The Cover Uncovered: The first David Bowie masterpiece, ‘Hunky Dory’
Throughout the 1960s, David Bowie seemed to struggle with an identity crisis of sorts. A strong musical vision required a little fine-tuning before it endeared fans on a global scale. In 1967, Bowie’s first album arrived as an ill-conceived and esoteric product of the psychedelic era in a similar vein to Syd Barrett’s more successful exploits in The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Barrett sadly contributed to just two Pink Floyd albums, but his ongoing impact on the Starman was profound. “He was the first guy I’d heard to sing pop or rock with a British accent,” Bowie once said of the troubled artist. Above all else, the original Pink Floyd bandleader made Bowie feel less isolated in his very British approach to rock music.
Throughout the 1960s, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles would generally opt for a fashionable American accent in their pop songs, but early on, Bowie tried to follow in Barrett’s footsteps. Incidentally, his embrace of American influences coincided with his first masterpiece album, Hunky Dory.
With overt references to the likes of Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan and The Velvet Underground, the album was a purposeful embrace of the US market. “The whole Hunky Dory album reflected my newfound enthusiasm for this new continent that had been opened up to me,” Bowie said in a 1999 conversation with Rolling Stone. “That was the first time a real outside situation affected me so 100 per cent that it changed my way of writing and the way I look at things.”
While the US inspired some of the album’s music, Bowie seemed intent on maintaining an unmistakably British aspect. This was achieved partly by the title, initially suggested by the Chrysalis label executive, Bob Grace. According to Nicholas Pegg’s book The Complete David Bowie, Grace had heard the old English phrase at a pub in Esher, where the eccentric landlord would constantly spout out “upper-crust jargon,” including words like “whizzo” and the response “I’m hunky-dory” when asked how he was.
Grace’s impact on the record’s aesthetic didn’t end here. Keen to ensure a captivating visual aspect for the sleeves, he introduced Bowie to photographer Brian Ward, who did such a great job he was commissioned again to work on the iconic The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars artwork, a year later.
Initially, Ward requested that Bowie dress as an Egyptian Pharaoh, inspired by the concurrent fascination surrounding the new Tutankhamun exhibit at the British Museum. He captured shots of Bowie posing as a sphinx and in the lotus position, one of which was finally published in 1990 as part of the Space Oddity reissue.
Bowie ultimately abandoned the Pharaoh shots for the Hunky Dory project. “We didn’t run with it,” Bowie reflected. “Probably a good idea.” Instead, he and Ward opted for a simpler image that aligned with the album’s thematic “preoccupation with the silver screen” and Americanisation. Accordingly, they sought a glamorous expression of Bowie himself, as opposed to an ancient Egyptian ruler.
On the back cover is a shot of Bowie’s full-length garbed in Oxford bags, a particularly baggy trouser style popular among flashy academics of the time. “I was into Oxford bags, and there are a pair, indeed, on the back of the album,” Bowie recalled in The Complete David Bowie. “What I presumed was kind of an Evelyn Waugh Oxbridge look.”
Meanwhile, one of Bowie’s most iconic shots appears on the front cover. Just before his Ziggy Stardust mullet years, Bowie sported a lengthy head of hair that he can be seen pulling back while a vacant expression plays on his face. This transfixing pose was allegedly inspired by the actresses Lauren Bacall and Greta Garbo, who had previously been captured in similar positions.
A crucial part of the allure is the strange colouration and an almost pixelated effect on the front cover. In an age before computer manipulation, this effect was achieved by hand-colouring; Ward’s original shot was taken in monochrome, with recolouring conducted by illustrator Terry Pastor, who also wrecked on the Ziggy Stardust album cover.
Bowie’s choice to use recolouring on the Hunky Dory album cover is thought to be inspired by Andy Warhol’s similar work on the famous Marilyn Diptych screen-prints. As if in gratitude, Bowie wrote his ode to the eminent pop star, ‘Andy Warhol’. Sadly, alongside ‘Song for Bob Dylan’, this marked one of the album’s least enjoyable moments.
Listen to David Bowie’s ‘Andy Warhol’ below.