So goes the legend: in 2000, during the brief tour in support of his (very ordinary) album Hours, David Bowie wanted to revisit some obscure compositions from the 1960s-early 1970s with the orchestra that accompanied him at the time (Earl Slick on guitar, Sterling Campbell on drums, among others) and to make one album that his record company will table as soon as it is completed. Wrongly: It was a beautiful rock machine that bit into these lovely songs with an energy and spontaneity transpiring from those recordings which over the years and special editions have pretty much all been released. Here they are gathered in a box of three discs (the other two stuffed with alternative versions) recalling the memory and the phlegm of the Thin White Duke, who would have been 75 years old on Monday. Big Bowie? Certainly not. But it’s good Bowie, and it’s already a lot: softer, these versions of Conversation Piece (Face B of The Prettiest Star) and of Shadow man (composed for Ziggy Stardust) alone justify this publication.
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