Jimmy's 1965 Session With David Bowie

[kenog]

It looks like Jimmy and David Bowie go back a very long way! This article recalls Jimmy's session playing on an early Bowie group in the days when he was still Davie Jones. Love the comment about Bowie's teeth!

Bob Solly remembers being in a band with David Bowie,1964

The Daily Telegraph (London); Nov 13, 2010; Sophie de Rosee; p. 106 Full Text:

( Copyright © Telegraph Group Limited 2010)

This is a photograph I took of all seven members of the blues band the Manish Boys, in Mote Park in Maidstone, Kent. I had studied photography because it was the cool thing to do. David Bailey was on the scene and I thought it was the best way to meet models.

The fellow with the cap is Mick White, I'm next to him grinning, and on my other side is Davie Jones, as David Bowie was known then. He had rotten teeth; I think it cost him Pounds 26,000 to have them put right. In the dark glasses is Johnny Flux, who later changed his name to John Edward. He was responsible for the children's TV programme Metal Mickey, as well as Renee and Renato's 1982 No1 hit Save Your Love. We were all multi-instrumentalists and very young; I was 20, David was 18.

We had formed the band the year before. The fashionable thing to do then was to name your group after birds - like the Flamingos and the Hawks - but we wanted to do something a bit edgy, and were inspired by the record Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters. David didn't join until July 1964 when our manager said to us, 'I've got a great singer who is in limbo at the moment. You'd be ideal for him and he'd be ideal for you. Do you fancy taking him on?' We had enough mouths to feed but we tentatively told Les to bring him down to Kent that Sunday.

It was a blazing-hot day. We were all smoking our heads off and the minute David walked in, dressed in buckskin and with long hair, we knew we would take him on. He played a soul record that he'd made and I hated it. It was absolutely awful. None the less, he had made a record and we hadn't, so were in awe of him. He then sang us a couple of songs that he'd written. We didn't really want him but we took him on anyway.

On January 15 1965 we recorded our first-ever track, Pity the Fool. It was arranged that Jimmy Page would play on the record. Back then, before Led Zeppelin, he was a session guitarist. We had a two-hour slot at the recording studio and did two cuts each of Pity the Fool and one of David's own songs, Take My Tip. It was the first time David committed a self-composed song to wax. At the end of the session Jimmy said, referring to Pity the Fool, 'Well, it's definitely not going to be a hit.' And he was right. The record company pressed only about 500 copies.

The demise of the band in 1965 was down to lack of finances rather than a clash of egos. We are regarded as one of the iconic unknown bands of the era, mainly because of David. If he hadn't been in the band we would have been just another short-lived band who made one record. David is very affable, and hasn't got a side to him. I speak to him on the telephone occasionally and he's just the same as he was then. Interview by Sophie de Rosee The exhibition 'Any Day Now: David Bowie - the London Years (1947-1974)' is on at Proud Camden until December 5 (proud.co.uk)

[jsj]

i recall an interview with radio 1 when bowie turned 50 and discussed his career at length. he mentioned that jimmy gave him a riff back in the eraly days which he later used on ine of his songs. i'm pretty sure it was 'the supermen' from man who sold the world album

[swandown]

You are correct, jsj. Here's a quote from Bowie:

"When I was a baby, I did a rock session with one of the bands, one of the millions of bands that I had in the '60s – it was the Manish Boys, that's what it was – and the session guitar player doing the solo was this young kid who'd just come out of art school and was already a top session man, Jimmy Page. And he just got a fuzzbox and he used that for the solo, he was wildly excited about it and he was quite generous that day and he said "Look, I've got this riff but I'm not using it for anything so why don't you learn it and see if you can do anything with it." So I had his riff and I've used it ever since [laughs]. It's never let me down."

Bowie first used it on "The Supermen" in 1970 and then used it again on "Dead Man Walking" in 1996.

[beetleron]

funny i always thought "supermen" had a certain yardbirds-esque kinda sound

[Led Zep Girl]

I wasn't born in 1965, but my birthday is January 15th.

[jsj]

You are correct, jsj. Here's a quote from Bowie:

"When I was a baby, I did a rock session with one of the bands, one of the millions of bands that I had in the '60s – it was the Manish Boys, that's what it was – and the session guitar player doing the solo was this young kid who'd just come out of art school and was already a top session man, Jimmy Page. And he just got a fuzzbox and he used that for the solo, he was wildly excited about it and he was quite generous that day and he said "Look, I've got this riff but I'm not using it for anything so why don't you learn it and see if you can do anything with it." So I had his riff and I've used it ever since [laughs]. It's never let me down."

Bowie first used it on "The Supermen" in 1970 and then used it again on "Dead Man Walking" in 1996.

well it's nice to know my memory still works occaisonally. i was surprised when he said this as ive always been a fan of that album and song in particular

[thozil]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Hc5ikSRyQ

I Pity The Fool: http://davidbowie.podomatic.com/entry/2008-05-23T18_26_31-07_00