Get the latest gossip

Steve Harley: 1970s Cockney Rebel who took risks and wrote hits | Alexis Petridis

Singer-songwriter, while not quite managing to elbow David Bowie aside, produced well-crafted hits topped by Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)

When it arrived, Cockney Rebel’s debut album featured a song called Mirror Freak that loudly announced he was going to supplant Marc Bolan – “too cute to be a big rock star” – in the public’s affections: “We can feel a change is on the way … a new man he appears to be winning … you’re the same old thing we’ve always known.” Stung by the failure of Sebastian and The Human Menagerie’s slow sales, he knocked out Judy Teen, infernally catchy, decorated with backing vocals that seemed to nod in the direction of Lou Reed’s Satellite of Love and the song that effectively propelled Cockney Rebel from music press bete noir to mainstream fame. And sometimes, even in his later years, he was quite capable of summoning up the bullish Steve Harley of old, snapping at interviewers who suggested Cockney Rebel had been influenced by Bowie or Mott the Hoople (“I wouldn’t credit either of them”) or still sounding chuffed about putting one over the bandmates who left him in 1974: “It must have been difficult,” he told the Guardian, with a distinct hint of relish, “watching me singing that song on Top of the Pops”.

Get the Android app