David Bowie

"'We kept Bowie alive for a couple of years. He went through a bad patch of not getting very much work and people not paying a great deal of attention to him. He did a lot of sessions during that time.' (John Peel, Radio Radio)"

"'I just liked the idea that he was always a step or two ahead of the game.' (John Peel, Peeling Back The Years)"



David Bowie (born David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947  –  10 January 2016), was an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s … (read more at Wikipedia)

Links To Peel
Bowie's earliest singles made little impact either in the UK or US charts, but things began to change with "Can't Help Thinking About Me", which made the Radio London charts and received plenty of airplay on the pirate station. After this, Bowie signed to Deram, a new label set up by Decca Records to release adventurous yet still commercial pop material. His singles of 1966 and 1967 also made Radio London's charts, even if they did not feature in the national top thirty, and tracks from his first LP, David Bowie, were played by the station's DJs, including Peel. However, he did not become one of the mainstays of Peel's Perfumed Garden and despite the efforts of his record company and management Bowie did not enjoy the commercial success of his Deram label-mate and fellow singer-songwriter Cat Stevens. Yet the album did enough to establish Bowie's reputation and a first Top Gear session followed in late 1967.

When Peel was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1996, Bowie was happy to credit the DJ with giving him his first break at the BBC:

"I remember around 1965 I did an audition for the BBC and I failed, and the report said, ‘This vocalist is devoid of personality and sings all the wrong notes.’ So in your inimitable manner and with tremendous enthusiasm you got me back on for another audition, which I passed the second time around, which gave me freewheeling access to a lifetime of singing all the wrong notes."

In fact, as Peel admitted on the 1993 radio documentary Bowie At The Beeb, it wasn’t until The Man Who Sold The World LP of 1970 that he really became enthusiastic about Bowie’s work and it had been producer Bernie Andrews who was responsible for booking the singer for his early sessions on Top Gear:

"I’d played bits and pieces on the pirate ships and indeed on Top Gear, and he’d done the sessions of course for Top Gear, but by and large they were done because producer Bernie Andrews was keen on his work. I wasn’t so keen but I had no influence on choosing who did sessions. This was during the Anthony Newley period of his career, which I didn’t care for a great deal – still don’t, to be perfectly honest with you."

Like Peel, Bowie was a friend of Marc Bolan, which helped him gain a support spot on the Tyrannosaurus Rex tour of early 1969 (see Gigography 1969). Thirty years later, on the Peel Night TV special to celebrate the DJ’s 60th birthday, Bowie remembered:

"When you worked with me on the T-Rex tour and I was doing a mime piece based on the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese ... you decided that the problem was that I was doing mime. You didn’t like mime, and until I came here to America I never realized that you were right - nobody in the world likes mime. Thanks for the advice about the songs. I’m glad I stayed with the songwriting."

Peel played the new Bowie single Space Oddity on 06 July 1969 while bemoaning the fact it was obviously not bound for the charts. Although the record eventually became a surprise hit, Bowie’s career continued to tread water as he tested different directions. Peel would later recount on numerous occasions the story of Bowie writing to ask him for money:

"People weren’t paying a great deal of attention to what he did, to the point where I have letters from him at home – which I bet are worth a pretty penny now – in which he asks me for money to support the Beckenham Arts Lab, and these are full of drawings of what he wanted to do with the buildings and so on. I didn’t send him any money, although I used to send money to lots of people, but not to him. (Bowie At The Beeb)"

Before his big breakthrough with the Ziggy Stardust album (1972) Bowie was featured in BBC concert programmes hosted by Peel in both 1970 and 1971. In Margrave Of The Marshes, Sheila Ravenscroft quotes a 1969 letter from Bowie to Peel requesting a booking:

"I think I should stay out here [Bromley] for most of the summer, and come to town just for the gigs and the one or few friends that I know. Do you think we could do your Strand place soon? It would be nice to work so close to Charring Cross as my last train leaves at 12:15."

Peel continued to play Bowie's records regularly until the turn of the 1980s. Heroes was included in the DJ's self-chosen 1977 Festive Fifty and the following year he played the whole of the Stage double album. In later years, however, he tended to play down his earlier connections with the singer, perhaps influenced by an incident at a record company reception when he was apparently forcefully blocked from approaching Bowie by an American bodyguard. Bowie himself, however, was always generous in his public thanks to Peel for his early support. After Peel's death, Bowie invoked the DJ's name when backing the ultimately successful campaign to keep BBC Radio 6 Music from closure..

