Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

Rod used to party a lot. David was fairly serious.”
There were other serendipitous influences. One
day Frank Sinatra’s people showed up to check the
place out. Sinatra was looking to begin recording his
post-retirement comeback album (released in 1980
as the triple album Trilogy) and had heard about
Cherokee. At first the notion of Sinatra’s arrival was
intimidating.
“They told us, ‘Don’t speak to him unless he
speaks to you. Only call him Mr. Sinatra,’” Robb
says. “‘Don’t ask him if he needs a mic check. He’ll
just walk in and do what he pleases when he
pleases.’” When the great man actually arrived, he
was as friendly and sociable as possible,
entertaining Bowie, his band and the Cherokee staff
with road stories and gossip.
“They became great friends,” Robb says of Bowie
and Sinatra, “hanging out in the lounge. David sang
harmony on one of Sinatra’s tracks, and Sinatra
listened to a version of Bowie’s ‘Wild Is the Wind.’”
Based on Sinatra’s enthusiasm for the track, Bowie
was inspired to include what might have seemed an
odd choice (a middle-of-the-road ballad sung
unironically amid mutant Euro-funk and lyrics about
blow and the occult) as the record’s closing track.
“David would call up and ask, ‘Is Frank in yet?’”
Robb says. As soon as Sinatra arrived, Bowie would
emerge from his studio and greet him. “David Bowie
was David Bowie all the time,” Robb says, noting
that the studio where the album was primarily
recorded was protected twenty-four hours a day by