Another David Bowie archive release is on its way – this time from the very early days of his career.
The material in question dates from 1965, when he was still known as Davie Jones (he’d adopt the stage name Bowie the following year when the Monkees – with their own Davy Jones – first emerged). It comprises tracks he recorded with Shel Talmy, the producer best known for his work with The Kinks and The Who.
The recordings also feature a young Jimmy Page, who was at that time an up-and-coming 21-year-old session guitarist. Page wasn't exactly impressed by the material Bowie had at the time.
Interviewed by the Daily Telegraph in 2010, Bob Solly, the keyboard player in Bowie's then backing band The Manish Boys, remembered: "We had a two-hour slot at the recording studio and did two cuts each of Pity the Fool and one of David's own songs, Take My Tip. It was the first time David committed a self-composed song to wax. At the end of the session Jimmy said, referring to Pity the Fool, 'Well, it's definitely not going to be a hit.' And he was right."
The producer was one of the few who had confidence in Bowie back then. Interviewed in 2017, Talmy (who died in 2024) said of Bowie: “I thought he absolutely was going to make it. The only unfortunate thing is that he and I were about six years ahead of the market.”
Talmy and Bowie first met in late 1964. After his success with The Kinks, Talmy was looking to develop new talent and signed Bowie and his then-backing band The Manish Boys. Aside from Page, Talmy also brought in Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, whilst the engineer on the sessions would also go on to greater things: an eager young 23-year-old named Glyn Johns.
Bowie would return to this era of music not once but twice during his long career. The 1973 covers album Pin Ups features a number of songs that Talmy had originally produced, including versions of The Who’s I Can’t Explain and Anyway Anyhow Anywhere and Where Have All The Good Times Gone by The Kinks. Around the time of the millennium, Bowie would re-record some of his 1964-1965 songs for the Toy album, which was eventually released posthumously in 2021.
The album, The Shel Talmy Recordings, comes out on September 18 in the usual variety of formats. It includes sleevenotes by the music historian Alec Palao, who says of the tracks: “This collection, a primary chapter if not the very earliest instalment in David’s musical journey, deserves legitimate consideration.”
“The sounds here should not be judged by the standards of his later career, but by the standards of what was happening in Britain at that precise point in time. In which case, they speak as loudly of the excitement of London and its music scene in that pivotal year of 1965 as they do for the launch of its brightest future star.”
