Early On	Early On, The Deram Anthology, etc.	Deram

David Bowie's 1964-1968 recordings have been released in various compilations with various titles, including Rock Reflections, Images, 1966, London Boys, Love You Til Tuesday, etc. For completists only. Earliest stuff with the King Bees, the Mannish Boys or the The Lower Third is R&B, mod.

Regarding any 1966-67 archive, if it includes The Laughing Gnome, parents will be able to justify its purchase as a children's record. Shades of David Seville and the Chipmunks! Take away the Bowie name and you're left with the music of Bowie's Anthony Newley period. Anthony Newley, you remember	The Lower Third, 1965

him, right? You know, Willie
Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory? The Candy Man Can?

For the determined completist, the Rhino set Early On includes most of David Bowie's 1964 - 1966 output. Add the 27 song Deram CD compilation, The Deram Anthology, which contains most of Bowie's 1966-68 recordings for that label and you've got just about the whole shot.

Serious Moonlight '64

The Deram Anthology includes an early version of Space Oddity which sounds much like the familiar version except that David's delivery is a tad bouncier and uses more falsetto. The "liftoff" sequence and the bridge show the greatest difference. Also includes two versions of the showboat When I Live My Dream, as well as Rubber Band, Love You Til Tuesday and Sell Me A Coat. Your preference will depend on whether you like your indulgences straight up or with lots of whipped cream and a maraschino.

Perhaps the best song of David's early material, Let Me Sleep Beside You, shows David to be a maturing songwriter, with memorable lyrics and a subtle melody. It's a good song free of the corny instrumentation and delivery that mars the 66-67 period. This would fit comfortably on any of David's later albums.

Footnote:   Avid fans ask about When I'm Five, the odd song left off The Deram Anthology. This can be found on the vinyl LP Love You Til Tuesday. A video of the song is available on the VCD of the 1969 promotional film Love You Til Tuesday.

1969: Cool factor still under construction

A Second Look: I'd never been much for Bowie's 60's recordings but once in a while I'd toss one of these two CDs in the player for fun. Then one day I was whupped upside the head with an enlightenment. In the CD changer I had a couple CDs of great mid-sixties garage rock recordings, an irreplaceable series of compilations called Pebbles. My CD changer segued from these raw, inspired tracks that I've played to death to the Bowie compilation Early On. It was such a perfect fit that at first I didn't notice that the CD had changed. When I did, suddenly everything made perfect sense and I was able to listen to these songs with new ears.

My all time favorite song is probably the ultimate garage band number, 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians. How I could have overlooked Bowie relatives like I Dig Everything and the jazzy Take My Tip I have no idea. The five demo tracks on Early On could have been left off, but among the dozen other tracks are a number of songs that perfectly dovetail with so many favorites from that era. And considering that Bowie was working with producers like Shel Talmy and Tony Hatch, that should have been a clue to give another listen.

With that in mind, the songs from The Deram Anthology came to life. Why, She's Got Medals even sounds like it's got the intro to

Modville to Vaudeville

Hey Joe. I could have asked myself, "Phil, do you like Petula Clark? Do you like mid-sixties oddities like Winchester Cathedral, The Unicorn, The Ballad of Bonnie & Clyde? Now imagine that old-fashioned grandstanding (put on your straw hat) informed by David's already skewed perspective.

So instead of turning out a music hall number like Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter, you wind up with deliciously warped narratives like Please Mr. Gravedigger or The Little Bombardier. We Are Hungry Men is an early visit to subject matter Bowie would later spend more time with in songs like Big Brother and Saviour Machine. Listening to this morbid vaudeville, it's quite understandable why Bowie was so taken with the Velvet Underground.

All I can say is better late than never. Now if we could only find a bootleg of Keith Moon or Ian Dury singing Uncle Arthur. Maybe we could get Pet Clark to do Maid Of Bond Street. On a more blessed planet archivists would uncover a long-lost treasure, rare footage of Ted Lewis onstage barking out his slogan, "Is everybody happy?!", then rolling right into a weird ukelele bossa nova of There Is A Happy Land. Never mind that the bossa nova came long after old Ted.

David Bowie, Man of Mystery Shopper

Yes, this is the one that includes "Ground Control to Major Tom". You might do better to pick up that one song on one of the many compilations available though. The full-length version of the song Space Oddity is also available on Essential David Bowie: The Best Of 1969 - 1974 and Changesbowie. The edited single version is available on The Singles 1969 - 1993.

For all intents and purposes, this is really David Bowie's first album. He'd been recording for five years prior to this album, but his embryonic efforts didn't make much of a splash. Originally titled Man of Words, Man of Music, this earnest

Major Tom from the film "Love You Til Tuesday"

outing displays the early David Bowie as a product of his times. Bowie hadn't yet found what he was best at when this was recorded in 1969. You can tell from the original album title that these songs are largely "annoying folkie troubador". Remember that old Saturday Night Live joke? - "I want to make a real difference.... I've got it! I'll become a FOLK SINGER!" At times Bowie's young voice is so overwrought that parts of this album become a chore to listen to.

Young Bowie grasps the banner of good intentions and rails against class differences, injustice and hypocrisy with a whispy voice as thin as a leaf. The big statements collapse under the weight of the world they bear. David Bowie became very apt at observation and comment just a couple years later, but the songs on Space Oddity lean more toward trite college singer-songwriter than the insightful mystic that these flimsy workings would have us believe Bowie was.

Stylin' with the Stylophone

Wistful hippie references of love festivals; presumably this was Bowie's first attempt at tie-in (or tie-dye) marketing. Wistful fables of the visionary Wild Eyed Boy disdained by the people of the town, who cries out, It's so hard for us to really be Really You And really Me. Or check out these neo- Biblical constructions from Cygnet

Committee: For they knew not the words of the Free States' refrain, It said: "I Believe in the Power of Good. I Believe in the State of Love...".

