A few notes of farewell to a great artist and fellow musician. Your work will never cease to inspire us all.
In
the 80’s before computers made it possible for everyone to be a
keyboard player, I had constant work with Clive Langer and Alain
Whinstanley. Clive and Alain produced the soundtrack for Absolute
Beginners, and I was involved on several tracks, including playing the
string synthesisers on David’s title song "Absolute Beginners". My
Royal College of Music mate Rick Wakeman added the final piano
flourishes. At the same moment in time, the huge concert Live Aid took
place, Elvis was asked to appear solo, but thankfully I was involved by
playing on Bowie and Jagger’s “Dancing in the Street”. For this session
I played bass piano on the backing track, which was an incredibly
exciting studio moment. Jagger arrived unexpectedly early in the
recording room as we were running down the track, and began dancing
around us, whipping the music up several notches in the process. The
song was played round and round to his dancing, many many times before
the record button went red, by which time the vibe was truly red hot.
After this there was a killer scene in the control room with Bowie and
Jagger, out starring each other, and me, all the musicians on the track,
Clive and Alain, listening back. They overdubbed their voices two takes
each. We all stood listening back takes A+B of David’s vocal and the
best lines were compiled. Then Mick took the the chair beside Clive
listening line by line. Each time the room was asked A or B? If the
concensus was for take A, Mick insisted on take B. This went down for
the entire song. “It sounds pretty wonderful now” says David to the
whole room, “does anyone have any ideas for overdubs?”. Although the
quiet one in situations like this, I said instantaneously “Yeah I have a
vox organ here, I can bring it in, it would add a cool flavour”. “Go
get it then” said David, and I headed out through the door. As I headed
by Mick I heard him quip “That’s the sound I hate the most in the
whole world”… I immediately looked at Bowie thinking to myself “what a
catastrophe" but David smiled at me and I will never forget this smile
that we all love so much. Needless to say the Vox Organ never made it
to the mix. But I will always remember how David made everyone feel at
ease and brought out the best in people, even the contrary Mr Jagger.
Quickly a final mix was played back, I recall Bowie actually leaping
over the mixing desk. He was standing behind the desk between the back
and the control room window and in one seemingly effortless and elegant
kick of his leg he just seemed to fly over the desk and landed right
beside Clive and I. Later we all went down to Docklands to watch Bowie
and Jagger shoot the video, once again, two megastars determined to out
dance the other. Brilliant.
