1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 ARTICLES RECORDINGS TV FILM AND STAGE
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JANUARY |
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Bowie sends Tony DeFries a telegram from New York informing him that his and MainMan's services would no longer be required and legal action had begun to free Bowie of existing contracts Article by Lester Bangs covering the tour published in Creem magazine. |
Young Americans / Knock On Wood single released in the US (RCA). |
1 Bowie enters Electric Ladyland studios with producer Harry Maslin to tinker with Young Americans. John Lennon is there working on his Rock'n'Roll LP, and they play informally together. The session results in a drunken cover of Across The Universe and Fame. Bowie adds the two new tracks, replacing Who Can I Be Now and It's Gonna Be Me on the final tracklisting, to the later dismay of producer Tony Visconti - in Philadelphia completing the mixing of the album, unaware of the change Bowie spends time working on a Diamond Dogs video project in his house in New York and evenings with Mick Jagger. Visconti, trying to finish the LP on time, was reminded of the recording of The Man Who Sold the World. "He made just two sessions, just like The Man Who Sold the World when he was preoccupied with Angie." |
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On the town excursions with Mick and Bianca and Ava Cherry included a night at Madison Square Gardens to see Led Zeppelin. Bowie showed particular interest in their laser show system Later in the week, Bowie and Ava Cherry visited Zeppelin at the Plaza Hotel, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones being old friends of Bowie's. (Page had played guitar on Bowie's I Pity The Fool single in 1965.) Other excursions included Trude Heller's club with Cherry Vanilla to see Lance Loud's band, Patti Smith at CBGB's supported by Television and Manhattan Transfer at the Cafe Carlyle with Jagger 26 Cracked Actor, an Omnibus documentary about Bowie, is broadcast (BBC 1). The film, by Alan Yentob, traced Bowie's career up to and including the 1974 US tour. A valuable piece of television that gave the UK the only indications of the Diamond Dogs show and the Soul Tour that followed. The interview material with Yentob was gleaned from a number of conversations in hotel rooms and in cars. It gave English film director Nicolas Roeg (Performance and Walkabout) the idea of using Bowie in his forthcoming film, The Man Who Fell to Earth. Roeg used almost identically the Cracked Actor in-car footage situation for his own film. |
FEBRUARY |
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Bowie agrees to meet with Roeg about the film. Roeg arrived in New York but Bowie had forgotten their appointment and arrived home eight hours later to find Roeg patiently sitting in the kitchen. They spent the rest of the night discussing The Man Who Fell To Earth, Bowie almost sold on the project from the start. Up to that point Peter O'Toole had been Roeg's leading choice for the alien role Officially announced that Bowie and Tony DeFries had started legal proceedings against each other. A lawsuit announced by Bowie's solicitors, declares a motion to end all agreements between Bowie and MainMan, including publishing, management and recording controls. Bowie leaves New York for California to avoid the upsetting legal complications 21 Young Americans / Suffragette City single released by RCA (highest chart position No. 18). Interview with Bruno Stein published in Creem, showing the extent of Bowie's cocaine-fuelled fantasies, harping on conspiracies and seeing UFOs every five minutes. A clip of Bowie singing Young Americans, shot during his Soul Tour in late 1974 broadcast on Top Of The Pops. |
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MARCH |
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1 Bowie is featured on the Grammy Awards ceremony. Bowie presented the 'Best Female Soul Singer' award to Aretha Franklin, giving a three-minute speech which was broadcast live on US television. |
7 Young Americans LP released on RCA |
Bowie sees Rod Stewart's Madison Square Garden show with Ava Cherry and Warren Peace, later dropping backstage for the after-show party. |
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MAY |
JUNE |
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In an episode covered by Cameron Crowe in an extensive feature article for Rolling Stone [published 12 February 1976] Bowie and Iggy Pop attempt some recording in Hollywood. The session with Iggy produce an adlibbed Drink To Me and an early version of Turn Blue, which was eventually recorded in Berlin for Lust For Life. After the session Bowie writes a new song, Moving On which was never heard of again. Bowie was driving around LA in a borrowed VW and staying with Glenn Hughes - an old friend of Bowie and at that time touring with Deep Purple. Later he moved into his new manager Michael Lippman's home in central HollywoodLippman had now become Bowie's manager, but the arrangement lasted little over six months because Bowie was unhappy with Lippman's management of his affairs. |
Iggy Pop, who had failed to show up at further booked studio sessions, is discovered by Bowie to have checked in the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute near LA, as a voluntary patient. Bowie visited Pop who later revealed that Bowie was the only person to do so. Bowie tried to encourage Iggy out of the institute to return to recording. That idea had to be aborted when Pop again disappeared This same month it was announced that Bowie was to star in The Man Who Fell to Earth, an adaptation of the novel by Walter Tevis. Bowie travelled to New Mexico to begin production on the film, taking the famous Santa Fe Super Chef railway. |
