How Marc Bolan created glam rock from “an old blues song”
Before Electric Warrior, T. Rex was predominantly a force of psychedelic folk. The fusion of the unmistakable acoustic guitar prowess of Marc Bolan and his vocal finesse, seamlessly interwoven with Steve Peregrin Took’s entrancing bongo rhythms and an eclectic array of percussion – including unconventional elements like the Pixiphone and even children’s instruments – cultivated a dedicated following within the flourishing realm of the hippy underground scene.
Then, during an era when glam rock surged as an irresistible phenomenon in the realm of music, the epicentre of this movement resided within T. Rex’s transformative sixth studio album, Electric Warrior. Basking in the reverberations of the 1970 chart-topper ‘Ride a White Swan’, which catapulted the band to a Beatles-like prominence, Electric Warrior channelled Bolan’s earlier enigmatic and folkloric lyricism, injecting it with newfound dynamism and catapulting it into unadulterated rock ‘n’ roll.
Evidently, glam rock had arrived with T. Rex at the fore, weaving a spell into rock music history that would permeate all corners of music for years to come. The album’s secret was that it fused together different parts of various musical styles: characterised by its infectious pulse and vibrant energy, it enriched its rock sensibilities with the beguiling allure of glitter, the rhythmic magnetism of funk, and the charisma inherent in earlier pop influences.
Electric Warrior‘s musical landscape also echoes the heritage of blues music, evident in tracks like ‘Jeepster’, which pays homage to earlier icons such as Howlin’ Wolf and his composition ‘You’ll Be Mine’. ‘Jeepster’ seamlessly melds these earlier blues contributions with heightened melodic drama and chord progressions that presage their era.
In keeping with the essence of numerous blues compositions, ‘Jeepster’ also employs a profusion of sexual allusions intricately woven into its lyrics, cleverly presented through the conduit of car-related metaphors. In candid interviews, Bolan openly acknowledged the song’s origins, admitting to borrowing this thematic essence from the Wolf track.
According to the track’s producer Tony Visconti, who also went on to do a lot of work with David Bowie, ‘Jeepster’ surprised him when he first heard it, as it was so fundamentally different to its source material. “When I heard ‘Jeepster’ I thought, ‘Wow, this is seriously different’,” Visconti admitted. “I know there’s an old blues song he copied, but he threw in some dramatic melodic and chord changes. The song’s in A but the chorus jumps to the key of C – no one in the ’50s did that!”
Bolan became increasingly excited by the prospect of such a reinvention, however, which can actually be heard within the first few beats of the track itself. According to Visconti, the rattling that you hear at the beginning of the song was actually Bolan jumping up and down with his guitar, which resulted in the microphone stand shaking. Instead of removing the noise and deeming it a mistake, they felt it added to the song’s feel and decided to leave it in.
