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Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

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The Man Who Sold the World<br />

Recorded: April – May 1970; Trident and Advision<br />

Studios, London.<br />

Released: Mercury, November 1970 (US); Philips,<br />

April 1971 (UK).<br />

Chart Peak: 26 (UK); 105 (US). Both on RCA rerelease.<br />

Key Personnel: Mick Ronson (gtr); Tony Visconti<br />

(bs); Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey (dms); Ralph<br />

Mace (Moog synthesiser).<br />

Producer: Tony Visconti.<br />

<strong>Bowie</strong>’s first truly gripping work, The Man Who Sold<br />

the World is dark in sound and tone. Crucially it took<br />

collaborators – fellow artists, even – to fashion David<br />

<strong>Bowie</strong>’s sound for him, and engineer Ken Scott<br />

confirms that Tony Visconti and Mick Ronson<br />

laboured on their own for much of the album. Yet, for<br />

all that, the spark that fires up this album was<br />

<strong>Bowie</strong>’s: in framing the concept and delegating<br />

crucial tasks, he inspired his collaborators to<br />

surpass anything they achieved on their own<br />

(Ronson, Visconti and Woodmansey’s work as<br />

Ronno would be famously dull). However erratic his<br />

involvement, the album’s sense of unease – the<br />

disturbing unreality of the title track, the twisting<br />

visions of ‘Width of a Circle’, or the child-like<br />

empathy of ‘All the Madmen’ – derives entirely <strong>from</strong><br />

<strong>Bowie</strong>, who seems most himself when he relies<br />

most on others.

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