Bowie’s Deram debut is 48 today
“Did you ever have a Deram?”
David Bowie released his first album this day in 1967, albeit lacking the fanfare of Sergeant Pepper reportedly released on the same day by The Beatles. In fact Pepper was actually released a couple of weeks earlier. But that’s for Beatles’ buffs to explain.
Pictured here are the original stereo US (top left) and UK vinyl pressings and the impossibly rare US 8-track cartridge.
Issued on the Decca subsidiary, Deram, David Bowie is an album that has been unfairly dismissed by some over the years, even by Bowie himself on occasion.
This is a disservice that belies the fact that the record contained some classic Bowie recordings, including the likes of There Is A Happy Land, When I Live My Dream and Silly Boy Blue.
If you’ve not delved this far back, go listen to the most complete collection of songs from the period (including Karma Man, Let Me Sleep Beside You, In The Heat Of The Morning and the sublime The London Boys), on the 55-track Deluxe version of the album on Spotify now.
FOOTNOTE: Since we posted an image of the Deram album 8-track on April 1st, we’ve had a fair few people contact us to say that they didn’t fall for the April Fool joke and that they know there was no such thing. Well that was the twist in the tale. The 8-track is for real and it was manufactured in the USA. We posted it in a kind of reverse April Fool type doo dah.