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David, but as Richard also played the sax, David, who never did anything by halves, resolved to follow in his footsteps and those of Terry, who had always been a huge jazz fan and favored iconic saxophonist John Coltrane.
    Determined to learn to play the baritone sax, David was not a little disappointed when his father gave him a white acrylic Grafton alto—not baritone—sax. Still, undeterred, he picked up the local telephone directory, found a number, and called renowned baritone sax player Ronnie Ross, who had performed with Woody Herman and other jazz greats—and, better still, as far as David was concerned, lived just a few miles away from him in Orpington, Kent.
    Following the Pied Piper of his sense of destiny, David wasn’t in the least bit shy in asking Ronnie to give him lessons. As he remembered: “I said, ‘Hi, my name is David Jones, and I’m twelve years old, and I want to play the saxophone. Can you give me lessons?’ ”
    Ronnie was taken aback by the request—his first instinct was to refuse. But somehow or other, David convinced him to meet, and when they did, he won the sax player over. David’s Saturday morning lessons with Ronnie, which cost him the princely sum of £2 a lesson, lasted for three months, during which Ronnie was impressed by his pupil’s diligence, persistence, and talent. And David, returning the compliment, judged Ronnie to be cool, and always remembered him fondly.
    “Much later on,” David recalled, “when I was producing Lou Reed, we decided we needed a sax solo on the end of ‘Walk on the Wild Side’; I got the agent to book Ronnie Ross.”
    After Ronnie flawlessly completed his solo in one take, David, who rarely forgets anyone who has treated him well in the past, smiled and said, “Thanks, Ron. Should I come over to your house on Saturday morning?”
    “I don’t fucking believe it!” Ronnie Ross exclaimed when he discovered that David Bowie had once been David Jones, his talented pupil, the twelve-year-old with so much love for the sax, and so much ambition.
    F rom the first, John Jones, the former nightclub owner, who had once been married to Hilda, the Viennese Nightingale, was fascinated by show business, and passed his passion for greasepaint on to his son, David, as if by osmosis.
    “Uncle John enjoyed all the celebrities and . . . that touch of glamour,” David’s cousin Kristina observed.
    As soon as David was old enough, John Jones gave him an autograph book and did all he could to help him fill it with the signatures of stars. And as Dr. Barnardo’s press officer in charge of recruiting celebrities to help raise funds for the charity and also to interact with the children in it, he also was able to afford David an early glimpse of stars and stardom. When David was still a child, his father took him to see entertainer Tommy Steele onstage and took him backstage to see Tommy afterward. Born Tommy Hicks, like David, south of the Thames, Tommy Steele would become somewhat of an inspiration for David, and the blueprint for a facet of his initial show business image: the cheeky, chappy Cockney singer, part Tony Newley, part Lionel Bart, essentially a slightly disreputable character of the ilk of the Artful Dodger, of Oliver Twist fame.
    The outing to see Tommy Steele was one of many that John Jones arranged for David. “Uncle John wanted David to be a star,” David’s cousin Kristina noted.
    “He thought his son was absolutely marvelous. He always said he was going to do something great and talked about him all the time,” said John’s secretary, Winifred Bunting.
    In short, instead of having a classic show business mother, a Mama Rose, exhorting him to “sing out,” David was blessed with having ashow business father , one who would, through his teens, guide him, help him, and teach him the ways of self-promotion and image making.
    As David dreamed of Little Richard and America, he dreamed from the perspective of postwar Britain, where he