Early Bowie music available to stream for first time

Early Bowie recordings set to stream for the first time

Ten years ago, Alec Palao was idly going through a stack of old records when he spotted some faint pencil writing that made him gasp. It said, "Davie Jones."

What he had uncovered was musical treasure: five unreleased songs by a young David Bowie, catalogued under his birth name.

Starting Friday, those tracks, along with five more unreleased songs that later came Palao’s way after the first discovery, will be available to purchase and stream.

"They are probably the most visceral, raw you'll ever hear the man," said Palao, a music historian and archivist.

In the music business, David Bowie is a major commercial force. He broke into the mainstream with his 1969 single, Space Oddity, and later scored 11 number one albums.

He died in 2016, but he is still one of Britain’s most recognisable cultural icons.

Six of the previously unreleased songs from the new collection will be issued on vinyl, reflecting Bowie’s particular popularity in that format. In 2022, Music Week named Bowie the best-selling vinyl artist of the 21st century, ahead of The Beatles.

"It's just a fascinating window into London in 1965 and its possibilities," said Palao.

In the early sixties, Bowie was a teenager, playing as Davie Jones in London clubs and hoping for fame. Many of the songs he recorded during that time are either obscure or lost.

But his first professional producer, Shel Talmy, had preserved a recording from 1965 among material from other artists he had worked with: The Kinks; The Who; Manfred Mann; The Easybeats.

In 1965 Bowie appeared on the BBC programme 'Gad Zooks Its All happening' but sparked controversy because of his long hair.

It was in Talmy’s collection that Palao found the valuable 12-inch acetate.

That recording, along with the five other previously unheard tracks, plus demos and remastered songs, are included on a new posthumous album titled The Shel Talmy Recordings.

A limited edition vinyl will be sold at Record Store Day and HMV outlets.

In 2022, David Bowie’s estate sold the publishing rights to decades of the singer’s work to Warner Music Group. For this new material, Palao, together with Talmy Enterprises Incorporated, licensed the album to Warner, and it will be released by the company’s subsidiary, Parlophone. Royalties will be paid to Bowie’s estate by Warner.

"I think it's wonderful that people can get to hear the early Davie Jones music," said Dana Gillespie, an early collaborator of Bowie’s.

She met him after a performance at the Marquee Club in London when Bowie was 17.

"They're songs that don't really sound like David but it's him trying to find his voice. He was experimenting."

Gillespie became close friends with Bowie, eventually working with him on his "Ziggy Stardust" album. Talmy worked with both artists and Bowie’s song "Andy Warhol", on his fourth studio album, was originally written for Gillespie.

"He was very driven," remembered Gillespie, who is still touring and making music at the age of 77.

"Some time in the sixties, he asked me to come and visit his parents. We were in his little house in Bromley, and when his parents left the room he turned to me and said: 'Whatever it takes, I want to get out of here.' And he did," she said.

It has been a decade since Palao discovered the recordings. Since then, it has taken a long time to bring them to market. The result is an album he describes as "absolutely pure rock 'n' roll".

"If you're looking for clues as to what he was to become, there's maybe less of that," said Palao, "but objectively speaking, I feel it's important stuff."

Gillespie is especially excited about one song.

"There was a famous café called the Gioconda in Denmark Street where I often used to go with David," she said, recalling the centre of musical life in London in the 1960s.

"One day when I was sitting there, David rushed in and took me by the hand. He said: 'You have to hear this'.

"He ran with me around the corner and squeezed us into a small listening booth. I had one speaker and he had the other, and he played me 'I Pity The Fool'."

A remastered version of the song is included on the new album.

For music historians, Bowie fans, and those who were there, the new album offers another chance to reconnect with an enduring cultural icon.

"David always wanted to be a big star," said Gillespie. "I'm so happy that his early stuff hasn't been forgotten."