Music PR legend Alan Edwards explained to NME how Bowie would use a simple technique to avoid being noticed in public in the '80s The music PR legend Alan Edwards has told NME how David Bowie used to disguise himself in public during the height of his commercial success. Edwards, who founded the celebrated PR film The Outside Organisation, worked alongside Bowie, as well as the likes of The Rolling Stones , Prince and Britney Spears. He has now published his memoir, I Was There: Dispatches from a Life in Rock and Roll , and in a conversation with NME about it , he has disclosed how Bowie dealt with his fame in the early ‘80s.
“I met with him just after he had done [Nagisa Ōshima’s 1983 war epic with Ryuichi Sakamoto ] Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence , so he was being treated like a movie star — but also he had just been dropped by his label because ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes’ weren’t being deemed as good commercially as stuff like Bay City Rollers !” Edwards explained. Alan Edwards with David Bowie and Iman. CREDIT: Press “It was when I went on tour with him that it started to sink in how down-to-earth and charming he was.
He’d turn up at our office in Tottenham Court Road and make coffee for everyone.” “He told me his secret to not being recognised was to wear a cloth cap and have a Greek newspaper under his arm. That way if anyone ever questioned whether it was him, they’d look closer and think, ‘Well it can’t be.
.. he’s obviously Greek’.
” “I.
