Biff Rose - Mama's Boy

An odd and goofy singer/songwriter who didn't fit in any comfortable niche when he emerged in the late 1960s, New Orleans pianist Biff Rose was like a vaudeville entertainer reincarnated as a spacy hippie. It isn't quite accurate to call him a rock artist, but he fits in rock about as well as anywhere else. If he's remembered by rock audiences, it's because David Bowie covered a Rose song -- "Fill Your Heart" (co-written by Rose and Paul Williams), from Rose's 1968 debut album The Thorn in Mrs. Rose's Side on Hunky Dory. Bowie also covered another song from that album, "Buzz the Fuzz," in live performances (it can be heard on a 1970 bootleg), and there can be no doubt that Rose influenced Bowie's early-'70s work, particularly Hunky Dory, which owed something to Rose's early albums in both the quasi-musical piano styles and thorny-rose lyrics.

http://www.biffrose.com/

Category:

Music

Tags:

• 1968
• outsider
• music
• david
• bowie
• hunky
• dory