Biff Rose might not be a household name for most American music lovers today, but at one point, your favorite rock stars knew all about him. The New Orleans-born singer-songwriter came up in the Greenwich Village folk scene, carving a space for himself that resided somewhere between music and comedy, poetry and satire—a boundary-pushing in between that caught the attention of better-known musicians like David Bowie, Rick Wakeman from Yes, and The Boss.
The last of these three knew of Rose by proxy as opposed to personal preference. On February 2, 1973, Bruce Springsteen opened for Biff Rose at Max’s Kansas City. Decades later, during a hard-to-follow and almost concerningly eccentric interview in 2014, Rose claimed that he was the one who opened for Springsteen. Chalk that one up to cloudy memories, we suppose. One fact of the night remained consistent: David Bowie was in attendance that night specifically to see Rose.
The performance at Max’s came two years after Bowie released a song Rose had written with his short-lived writing partner, Paul Williams, called “Fill Your Heart”. Bowie put the Rose-Williams track on his 1971 album, Hunky Dory. In the decades since, other noteworthy musicians like John Dever and Pat Boone also recorded Rose’s work.
Biff Rose Developed a Troubling Reputation in His Later Years
Beginning in the late 1960s, Biff Rose was a regular (albeit not the most popular) player in the entertainment industry, appearing on beloved television shows like Johnny Carosn’s The Tonight Show, American Bandstand, and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He released eight albums between 1968 and 1979, and only the first two charted. These were both modest placements, with his debut, The Thorn In Mrs. Rose’s Side, peaking at No. 75, and the follow-up, Children Of Light, only making it to No. 181.
Nevertheless, Rose maintained his cult status reserved for musical visionaries who could never quite cut it in the commercial, mainstream music industry. He continued to perform into the late 2010s, drawing fans who remembered his late 60s television appearances and knew about him before his one-time opening act, Bruce Springsteen, became one of the biggest rock artists in the world. However, as sometimes happens with cult figures wary of the mainstream, Rose veered too far in the opposite direction, stirring controversy with questionable songs, statements, and information on his website.
This stage in his career was troubling, to say the least. Rose became outspokenly anti-Semitic, racist, and homophobic. He used offensive language on his website and in his songs, going so far as to imply that he wanted to kill Jewish people. At one point, he proclaimed himself the “prince of darkies” during an anti-Jewish, oddly anti-Randy Newman rant. Some wrote this off as satire. Others warned potential concertgoers of his public opinions ahead of his shows. Rose’s rambling, near-incoherent interviews around this time did little to dissuade criticism around his controversial commentary.
Rose died in his home in Madison, Wisconsin, after a battle with liver cancer on July 25, 2023. He was 85 years old.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
The post Born 89 Years Ago Today in the Big Easy, the Forgotten Singer-Songwriter Who Had Bruce Springsteen as His Opening Act and David Bowie in the Audience appeared first on American Songwriter.