Mike Garson had no idea who David Bowie was when he met him for the first time. It was September 1972, and the pianist had been invited to audition for Bowie’s band at New York’s RCA Studios by the singer’s manager, Tony Defries. “I had never heard a note of his music,” says Garson today. “I was a jazz guy.”
Despite that inauspicious start, Garson would get the gig and go on to play more than 600 gigs with Bowie between 1972 and 2006, more than any other musician. The most famous of these came early on, at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on July 3, 1973. That was the fabled night when the singer dramatically retired his Ziggy Stardust character onstage. “Not only is this the last show of the tour,” he announced to a shocked audience, “but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do.”
