Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

July. Yet Philips in the UK were disorganised: with
UK MD Leslie Gould under notice that he was to be
replaced, it was Essex – David’s publishers – who
took control of the sessions. Planning was
nonetheless sketchy; according to Visconti, the
album was mapped out at a meeting between him,
Bowie and David Platz. ‘As David’s previous album
was all over the place musically, the master-plan was
to keep him on course with one style.’ Visconti
envisaged a folk-rock sound, based around David’s
twelve-string guitar, and suggested using Mick
Wayne’s band, Junior’s Eyes, whom he’d recently
produced; they were likeable, younger and less
expensive than the usual session musicians, just ‘a
bunch of blokes he could hang out with’, says
guitarist Tim Renwick. The band – which Renwick
and drummer John Cambridge had joined only
recently – knew little about David, ‘only the “Laughing
Gnome”, so we didn’t know what to expect’.
For his Deram album, David had been confident
in overseeing the music; this time around, it seemed
much of that confidence had been knocked out of
him. During their introductory chat the band found
him ‘kind of nervous and unsure of himself’, says
Renwick. ‘He was a bit of an unlikely solo artist – a
lot of solo artists are very pushy and egocentric [but]
he wasn’t like that at all.’ David was strikingly vague
about what he wanted. ‘There was very little
direction,’ says Renwick. ‘It was odd that there
wasn’t a figure saying, “That worked – that didn’t
work.”’
John Cambridge would be David Bowie’s