In 2012, in an online documentary for TheSpace website, Spiders From Mars bassist Trevor Bolder and BBC engineer Nick Gomm recalled Bowie's historic fourth Peel session, which introduced material from the upcoming Ziggy Stardust LP. The following year, the John Peel Archive site released details of Peel's collection of Bowie singles.

Festive Fifty Entries

 * 1977 Festive Fifty: Heroes #36
 * 1978 Festive Fifty: Heroes #16
 * 1979 Festive Fifty: Heroes #34
 * 2013 Festive Fifty: Where Are We Now? #08

Peelenium

 * Peelenium 1975: Fame

Sessions
Four sessions. Session #1 and "When I'm Five" from session #2 available on the 40th anniversary edition of "David Bowie" (Deram - 531792-5). Rest of session #2 and session #4 available on "Bowie At The Beeb" (2xCD, EMI, 2000). Session #4 also released on "Original John Peel Session: 23rd May 1972" (Digital EP, EMI, 2008).

1. Recorded: 1967-12-18. First broadcast: 24 December 1967. Repeated: 28 January 1968 (presented by Peel and Tommy Vance).
 * Love You Till Tuesday / When I Live My Dream / Little Bombadier / Silly Boy Blue / In The Heat Of The Morning

2. Recorded: 1968-05-13. First broadcast: 26 May 1968. Repeated: 30 June 1968.
 * London Bye Ta-Ta / In The Heat Of The Morning / Karma Man / When I'm Five / Silly Boy Blue (first play 30 June 1968)

3. Recorded: 1972-01-11. First broadcast: 28 January 1972. Repeated: 31 March 1972
 * Hang On To Yourself / Ziggy Stardust / Queen Bitch / Waiting For The Man / Lady Stardust

4. Recorded: 1972-05-16. First broadcast: 23 May 1972. Repeated: 25 July 1972, 27 June 1977
 * White Light White Heat / Moonage Daydream / Hang On To Yourself / Suffragette City / Ziggy Stardust

Live

 * 08 February 1970 (with Hype). Recorded 1970-02-05. "Amsterdam", "God Knows I'm Good", "The Width of a Circle", "Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed" and "Cygnet Committeee"  available on " Bowie At The Beeb "  (2xCD, EMI, 2000).
 * 1) Amsterdam
 * 2) God Knows I'm Good
 * 3) Buzz The Fuzz
 * 4) Karma Man
 * 5) London Bye Ta-Ta
 * 6) An Occasional Dream
 * 7) The Width Of A Circle
 * 8) Janine
 * 9) The Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud
 * 10) Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed
 * 11) Fill Your Heart
 * 12) The Prettiest Star
 * 13) Cygnet Committee
 * 14) Memory of a Free Festival

Apparently, "Waiting for the Man" on show #1 and "Oh! You Pretty Things" on show #2 were performed, but never broadcast.
 * 20 June 1971. Recorded 1971-06-03. "Bombers", "Looking for a Friend", "Almost Grown", "Kooks", "Andy Warhol" and "It Ain't Easy"  available on " Bowie At The Beeb "  (2xCD, EMI, 2000).
 * 1) Queen Bitch
 * 2) Bombers
 * 3) The Supermen
 * 4) Look For A Friend
 * 5) Almost Grown
 * 6) Kooks
 * 7) Song For Bob Dylan
 * 8) Andy Warhol
 * 9) It Ain't Easy

Other Shows Played
The list below was compiled only from the database of this site and Lorcan's Tracklistings Archive and is certainly incomplete. Please add further information if known.


