J F Vernon Blog

What’s your all-time favorite album?

My older sister, four years ahead of me, had all the cool records her younger brothers couldn’t help but hear. One day I went from Mary Hopkins to Ziggy Stardust overnight. That shift mattered: I’d found myself pulled toward the different, the odd, the creative, the performer.

We even met Bowie once, by chance — he was registering in reception at the Gosforth Park Hotel. To us kids, he was delightful. And of course he looked every inch the pop star. That encounter nailed the appeal. Soon my walls were covered with posters from the Kard Bar, and I was buying sheet music from Isaac Walton’s so I could pick out the songs on guitar.

It led me places. Singing in youth theatre, busking on French radio, even writing my own songs. Every Bowie album followed in due course, but Ziggy Stardust was the only one I’d perform straight through, in order, just as it appeared on the LP.

Years later, at my sister’s funeral, Bowie played again — this time through chapel speakers. That completed the circle. For me, Ziggy Stardust will always be more than music. It’s family, memory, creativity, and a reminder of how art can shape a life.

Over the years, I shifted allegiance to a different Bowie Album, to Alladin Sane, to Hunky Dory, to Pin Ups, then to Space Oddity, onwards to Low, and of course ending with Blackstar.