Rhino Factoids: Bowie and Bolan

38 years ago this week, Marc Bolan taped the final episode of his short-lived music series - which, handily avoiding any possible claims of false advertising, was titled Marc - and celebrating the occasion by performing a duet with one of his good mates: David Bowie.

Marc only ran for a total of six episodes, which is about on par with most British TV series, lest you think it was cut short. Indeed, it's not inconceivable that it would've returned for a second go-round had Bolan not been tragically killed in a car accident only a handful of days later. During those six episodes, however, Bolan took the opportunity to spotlight a number of up and coming punk bands, including Eddie and the Hot Rods, Generation X, and The Jam. Of course, he also took the opportunity to perform with T. Rex as well, but what else would you expect, really? If T. Rex doesn't play on a show hosted by Marc Bolan, then you can pretty much guarantee that the masses will riot.

Beyond the T. Rex performances, however, it was decidedly fun to find out who'd be performing on the show or, indeed, with Bolan himself, and the excitement level was definitely ramped up when Bowie came aboard to sing “Heroes,” with Bolan crooning along with him. Things didn't necessarily go quite as planned - Bolan was reportedly not pleased that he wasn't able to play guitar on the song - but it's still an epic moment to see them performing together. Mind you, there was a bit of a blooper later in the filming, when they teamed up to perform a new song entitled “Standing Next to You” and our man Marc tripped over a mike cord and fell off the stage. Although you can't actually hear it in the resulting episode, he oft-told story - possibly apocryphal - is that Bowie's reaction to the incident was to yell, “Could we have a wooden box for Marc?”

Although Bolan and Bowie had had their differences over the years, there was no question as to the legitimacy of Bowie's sadness when Bolan was killed in a car wreck a week after the taping of that final episode of Marc…or, indeed, of the world's sadness at the loss of a great musician only two weeks before his 30th birthday. Ah, what might've been...