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drummer for the next nine months; crucial months in
the singer’s musical development. This was a time
when David, according to legend, was an ‘ice man’:
battling inner demons, using and discarding
musicians like worn-out guitar picks. In contrast,
Cambridge found David energetic and jokey, ‘but
not pushy’. Instead, he was content to be led, most
notably by his new girlfriend, who became a
permanent fixture that summer.
Visconti, too, while enthusiastic, was reluctant to
take control. ‘I was not a very good producer yet and
I hadn’t started to engineer. I had only made the first
Tyrannosaurus Rex album and the Junior’s Eyes
album,’ and his inexperience was noticed by the
band. They all liked him, but thought he was ‘sort of
over polite’, says Renwick. The album which
emerged from these seemingly directionless
sessions was not orchestrated; it was busked,
cooked up on the spot, which gave it a delicious
tension. For even as Bowie was turning his back on
hippie values, he was reliant on people like Mick
Wayne – who was talented, shambolic and ‘very
druggy’ – to give shape to his vision.
The sessions – at Trident Studios, in a little Soho
alleyway – were drawn out over the summer and
early autumn. A session would be booked with no
pre-warning of the songs they would be working on,
and the day would start with David sitting on a high
stool with his twelve-string, saying, ‘I’ve got this one.’
After playing through the song acoustically a couple
of times, he’d smile at the band and ask them, ‘Shall
we have a go?’ For his acoustic numbers, assisted