 * 1969
 * 06 July 1969: Space Oddity (single) Philips (Peel bemoans the fact that David Bowie's new single is obviously not bound for the charts)
 * 27 July 1969: Space Oddity (single) Philips


 * 1970
 * 04 July 1970: Memory of a Free Festival (single) Mercury
 * 25 July 1970: Memory Of A Free Festival (7") Mercury


 * 1972
 * Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 4: Starman (single) RCA
 * Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 5: All The Madmen (LP - The Man Who Sold The World) Mercury
 * Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 5: Starman (single) RCA
 * 21 January 1972: Queen Bitch (LP – Hunky Dory) RCA
 * 25 January 1972: Changes (single) RCA
 * 15 February 1972: The Bewlay Brothers (LP – Hunky Dory) RCA
 * 18 April 1972: Starman (single) RCA
 * 21 April 1972: Suffragette City (single – Starman b-side) RCA
 * 21 April 1972: Starman (single) RCA
 * 28 April 1972: Starman (single) RCA
 * 02 May 1972: Starman (single) RCA
 * 16 May 1972: Starman (single) RCA
 * 19 May 1972: Suffragette City (single b-side Starman) RCA
 * 30 May 1972: Starman (single) RCA
 * 09 June 1972: Star (LP – The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars) RCA
 * 20 June 1972: Five Years (LP – The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars) RCA
 * 27 June 1972: Moonage Daydream (LP – Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars) RCA
 * 07 July 1972: Starman (LP – Ziggy Stardust) RCA
 * 11 July 1972: Suffragette City (LP – Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars) RCA
 * 08 August 1972: The Superman (LP - The Man Who Sold The World) Mercury
 * 29 August 1972: John, I'm Only Dancing (single) RCA


 * 1973
 * 17 April 1973: Lady Grinning Soul (LP – Aladdin Sane) RCA Victor
 * 17 April 1973: Panic In Detroit (LP – Aladdin Sane) RCA Victor
 * 19 April 1973: Aladdin Sane (LP – Aladdin Sane) RCA
 * 01 May 1973: The Prettiest Star (single) Mercury


 * 1975
 * John Peel - 1975 Extracts: Panic in Detroit
 * D005: Fascination
 * D011: Knock on Wood
 * D011: Panic In Detroit (live)
 * 17 March 1975: Fame
 * D023: Fame


 * 1977
 * 23 December 1977: Heroes (LP – Heroes) RCA FF#36


 * 1978
 * 27 July 1978: Blackout (LP – Heroes) RCA
 * 25 September 1978: Ziggy Stardust (album - Stage) RCA Victor
 * 26 September 1978: (2xLP – Stage) CBS – sides 1 and 2 played in full. Other two sides promised for the following evening.
 * 27 September 1978: (2xLP – Stage) CBS – sides 3 and 4 played in full (presumably)
 * 29 September 1978 (Davie Jones & The King Bees): Liza Jane (single) Decca reissue
 * 29 September 1978 (Davie Jones & The King Bees): Louis, Louis Go Home (single) Decca reissue
 * 27 November 1978: 'Breaking Glass (2xLP-Stage)' (RCA Victor)
 * 28 December 1978: Heroes (LP – Heroes) RCA FF#16


 * 1979
 * 23 April 1979: TVC 15 (LP - Station To Station) RCA
 * 19 April 1979: Boys Keep Swinging (7") RCA
 * 01 May 1979: Boys Keep Swinging (7") RCA
 * 21 May 1979: African Night Flight (LP - Lodger) RCA
 * 24 May 1979: Red Sails (LP - Lodger) RCA
 * 28 May 1979: Repetition (LP - Lodger) RCA
 * 29 May 1979: Yassassin (LP - Lodger) RCA
 * 04 June 1979: Look Back In Anger (LP - Lodger) RCA
 * 11 June 1979: African Night Flight (LP - Lodger) RCA
 * 21 June 1979: African Night Flight (LP - The Lodger) RCA
 * 24 December 1979: Heroes (LP-Heroes) RCA FF#34


