Bowie dragged The Thin White Duke out on the Isolar tour from February to May 1976 in support of “Station To Station”. Stacy Hayden replaced Earl Slick on guitar otherwise it was the same band as on the album. The tour was stark, Bowie dressed in black and white with only white light on stage. Iggy Pop was along on the tour too and the pairs drug use was getting serious. They were arrested in Rochester NY for possession. Bowie’s arrival in London resulted in the infamous “Nazi salute” photograph, Bowie claims he was caught mid-wave. (The tour is documented on the live CD “Live Nassau Coliseum '76” which was released as a bonus disc with “Station To Station” in 2010).

The tour concluded in Paris. After being driven out of the city by fans and then bouncing around the Château d’Hérouville (where he had recorded PinUps), recording Iggy Pop’s “The Idiot”, swinging through Munich and needing somewhere to escape the drug culture back in Los Angeles, Bowie and Iggy ended up in Berlin…the Heroin capital of Europe !

In September 1976 Bowie and band (Alomar, Murray, Davies, guitarist Ricky Gardiner and pianist Roy Young) along with Visconti and Brian Eno returned to the Château d’Hérouville where the majority of what was to become “Low” was recorded. Yes, you read that right, most of the album that is often described as the first in The Berlin Trilogy was recorded in France. 

Bowie was at this time involved in litigation with a former manager, his marriage to Angie was breaking up and she visited the studio with her new beau resulting in a huge row (out of which we at least got “Breaking Glass” and “Be My Wife”) he wasn’t in a good place. Visconti was also dissatisfied with the Château’s studio engineer. So everyone shipped back to Berlin where the album was finished at Hansa TonStudios.

Brian Eno’s contribution to “Low” cannot be denied or underestimated. Bowie had for sometime been a big fan of Krautrock artists like Kraftwerk and Neu!, and that can be heard, but Eno was an equally big influence. Bowie only sings on 5 of 11 songs on “Low” (although Visconti has said that both “Speed Of Life” and “A New Career In A New Town” were originally intended to have vocals but Bowie decided to leave them as instrumentals, bookends for Side 1) which led to much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth at RCA Records where some executives suggested he should return to Philadelphia and make “Young Americans II” !

On its release “Low” was advertised with the slogan “There’s New Wave, there’s Old Wave and there’s David Bowie” which at least shows someone at RCA understood him. The “songs” (as opposed to the instrumentals) are among his best. I’d put them up against anything he’d done before, especially “What In the World” and the single “Sound And Vision”. The instrumental tracks were a jarring shift in style for many, not jarring as in the music was jarring, it’s not, the instrumentals on side 2 are all very gentle and soothing in actual fact, “Warszawa” possibly being my favourite of the four. But hey, if you’d been paying attention over the last 6 years you could almost have expected the shift, right ? 

What In The World - https://youtu.be/HP8btAVedPg

This is one of those other days. Six songs, 5 originals and a cover (this time he picked a good un) and another of my very favourite Bowie records.

Bowie spent the first half of 1975 agreeing to star in and filming Nic Roeg’s movie “The Man Who Fell To Earth”. He plays an alien who has come to Earth in order to bring its natural resources back to his dying home planet. He styles himself as Thomas Jerome Newton and, using alien technological knowledge, forms a company, makes a great fortune but succumbs to depression and a crippling drug addiction. Much as the character of Ziggy Stardust had taken over Bowie so did Thomas Jerome Newton, with him pretty much becoming the lead character in person. After finishing the movie in August 1975 Bowie returned to Los Angeles where his Cocaine usage ramped up and his mental and physical health went downhill fast.

“I have an addictive personality. I’m quite clear on that now. And it was easily obtainable and it kept me working, ’cos I didn’t use it for… I wasn’t really a recreational guy, I wasn’t really an out-on-the-town guy…I loved being involved in that creative moment. And I’d found a soul-mate in this drug, which helped perpetuate that creative moment…“ David Bowie, Mojo, July 2002

Given all this it’s incredible that he managed to produce one of his best and most focussed albums. The sessions for “Station To Station” ran from September to November 1975. It was produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin with a band led by Carlos Alomar and featuring Earl Slick, a rhythm section of George Murray and Dennis Davies plus an appearance by the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan.

The title track introduces us to Bowie’s next character, “The return of the Thin White Duke, throwing darts in lovers eyes”. The Thin White Duke was equal parts Bowie’s coke fired neurotic self and Thomas Jerome Newton, all skin bone and black and white, singing us an epic song concerned with the stations of the cross and the Kabbalah and at the same time trying to convince us all “it’s not the side effects of the Cocaine”. When I first heard “Station To Station” I really didn’t get the title track, don’t know why it simply didn’t click with me. Then I heard the live version on “Stage” which is taken at a slightly quicker tempo and suddenly I got it. It’s become one of my most played individual Bowie songs.

I’ve referred before to a theory that each Bowie album features a song that’s a pointer to the next album. “Golden Years” could be that in reverse, it really would not have sounded out of place on “Young Americans”. A guitar riff coiled so slinkily it could be a snake ushers your feet to the dancefloor (it’s used brilliantly in a dance scene in the Medieval set film (!) “A Knights Tale”, check it out).

“Word On A Wing” is a hymn. Bowie had been searching before for something spiritual with his dalliance with Buddhism in the ‘60’s. The title track references the stations of the cross from Christianity and the Kabbalah, a school of thought within Judaism. Here he sings 

“Lord, I kneel and offer you my word on a wing, And I'm trying hard to fit among your scheme of things”

the need for something spiritual is still there but has to fit into a life as it is. Above all of that (for me) it’s an utterly beautiful song.

