The singer-lyricist poet Cherry Vanilla was best known for being
David Bowie's public relations/press officer in the mid-1970s, as part of
his MainMan production company under
Tony Defries around the time of his
"Ziggy Stardust" phase. She is given credit for promoting Bowie's
"Diamond Dogs" album with the hype "If you want to know the meaning of
this album, just spell DOG - BACKWARDS!
Cherry Vanilla had been part of
Andy Warhol's entourage, an artist/master
of hype who intrigued the former art student Bowie. in the Max's Kansas
City glam-rock jet-set. In the late 1970s, the Staten Island, New
York-born Vanilla eventually left the U.S. and the Max's Kansas City
glam-rock jet-set for the U.K. to further her recording career. She
made two albums in Britain, cutting two albums featuring her blunt and
typically obscene lyrics. Two of the songs on her first album "Bad
Girl", which was released in the UK by RCA, were "I Know How to Hook"
and "Foxy Bitch". It also featured "Little Red Rooster", which
reportedly she wrote about Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. "Bad Girl" was
followed up by "Venus d'Vinyl" (1979), which was also released in the
UK by RCA. The two albums were released as a single CD in the United
States in 2000.