This was posted and sent to me as it appeared through Philly's station 88.5 WXPN. It's a look back on the "Young Americans" sessions from 1974, and includes links to articles, photos, session outtakes and alternate mixes from that time. And if you follow the links, you'll find more of the same. A lot of this stuff was "new" to my ears, although it may have already been circulating in Bowie fan circles which I haven't been a part of. Anyway, it's fascinating stuff.
In 1974 after he recorded that live album at Philly's Tower Theater, he and Tony Visconti set up camp in Philly to work with and within the "Philly Sound", which was cranking out hit records by the boxload at that time, terrific records with great studio players and great sounds. Bowie and Visconti booked Sigma Sound studios in Philly to start the new album project, hoping to grab some of the magic that was coming out of the scene.
It's old news, I'm sure, but one of the most ironic parts of the story as told at the links is that Bowie and Visconti had booked the time planning to record with that incredible group of studio players who like the Funk Brothers, Stax, and the Wrecking Crew were a semi-organized group of musicians who were playing all of those sessions and making "that sound". One of the key records that has the sound on all of those Philly Sound classics was coincidentally "TSOP (The Sound Of Philly)" by MFSB. I think Bowie and Visconti had planned to work with the MFSB band and its offshoots, and due to some scheduling or planning blunders they only got one of the MFSB/Philly conga players who was available as the Bowie camp was in town! So Bowie had non-Philly players like Andy Newmark on drums, David Sanborn on sax, Carlos Alomar on guitar, and Willie Weeks on bass playing a lot of the rhythm tracks, but also had some of Philly's better singers like Luther Vandross doing backups.
Here's the link, take special note of a rough mixdown of Fame with a really bizarre flute lead part and other elements which got eliminated from the final version:
http://thekey.xpn.org/2014/01/08/celebrate-david-bowies-67th-birthday-by-exploring-the-philadelphia-roots-of-young-americans/Do a little digging at this link, you'll find some really cool stuff if you're into Bowie from this era.
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