Great Ballers of Music: Marc Bolan of T. Rex

Fuck yes: if this song doesn’t make you rock the hell out and put a smile on your face, you have no business reading this blog and following our hallowed wisdom.  Marc Bolan, frontman of T. Rex was a rock god par excellence.  Taking his airy-fairy late 60s hippie folk band Tyrannosaurus Rex, shortening the title, adding distortion, glitter, amazing stage presence and personality, and and a simple but pervasive sense of fun, Marc Bolan INVENTED glam rock right around 1970, releasing an eponymous album that year and then the sheer masterpiece of Electric Warrior in 1971, which has unquestionably one of the greatest album covers ever:

Marc Bolan and T. Rex, who released six more albums, arguably inspired the entire glam rock movement, from Bowie to Sweet, and in turn influenced the punk movement.  We are ardent fans of the glam at We Ball Harder – it rocks hard, it’s unpretentious, you can dance to it, and it does it all with style, and Marc Bolan started it all.  Truly a legend among legends, and the world suffered a terrible loss in 1977 when he died (as a passenger) in a car crash at the age of 29.

More brilliance (from Electric Warrior):

Also, for the guitarists out there, while Bolan played a Strat and a Flying V, both very cool guitars, he played one of the most distinctive original 1950s Les Pauls ever, a completely faded Burst with a Custom neck added later.  Sweeeet.