“Fame, makes a man take things over”
We’re looking at The Gouster and Young Americans from the upcoming David Bowie – Who Can I Be Now? (1974 – 1976) box set (smarturl.it/Bowie7476AZ), before we move on to Station To Station next week.
One of the more obvious differences between The Gouster and Young Americans is that the latter contained Bowie’s first ever #1 single. (Compare tracklisitings here.)
Fame was the second 45 released from the Young Americans album (the title track was the first), and it reached the top spot on the American Billboard Hot 100 in October, 1975.
1975 was a good year for Bowie chart action. Following the success of Fame, the re-issued Space Oddity gave him his first UK #1 the following month.
Fame was famously co-written with John Lennon (and Carlos Alomar), we’ll leave you with more of Tony Visconti’s fascinating sleeve notes from the box set on that very subject…
“I mixed ‘The Gouster’ (indeed there are tape boxes with ‘The Gouster’ written in bold letters on them) in London with instructions delivered from New York by David in the form of long telegrams, over twenty pages long. “Listen to the snare drum on this record…listen to the bass on that record…put a slap back on the congas on the ‘Young Americans’ breakdown…” Using DHL I sent the mixes back to New York where David listened and felt the album was not yet finished. Some songs could use real strings, including the two songs we recorded later in New York with Harry Maslin, ‘Fascination’ and ‘Win’. To me that also meant those songs might be contenders for ‘The Gouster’ so some others would have to go.
At the same time I was working on the strings and new mixes something was afoot in New York. David personally phoned me to tell me he had met up with John Lennon and got him into the studio with a band now consisting of Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis and bassist Emir Ksasan. They wrote and recorded ‘Fame’ in one evening, also recording Lennon’s ‘Across The Universe’ for good measure. David said, “I’m sorry Tony, but they have to be on the album.” I also met John Lennon earlier for the first time with David and responded with, “If you gave me a day’s warning I would’ve flown myself on the Concorde to do that session.” I was quite upset. Well, anyway, ‘Fame’ is a great song; a great record and we all love it.” – Tony Visconti (May, 2016)
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