Young Americans

I mean, there's great songs on those albums, but I just don't like him as albums overall.

But every album after that, you know, Hunky Dory, Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, Pit Ups to a certain extent, certainly Station to Station, Young Americans, Low, Heroes and Lodger, you know, and Scary Monsters.

All of those, love.

Absolutely love.

Because, you know, as you know, growing up in England, you know, Bowie is like Elvis, right?

yeah and yeah we followed it's every move i mean i remember i was disappointed with young americans and i still don't really like that album too much you know i thought that was a big come down after diamond dogs i couldn't understand it

oh yeah i forgot diamond dogs yeah that

squeaky alto sax on every track and this new kind of pseudo soul thing he was doing you know i could appreciate it for what it was but for me that was a that was a misstep but um you know i can't fault anyone for liking that one but yeah

It was not of this earth.

Yeah, John Lennon co-wrote with David Bowie, and it's on Young Americans, which is a fabulous album.

Interesting story.

I don't know if we have time for this, but so David Bowie moved to New York.

He spent a long time in Berlin.

He moved to New York, one, because his good friend John Lennon is there, and he's working on Young Americans, and they're working on this song.

Two, David Bowie had just received the starring role in The Elephant Man, which was playing on Broadway.

So opening night is like two nights after Lennon is murdered.

Also had rare single and mono mixes like Wild Eye Boy from Freecloud and Pretty A Star, unreleased mixes such as London by Tata, alternative takes like Round and Round, live renditions of Ziggy Stardust, White Light, White Heat, alongside cuts like The Man Who Sold the World, Changes, and Moonage Daydream.

Disc 2 had 12 tracks that were basically deep cuts or live performances of Suffragette City, Watch That Man, and Cracked Actor alongside rarities like 1984 Dodo and outtakes after today's studio favorites like Rebel Rebel, Young Americans, and Big Brother.

And disc three had 18 tracks of unreleased outtakes, like It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City, along with the German version of Helden, and live tracks like Station to Station and Warzawa, and also songs like Sound and Vision, Ashes to Ashes, and Boys Keep Swinging.

The CD version, by the way, also had the bonus CD video or what they used to call CDVs with live cuts and also the visual music video for Ashes to Ashes on it.

Greg Diamond was an accomplished session musician and producer in the jazz and disco scenes of the late 70s.

and his brother Godfrey was a sound engineer at the studios in Philadelphia where David Bowie had recently recorded his Young Americans album.

That's where Greg Diamond met an up-and-coming soul singer by the name of Luther Vandross, who had arranged the backing vocals for Bowie's album.

Diamond invited Vandross to sing the lead on a track he was recording for his own side project, Bionic Boogie.

Yeah, so I saw this note and I'm shocked this song charted in the United States at any level.

I was 100% unaware that Americans even...

I guess probably like Rodney on the Rock, people were playing New Order, but I'm shocked that anybody in America, even at number 61, found this song.

It is shocking to me.

That is a few years before this.

That's before this.

Young Americans, I want to say, is like mid to late

70s.

That's true.

In young Americans.

Maybe Never Let Me Down was the hangover.

maybe

Sort of like it kind of stops a few steps short or something.

There's that great story about – well, not great, but interesting story about Queen losing all these fans in America when they do – the I Want to Break Free film clip.

And it's like suddenly Americans are going, wait a minute, this man called Queen with this obviously gay lead singer, there might be something fruity about them.

Yeah,

He was promoted to co-producer on 1997's Earthling and became Bowie's live musical director beginning in 1999.

Next up is our dear friend Earl Slick, who we've covered in our Young Americans episode and who allegedly performed uncredited on Heathen.

In the late 90s, Slick had quit the music business and was selling timeshares when Bowie reached out via email to recruit him into the project.

Oh, that's too bad.

On bass, we have Gail Ann Dorsey, who had been Bowie's live bassist since 1995 and had appeared on Earthling.

On drums, Sterling Campbell, who had played on 1993's Black Tie White Noise and 1995's Outside.

On keyboards, Mike Garson, who had started with Bowie during the American leg of the 1972 Ziggy Stardust Tour and had played on Bowie albums up until Young Americans.

He was reunited with Bowie in 1993 and had been a mainstay ever since.

towards the end where you were talking about the...

Oh, Young Americans.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We were talking about the drummer, Andy Newmark, who I just discovered...

Weirdly, the guy who played drums on Sly and the Family Stone's Fresh album, which is a very funky album, and then the following year's David Bowie's Young Americans album, the guy who played drums, Andy Newmark, I was chatting about him to someone, and then I...

I pulled out my phone and thought, I'll just Wikipedia him just to see who else he's played with.

And the Wikipedia page came up.

And it said, Andy Newmark at the Three Mariners in Faversham in 2016.

Visconti was very involved in the genesis of glam rock.

And he simultaneously, I mean, at least he manned the boards for the, as far as I know, he did The Man Who Sold the World, but he didn't come back to Bowie until like either Diamond Dogs or Young Americans.

So but so he did that.

And then he was T-Rex's producer for their three or four awesome albums.