“I think it’s wonderful that people can get to hear the early Davie Jones music,” said Dana Gillespie, an early collaborator of Bowie’s.
She met him after a performance at the Marquee Club in London when Bowie was 17.
“They’re songs that don’t really sound like David but it’s him trying to find his voice. He was experimenting.”
Gillespie became close friends with Bowie, eventually working with him on his “Ziggy Stardust” album. Talmy worked with both artists and Bowie’s song “Andy Warhol”, on his fourth studio album, was originally written for Gillespie.
“He was very driven,” remembered Gillespie, who is still touring and making music at the age of 77.
“Some time in the sixties, he asked me to come and visit his parents. We were in his little house in Bromley, and when his parents left the room he turned to me and said: ‘Whatever it takes, I want to get out of here.’ And he did,” she said.
It is a decade since Palao found the recordings. Since then, it has been a long process to bring them to market. The result is an album that he says is “absolutely pure rock ‘n’ roll”.
“If you’re looking for clues as to what he was to become, there’s maybe less of that,” said Palao, “but objectively speaking, I feel it’s important stuff.”
Gillespie is excited by one song in particular.
“There was a famous café called the Gioconda in Denmark Street where I often used to go with David,” she said, recalling the centre of musical life in London in the 1960s.
“One day when I was sitting there, David rushed in and took me by the hand. He said: ‘You have to hear this’.
“He ran with me around the corner and squeezed us into a small listening booth. I had one speaker and he had the other, and he played me ‘I Pity The Fool’.”
A remastered version of the song can be heard in the new album.
For music historians, fans of Bowie, and those who were there, the new album is another chance to reconnect with an enduring cultural icon.
“David always wanted to be a big star,” said Gillespie. “I’m so happy that his early stuff hasn’t been forgotten.”