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JULY |
AUGUST |
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Production on the film scheduled to last eleven weeks. Bowie and friends stayed at the Hilton Inn in Albuquerque for the main part of the filming, only making rare excursions to the bar |
Between shooting Bowie read, practiced filming on a 16mm newsreel camera Roeg gave him and wrote new songs and stories, the main one being his autobiography, tentatively titled The Return of the Thin White Duke, a section of which was featured in Rolling Stone 12 February 1976 Some songs were intended for the soundtrack of the film which at that stage he assumed he would provide, others for Station To Station |
15 The Bowie Odyssey by Tina Brown published in Sunday Times magazine. |
Interviewed on the set of The Man Who Fell To Earth by Creem magazine published December 1975
15 Fame / Right single released and becomes Bowie's first US No. 1. |
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SEPTEMBER |
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Bowie takes time out from the film to attend Peter Sellers's 50th birthday party in Los Angeles. Bowie run through a few blues numbers with Keith Moon, Bill Wyman, Ron Wood and Bobby Keyes. |
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Bowie and the group travel to Los Angeles to start work on Station To Station, at the Cherokee studios in Los Angeles Filming for The Man Who Fell To Earth completed |
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26 Space Oddity / Changes, Velvet Goldmine single released. Bowie's first UK No. 1. |
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NOVEMBER |
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4 Soul Train appearance recorded. Bowie mimed to Fame and Golden Years, fielding questions from the presenter and the audience before his performance. Bowie later said that he was 'a little drunk. Something I never normally do,' he added. |
17 Golden Years/Can You Hear Me single released (RCA) (highest chart position No. 8).
23 Bowie appears on the Cher show (CBS TV) in the US. He sang Fame, Can You Hear Me (duet with Cher), then a medley with Cher beginning and ending with Young Americans. |
28 Russell Harty Plus show broadcast featuring an exclusive satellite interview with Bowie direct from Burbank, California Bowie refused to give up booked satellite space for the announcement of Spain's General Franco's death |
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DECEMBER |
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The Man Who Fell To Earth soundtrack sessions After Station To Station sessions are completed, Bowie began work on MWFTE soundtrack with Harry Maslin producing at Cherokee Studios, Los Angeles. Paul Buckmaster was brought in on cello to accompany Bowie's guitar, synthesisers and drum machines. The sessions produced five or six working tracks (influenced by Bowie's current favourite, Kraftwerk's Autobahn) before the project was abandoned. According to Maslin, Bowie was burned out to the point of collapse and could not focus sufficiently. The soundtrack was never released but Subterraneans (from Low) is said to be the only vestige of the work remaining. Bowie's manager, Michael Lippman, had pledged to Bowie that he would have the rights to score the film, and by some reports, it was another reason Bowie signed on to the film. After all, in the film Thomas Newton composes and releases a record called The Visitor in the hope that it will be broadcast on the radio and therefore be picked up by his wife on his home planet, Anthea. The existence of an early bootleg purporting to be Bowie's soundtrack music called - appropriately - The Visitor has never been confirmed. Since then, the recordings' mythic status has resulted in a number of recordings such as Thomas claiming to be them are in circulating among collectors. They have been generally dismissed as fakes. Bowie had originally been invited by the studio to submit soundtrack music but as post-production on the film neared completion, Bowie's score failed to materialise and Roeg was forced to turn elsewhere. In the event the work was given to John Phillips and Bowie's ideas eventually materialised in the form of Low, which he sent to Roeg after the fact with a note explaining that this was what he had in mind. Bowie's disappointment with the whole affair was one of the reasons for his subsequent fallout with Lippman |
Bowie's Doheny Drive residence Spaced Out In The Desert, a report on the production of The Man Who Fell To Earth by Steve Stroyer and John Litflander is published in Creem. Rumours developed in the press suggesting that Bowie was intending to star in a biopic of Frank Sinatra. Bowie later furiously denied these when interviewed on tour in 1976 European tour details released for Bowie's 1976 tour Christmas spent at Keith Richard's Jamaican home, rehearsing the new band for his return to world touring. Guitarist Earl Slick decides not to join Bowie on this tour. An immediate replacement was found in Stacey Heydon, a previously unknown Canadian barroom guitarist On Bowie's arrival in Jamaica, finding that no arrangements had been made for him there, Bowie telephoned manager Michael Lippman to tell him that he was fired |
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1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 ARTICLES RECORDINGS TV FILM AND STAGE