Musicians to pay tribute to the original ‘Metal Guru’, Marc Bolan
No matter which way you look at it, Marc Bolan was T-Rex, and T-Rex was Marc Bolan.
One of the music industry’s finest groovers and first true gender-benders, preceding (and even inspiring) David Bowie, Bolan lived a life as glam as his music suggested.
Songs like Metal Guru, Jeepster, Telegram Sam and Children of The Revolution oozed cool, nonchalance or rebellion – sometimes all at once.
Bolan’s pop life was short-lived, however, with the British star killed in a car accident in London on September 16, 1977, just two weeks short of his 30th birthday and, ironically, one month after the premature passing of his idol, Elvis Presley.
Now, a batch of veteran musicians – and a couple of cool contemporary ones – are paying tribute to Bolan, 42 years after his passing. Next year will see the release of a tribute album of covers of Bolan tunes and T-Rex songs; covers by the likes of U2, Foo Fighters, Elton John, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, and Perry Farrell. Representing the new gen are Kesha and Borns, so far, with more modern artists soon to be announced.
Veteran music producer Hal Willner (Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson) is looking over the compilation which will coincide with the release of a T-Rex documentary.
Not much word yet of who will sing what, although U2 have reportedly already filed away a damn good version of T-Rex’s biggest hit, Bang a Gong (Get It On).
Antonino Tati
CREAM MAGAZINE 
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