“TVC15” is the bizarre tale of a girl who’s eaten by her TV replete with bar room piano and some slightly silly backing vocals. And then we come to the 2nd great riff on this album. “Stay” is built around a powerhouse guitar figure conjured up by Earl Slick around which Bowie creates another dancefloor killer that stayed (see what I did there) in his live set right into the 21st century.

It all comes to a close with “Wild Is The Wind”, arguably Bowie’s best cover version. The song was written for the film of the same name in 1957 and first sung by Johnny Mathis. Bowie’s cover is virtually unrecognisable as the same song and is quite breathtaking.

“Station To Station” is a fabulous album, I just wish there was more of it. Six tracks almost qualifies it as a mini album. It remains, though, one of my favourites.

Wild Is The Wind - https://youtu.be/YsqlXkkEKxI

Bowie was a Mod back in the 60’s and Mods have a love of Soul and rhythm & blues. The Philly Sound of Philadelphia International Records and producers (Kenny) Gamble and (Leon) Huff was THE predominant style in soul and R&B in the mid 70’s and, as an old Mod, Bowie would have been tuned in to that. Gamble and Huff were creating this sound for the likes of The O’Jays, Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes and the Three Degrees at the famed Sigma Sound studio in Philadelphia.

Almost as important as the shift in sound “Young Americans” is about to reveal was one of its musicians, Carlos Alomar. Bowie had first met Alomar when he was a member of the Main Ingredient and Bowie was recording Lulu’s cover of “The Man Who Sold The World”. He wanted him to play on “Diamond Dogs”, but that never happened. Between legs of The Diamond/Philly Dogs tour in 1974 Bowie started recording at Sigma Sound and Alomar was along for the ride this time, bringing with him drummer Dennis Davies. These sessions made up the bulk of what was to become “Young Americans” and at their conclusion Alomar joined Bowie’s band for the resumption of the now Philly Dogs tour. Carlos Alomar stayed with Bowie for almost 30 years, up until the album “Reality” in 2003. We’ll be hearing more about Carlos Alomar.

The assembled band featured some fine musicians from the Soul world. Alomar, drummer Dennis Davies (another who would stick around for some years), bassman Emir Ksasan, percussionist Larry Washington of MFSB and backing vocalists Robin Clark and a then unknown Luther Vandross. Bowie also bought in the guitarist from his Diamond Dogs tour, a young New Yorker, name of Frank Madeloni a.k.a Earl Slick, we’ll be hearing more about him later too. Oh, and after assisting with the final mix of “Diamond Dogs” Tony Visconti was back to engineer and mix this album.

I have a love/hate relationship with “Young Americans”. There is some of Bowie’s best in here (the title song, “Right”, “Fascination”) and equally, one very questionable choice (“Across The Universe” may rank as the very worst of his covers) but you can’t argue that as the follow up to “Diamond Dogs” this was a bloody brave move. 

After the drum intro to “Young Americans” (an intro so good that Paul Weller copied it exactly for the song “These City Streets” on his album “Saturns Pattern” !) there is absolutely no doubt that Bowie has engineered a huge change in style. The title track is smooth, funky and a flat out superb song. It was the first song recorded for the album and according to Tony Visconti is a live take apart from David Sanborn’s Sax which was overdubbed later.

“Win” is a soulful ballad. “Fascination” is Bowie’s re-write of backing vocalist Luther Vandross’s song “Funky Music (Is A Part Of Me)”. Bowie heard the song and asked Vandross if it was OK for him to re-work and record it. Vandross responded “You’re David Bowie, I live at home with my mother, you can do what you like.”. Have a listen to both, “Fascination” is really a cover.

“Right” closes out side 1. A  groove that the band lock into and Bowie riffs on. Side one is wonderful, faultless even. 

Side 2 starts with “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and later “Can You Hear Me” which both continue the theme from Side 1. Then we reach a real boo-boo. After the original sessions were finished Bowie and the bend went off to LA to finish off the Diamond Dogs tour. They returned to Sigma Sound in November 1974 and with the band now having been road tested some tracks were re-recorded. Tony Visconti took these “finished” tracks back to London to mix the final album. In the meantime Bowie went off to New York where he eventually met up with Visconti for some final mixing at the Record Plant. Also recording at the Record Plant was John Lennon who was at the tail end of his “Lost Weekend” and finalising his album “Rock ’n’ Roll”.

Long and short of it is Bowie and Lennon record together and one of the results was the godawful version of The Beatles “Across The Universe” which appears on Side 2. It’s playing right now as I type this and if I never hear it again it will be a day too soon !

Fortunately they also wrote and recorded “Fame” based around a riff Carlos Alomar had worked up when Bowie performed The Flares’ 1961 single ‘Foot Stompin” on the Dick Cavett Show in November 1974. “Fame” closes out the album.

In interviews a couple of years later Bowie described “Young Americans” as his “plastic soul” album. Carlos Alomar disagrees with this as given the musicians involved he sees it is a genuine Soul record. 7 of the 8 tracks are among Bowie’s best, if they’d just included “John I’m Only Dancing (Again)” instead of The Beatles cover I’d be holding it up there with “Diamond Dogs” as a masterpiece.

Fascination - https://youtu.be/K-N_xAOOn2w

Funky Music (Is A Part Of Me) - https://youtu.be/k4NVNGnhCRg