few weeks.

We continued to gig like this, playing at places ranging from La Discotheque in Soho to, bizarrely, Streatham Ice Rink. (Yes, ice and skates, with people skating around trying not to brain themselves as we performed.)

Our energy was terrific and never so much as when we performed live. We soon had the reputation for being the second loudest group in the capital afterTheWho.

On the nights we were working away from London, there was generally no accommodation between gigs. We turned our vehicle into a mobile hotel room with a good enough supply of blankets and pillows for some comfort.

Denis and Graham slept in their seats in the cab, each of them having just enough legroom to stretch out.

After a little careful rearrangement to create suitably flat surfaces, Dave and I would sleep on the amplifiers in the back of the vehicle. When we stirred in the morning, we had the outlines of Marshall amp logos stamped into our backs!

When our first single,You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving, was released in the summer of 1965, we eagerly awaited our imminent success.

But it wasn’t to be. In fact, we felt a little deflated before it was even released.

A tinge of disappointment set in among the band when we discovered we weren’t credited on the label, which simply read, Davy Jones.

To be fair, label billing was never discussed. David’s burgeoning experimental streak revealed itself during one of our ambulance journeys while we were testing out new promotional ideas.

Discussing our visual presentation, he said: “What about putting make-up on for the stage?” The idea was rejected – only to surface a few years later and become one of David’s trademarks.

As a group, we were becoming tighter in our sound. But we clearly needed direction. To this end, we met Ralph Horton who would manage us.

The announcement that really triggered the birth of one of the most recognisable names in the rock industry came when Ralph informed us we needed to change our name.

More specifically, David had to change his stage name from Jones to something else. Ralph was concerned he would get lost amid better established Davie (or Davy) Joneses.

Dave turned up at our next meeting and announced he had changed his stage name to Bowie.

OK, I thought. I know who that is, or was. Jim Bowie was one of the guys that held out at the Alamo to the grim end, and he gave his name to a type of large hunting knife.

In hindsight, it turned out to be the perfect name for him and it soon grew on me too. So from then on we were known as David Bowie and The Lower Third, for it had also come to pass that Davie had to go too. Such was the pace of change in our camp and Ralph’s attention to detail.

Ralph’s arrival also heralded David’s bisexuality. Denis and Graham were so poor they often slept in the van.

One cold winter night they realised they were just round the corner from Ralph’s flat.

As they approached, they saw the windows were blocked with cardboard. They knocked on the door and Ralph’s flatmate Kenny opened it. “You can’t come in,” he said, “Ralph is in bed with David.”

That shocked us all, mainly because Dave was such a red-blooded ladies’ man. We hadn’t had the slightest clue he liked men too. I’m not sure we even knew much about bisexuality.

But Dave was still one of my best mates and what he did privately was his own business. I would never have guessed that his sexual preferences would provide one of the music industry’s defining moments.

There is no doubt David’s bravery in revealing he was gay in 1972 went on to help the gay community – four years later, he told Playboy he was bisexual.

Ultimately, it was Ralph who brought the curtain down on David Bowie and The Lower Third when we found ourselves arguing in the Bromley Court Hotel car park in January 1966.

David was clearly torn between Ralph and us, or more likely between playing what was to him an important homecoming gig and ditching the Third. Or was there more to it?

Was it the outcome they had been working towards all the time, and had it, rather inconveniently perhaps, occurred more prematurely than they had planned? I’ll never know.As for David, we know the rest.

History reveals he never stayed with one particular group of musicians for long – that’s how he operated. Today, I’m just grateful I played in one of his bands.

At The Birth Of Bowie, by Phil Lancaster (John Blake Publishing, £8.99).

For your copy with free UK delivery, call Express Bookshop on 01872 562310, or send a cheque/postal order payable to Express Bookshop to: David Bowie Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ or visit expressbookshop.co.uk

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