The Last Empress of Bohemia

 The Fems of Feb.

Blues-rock vocal powerhouse Dana Gillespie (born Richenda Antoinette de Winterstein Gillespie) lived the uncommonly colorful life of an artist who worked & partied with many of the great names in music, who acted on the silver screen, & on the London stage. She proudly recalls her liaisons with Bowie, Bob Dylan, Keith Moon, & "the cream of 1960s rock royalty", her recording work with Jimmy Page & Elton John, her roles as Mary Magdalene in the original London production of Jesus Christ Superstar & the Acid Queen in Tommy.

Her most prized memories involve one David Jones (soon to be known as David Bowie).  Dana & Bowie met when she was 13, attending Francis Holland, a private school for girls, in Chelsea.  "Some people have said, 'He was your boyfriend.' Well, we had a bit of a ding-dong but not what I would call a love affair – it was always pals," explains Dana.

Gillespie had first set out to be a drummer but swapped drums for singing & guitar.

After a few singles on Pye, Gillespie landed at the same recording house as Bowie; he on Deram, she on its parent, Decca.  Both of them had what they most wanted: album contracts. Gillespie completed Foolish Seasons (1968), a US-only release which included "You Just Gotta Know My Mind" written for her by Donovan. It was produced by Jimmy Page but he didn't get a credit. Dana remarks, "You never did in those days."

The following year's Box of Surprises, written entirely by Gillespie & produced by Mike Vernon, should have put her on equal footing with the emerging singer/songwriters. "The cover was me sitting on a coffin surrounded by stuffed animals; I was trying to be edgy even then," she laughs. "The band was Savoy Brown but, again, they got no mention in the credits."

Dana & Bowie then came under the auspices of manager Tony DeFries, who started Main Man management company. Wasn't Born a Man was recorded at Trident Studios for RCA. It was meant to be produced by Bowie & Mick Ronson. In the end, it was split between Bowie, Ronson (also sharing arranging duties with Del Newman & Robert Kirby), herself, & Robin Cable. "David was off in the US. The cracks between him & Ronson had started to show," she remembers.

For her second RCA release, Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle, co-produced by Gillespie & John Porter (fresh from playing bass on Roxy Music's For Your Pleasure), out came a bluesy, deep-groove sensibility, a portent of Gillespie's later career. Sessions at Island Studios were described unflinchingly, in all their bacchanalian splendor ("The consumption of narcotics was phenomenal, but the results were surprisingly creative")

Dana: "DeFries said, 'You must go through life first-class in order to get first-class.' I was having a great time – 24/7 limos, a flat on 58th Street between 2nd and 3rd, just 'round the corner from Bloomingdales. It had been MainMan's offices and they'd put Iggy Pop in there before I moved in, and Wayne County who turned into Jayne County. MainMan had a mystique that nobody else in the music scene had.”"

& then overnight, calls went unanswered, bills unpaid. Dana continues, "I noticed things were going wrong once I got back to England and heard that they'd closed the Park Avenue offices. I never questioned where this, that and the other was coming from and the fact that I had first class tickets, all paid for, wherever I wanted to go. DeFries had given me a fabulous black BMW. I drove it for about a year and then I found a repo man following me. I didn't know what hire-purchase was or that the car wasn't mine! That's when I knew things were bad. Nobody was picking up the phone, the offices were closed, nobody was getting paid and DeFries disappeared to Zurich."

Still recording now (her latest was 2021s Deep Pockets), she never regained the momentum lost with the collapse of Main Man.

Here is her greatest moment of that lost era. 

 

Dana Gillespie - Weren't Born a Man, RCA APLI 0354, 1974.
decryption code in comments

Side 1 -
Stardom Road Part I & Part II
What Memories We Make
Dizzy Heights
Andy Warhol (Bowie cover)
Backed a Loser

Side 2 -
Weren't Born a Man
Mother, Don't Be Frightened
All Cut Up on You
Eternal Showman
All Gone

Enjoy,
NØ