After listening to the Ziggy documentary, I was left with questions about the chronology of Bowie's hair, and how it became the iconic red Ziggy cut. In the doc, the order is Bowie dyes his hair red then does the photo shoot and album, etc. But isn't his hair still his natural dirty blonde for the album art? I am pretty sure that is the same hair he had for the Old Grey Whistle Test, and the color photo shoot with the white satin trousers and guitar (I am looking at the 2009 and 2011 calendars with Brian Ward's photos). In the color shots his hair might be slightly more red, but it also might be the lighting - it certainly isn't the Ziggy red and blown up cut from Starman on TOTP and later. And the colorization of the Ziggy album cover makes his hair blonde, which would be a funny thing to do if his hair was already the iconic red. But in the doc Suzi Ronson claims she dyed it "Red Hot Red" the day after she created the hair style. Does anyone have a more accurate chronology?

No-one seems to be able to remember the actual chronology (various people including Angie and Lindsay Kemp have also claimed the Ziggy hair was their idea).

However, judging from the photo evidence I'd say you were right.
DB's hair is his natural colour during the Ziggy album photo sessions (although manually coloured very blond for the finished cover) and on the OGWT performance. It's not even that unusual a haircut at this point, beyond that fact that it's relatively short for a pop star in 1972.

By the time of the TOTP Starman appearance we have much more of a Ziggy cut though it's still somewhat shaggy, and the hair is redder. It seems to me that the final transformation to really bright red and that classic Ziggy haircut comes with the Rainbow show later that summer.

Re the OGWT performance - as far as I can remember most bands played completely live on Whistle Test so does anyone know why Bowie sang over pre-recorded backing tracks? Just a week or so before the Spiders had cut a couple of radio sessions so they were clearly well rehearsed at this point, so why no properly live performance?

Cheers,
Richard

It appears to be all David's:

"The Ziggy hair came lock, stock and curler, from the cover of a magazine and was sported by a model doing a shoot for Kansai Yamamoto's first London show. I couldn't afford the clothes but I could get the hair. Suzi did a straight forward copy. The cut and colour were both Kansai's - Schwartzkopf red was the colour. I had her cut my hair short in early January 1972. No dye. Layed flatish. I believe that it went red and stood up between the 20th and 25th of January 1972, therefore that's when the Kansai show must have been given maximum press" David Bowie

http://youtu.be/rqgaL_BInXg - besides the hair, anything else look familiar ()
http://youtu.be/DiXOkD52UJY - extreme Ziggy hair - inspiration

"Daniella Parmar's dye-job convinced me of the importance of a synthetic hair colour for Ziggy. This turned into reality when I spied the Kansai Yamamoto model on a fashion magazine cover. It was a slightly girlie magazine like Honey, definitely not Vogue. In 1972 I duplicated not only the colour from this cover but the cut as well, A complete lift, I've read in different accounts that the Ziggy cut came from a number of sources, or was designed by a local hairdresser in Bromley or Beckenham. Absolute tosh!" David Bowie


The official line,

"Although many assumed the bands were playing live, due to technical issues and the need to ensure performances were controlled, the bands often recorded the performance on the day of shooting prior to taping, and then mimed to this "live" track"

I seem to recall the technical issues where down to which studio was assigned, I believe there was a relatively small studio sometimes used which couldn't cater for multiple camera angels, so several re-runs or parts thereof were required, with the camera being re-located for the next shot. (I think during the Bowie performance this can be witnessed, as someone (Mick?) is stood in a different spot between shots) I also believe payments to technicians also figured somewhere.

Bob Marley & The Wailers and The Who are two dodgy mime's which spring to mind, though not so much down to Bob or Roger, more the carry on in the background


Trivia, Honey magazines tag line was "Young, gay and get-ahead." that's 3 out of 3 in David's case (back then)

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Great info! Thank you.

The Honey tag line is hilarious.