 * 1980s
 * 10 January 1980: The Supermen (LP - The Man Who Sold The World) RCA
 * 11 February 1980: Alabama Song (single) RCA
 * 15 September 1980: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (LP - Scary Monsters) RCA
 * 18 September 1980: Fashion (album - Scary Monsters) RCA BOW LP 2
 * 23 September 1980: Because You're Young (album - Scary Monsters) RCA BOW LP 2
 * 25 September 1980: It's No Game (7") RCA
 * 30 September 1980: Fashion (album - Scary Monsters) RCA BOW LP 2
 * 23 February 1982: Ballad Of The Adventurers (EP - Baal) RCA (Bowie appears on the cover of the next issue of Radio Times (following Kenny Everett in the current edition), as he is due to star the following Tuesday in a TV production of Bertolt Brecht’s Baal. Peel comments that Bowie started out sounding like Anthony Newley and seems to have returned to that.)
 * 27 February 1982 (BFBS): unknown
 * 14 April 1982: Art Decade (album - Low) RCA
 * 26 December 1983: Space Oddity (single mono version) (7") Philips BF 1801
 * 19 September 1984: Blue Jean (single) (Peel went to see The Company Of Wolves and hence plays the David Bowie track, the video of which was played as the supporting film - "the video rather better than the record, I must admit, but I can't play you the video." Nevertheless, "both well worth seeing" is his verdict.)
 * 19 August 1985: Dancing In The Street (with Mick Jagger) (7") EMI
 * 23 February 1987: Andy Warhol (LP - Hunky Dory) (Presumably opened the programme to commemorate Warhol's death the previous day)
 * 13 June 1988: Warszawa (LP - Low) RCA


 * 1990s
 * 14 March 1990: The Laughing Gnome
 * 12 September 1992: Big Brother (album - Diamond Dogs) RCA
 * 12 September 1992: Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family (album - Diamond Dogs) RCA (Wedding Present cover played previous week on 05 September 1992)
 * 06 April 1993 (John Peel Is Jakki Brambles): Jump They Say (single) Arista
 * 07 April 1993 (John Peel Is Jakki Brambles): Black Tie White Noise (single) Arista/BMG
 * 09 April 1993 (John Peel Is Jakki Brambles): Jump They Say (single) Arista
 * 24 June 1996: Ziggy Stardust (session 1/11/72) (John Peel's Classic Sessions)
 * 23 November 1999: Fame (LP-Young Americans) RCA (Peelenium 1975)


 * 2000s
 * 18 December 2003 (Radio Eins): London Bye Ta Ta
 * 20 October 2004 (presented by Siouxsie of Siouxsie & The Banshees): Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide (7" single) RCA
 * 21 October 2004 (presented Robert Smith of the Cure): Saturday Night (EMI)


 * Top Of The Pops
 * 28 April 1983 (TOTP): Let’s Dance (video clip) (“At No.6, “Let’s Dance”... the multi-talented David Bowie.”)
 * 05 May 1983 (TOTP): Starman (clip) (1000th edition of the programme)
 * 08 June 1983 (TOTP): China Girl (8) (video)
 * 23 June 1983 (TOTP): Let’s Dance
 * 06 October 1983 (TOTP): Modern Love (2) (video)
 * 25 December 1985 (TOTP): Dancing In The Street (with Mick Jagger)


 * Others
 * Where It's At: Fame (LP-Young Americans) RCA
 * Peeling Back The Years: Fame (LP – Young Americans) RCA
 * Punk Fiction: Golden Years
 * Beam Me Up, Scotty: Space Oddity (LP-David Bowie) Philips
 * Radio Radio (Transcript): (JP: "I think if people are any good they are going to become public property eventually anyway, so all you can do is sort of either accelerate or retard the process. So there have been people like, uh, well, we kept Bowie alive for a couple of years. He went through a bad patch of not getting very much work and people not paying a great deal of attention to him. He did a lot of sessions during that time.")
 * John Peel: In Session Tonight: Oh You Pretty Things
 * Keeping It Peel: 'Suffragette City' (Peel session)

Covered
Listing taken only from the Cover Versions page of this site. Please add more information if known.

Performing Artist | Song | First Known Play


 * Au Pairs: Repetition (session) 12 June 1980
 * Bauhaus: Ziggy Stardust 28 December 1982
 * Cuban Boys: The Laughing Gnome (session) 10 May 2000
 * Dinosaur Jr.: Quicksand 21 January 1991
 * Duran Duran: Fame 05 May 1981
 * Flaming Lips: Life On Mars (session) 21 November 1992
 * Helen Lundy Trio: Let's Dance 15 January 2003
 * Matmos: A New Career In A New Town 05 February 2003
 * Nirvana: The Man Who Sold The World 05 November 1994
 * Screamfeeder: Boys Keep Swinging 22 December 1999
 * Six By Seven: Helden 06 October 1999
 * Skids: All The Young Dudes 15 November 1979
 * Top Of The Toppers: Starman 14 May 1986
 * Wedding Present: Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family 05 September 1992