Pretty wooden, eh? Like a good gentle folkie driving those urstoff thingies home with a Louisville Slugger. It doesn't help that Elton John's orchestrator Paul Buckmaster turns the lesser tracks into grandiose movie panoramas, with How The West Was Won threatening to erupt at any moment.

The less young Bowie tries, the better it works. The hit Space Oddity is a glimmer among the lumps of coal. Letter to Hermione is a sweet love song. An Occasional Dream is a better sweet love song. Janine hearkens back to mid-60's pop. There are also other songs on this album.

Hermione

Space Oddity
Space Oddity Unwashed And Some-     what Slightly Dazed Don't Sit Down Letter To Hermione Cygnet Committee	Janine An Occasional Dream The Wild-Eyed Boy From     Freecloud God Knows I'm Good Memory Of A Free Festival
Bonus tracks: Conversation Piece (b-side of The Prettiest Star) Memory Of A Free Festival (part 1) (1970, single a-side) Memory Of A Free Festival (part 2) (1970, single b-side)

Ryko cover	The Man Who Sold The World	RCA cover

Groggy dinosaur stylings can't hide the quartet of Bowie classics on this early pre-Ziggy effort. Bowie is still in developmental stages here but he really bloomed on the very next album, Hunky Dory. Most of the cuts here are among the heaviest Bowie's recorded. In addition to the excellent title track made familiar by Nirvana's Unplugged recording, other top tracks include All The Madmen, After All and The Width of a Circle. Black Country Rock is a good tune that borrows from T. Rex.

The Man Who Sold The World
Width Of A Circle All The Madmen Black Country Rock After All	Running Gun Blues Savior Machine She Shook Me Cold The Man Who Sold The World The Supermen
Bonus tracks: Lightning Frightening (1970, previously unreleased) Holy Holy (1970, single a-side)  (now on 30th Anniversary edition of Ziggy) Moonage Daydream (1971, single as "Arnold Corns")  (now on 30th Anniversary edition of Ziggy) Hang Onto Yourself (1971, single as "Arnold Corns")  (now on 30th Anniversary edition of Ziggy)

Hunky Dory

Much of Bowie's most affecting work sinks into your pores slowly, doing its work secretly over time. This is especially true of Hunky Dory. A mixture of light and shadow, Hunky Dory is Bowie's first really good album. Up til this point Bowie had shown flashes of great promise, but a new maturity turned this into a pop culture coming out party.

On the cover Bowie was still looking more like an actress than "The Actor" as he was billed in the liner notes. Sexuality and gender preferences have been a predictable hand played by Boy Bowie over the years, and one of the first of those requisite check-in calls appears here as "Queen Bitch", a romp that is equal parts Velvet Underground and velvet underwear. Still, Hunky Dory is a multi-course meal, and meat isn't the only flavor on the plate here.

In addition to the Velvet Underground tribute, Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan both get their due. Andy Warhol examines one of the recurring themes of Hunky Dory, the hazy ego boundaries between the self-contrived cinematic existence and the "real" person inside. Life On Mars?, a choice cut, observes a self-conscious girl going to the movies only to find that she's watching a movie of her own life. The song starts out with a forlorn piano and gradually the orchestration builds until it crests with the perfect corny theatrical ending. Are those really tympani or is it just a clever illusion?

This song hits very close to who Bowie is, the ever-detached performer slyly manipulating external image for calculated result. It's not surprising that this possessive self-observation eventually became a self-fulfilling prophecy, a muting of the boundaries between performer and role for David Bowie. As an amusing side note, the Usenet Bowie discussion group informally agreed that Barbra Streisand's cover of Life On Mars? is the all-time worst cover of a Bowie song.

Bowie touches on this filmy existence again in Quicksand, "I'm living in a silent film, portraying Himmler's sacred realm of dream reality....", with several references to screen stars of eras long past. (Maybe this ties in with the "glamour actress" covers of both The Man Who Sold The World and Hunky Dory.) Quicksand is as close to unmasked, first-person philosophy as Bowie gets.

For masking look to The Bewlay Brothers. Hunky Dory opens with the light Changes, unfettered by identity, and closes in bondage to the night of The Bewlay Brothers. Image and reality reach a climax as the close of the album bears down.

This track is Bowie's "mystery song", inviting speculation and red herrings. It whispers of murky memories, defrocked beliefs and the people that could lie within us at any place in time. The only thing certain is that it closes with the mark of a heavy neanderthal voice issuing domestic demands, echoed years later in a different form on Lodger.

In contrast, the bright, upbeat album opener, Changes is one of Bowie's "cabaret" numbers. You've got the best version right here. The concert versions on David Live, Santa Monica '72 and the Ziggy Stardust Soundtrack weave into cocktail piano and intentionally mannered lounge vocalisations. Changes offers optomistic glimpses of youthful resilience.

Changes alone isn't exactly a sample of the album as a whole. The general feel of this album leans toward "singer-songwriter", Bowie's whispy voice intoning deep thoughts and wry assessments to a strumming guitar on many of the songs. It's one of Bowie's mellowest, something that was poised to change with the next album, Ziggy Stardust.

Hunky Dory
Changes Oh! You Pretty Things 8 Line Poem Life On Mars? Kooks Quicksand	Fill Your Heart Andy Warhol Song For Bob Dylan Queen Bitch The Bewlay Brothers
Bonus tracks: Bombers (1971, previously unreleased) The Supermen (1971, alternate version)  (now on 30th Anniversary edition of Ziggy) Quicksand (1971, demo version) The Bewlay Brothers (alternate mix)

 
 

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