David Bowie Fame – Space Oddity (1975 Italy) estimated value € 14,00.

Fame

"Fame" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was released on his 1975 album Young Americans and was later issued as the album's second single by RCA Records in July 1975. Written by Bowie, Carlos Alomar and John Lennon, it was recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City in January 1975. It is a funk rock song that represents Bowie's dissatisfaction with the troubles of fame and stardom.

Track listing

Side A – Fame – 4:12

Arranged By – David Bowie
Mixed By – David Bowie, Harry Maslin
Written-By – Alomar, Bowie, Lennon

Side B – Space Oddity – 5:15

Arranged By – D. Bowie, P. Buckmaster
Producer – Gus Dudgeon
Written-By – David Bowie

Description

Media & Sleeve Condition

Media Condition: Very Good Plus (VG+)
Sleeve Condition: Very Good (VG)
ring wear: Yes
All three seams looking perfect: Yes
Picture sleeve looks near mint: No
creases or folds: No
stamps or writing: No

 

 

Personnel

According to biographer Chris O'Leary:

David Bowie – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, percussion
John Lennon – backing vocals, acoustic guitar
Carlos Alomar – lead and rhythm guitars
Earl Slick – rhythm guitar
Emir Ksasan – bass
Dennis Davis – drums, vibraslap

The story behind ‘Fame’

While mixing the Young Americans album in New York during January 1975, Bowie summoned members of his tour band for an impromptu recording session with John Lennon at Electric Lady studios. After taping ‘Across The Universe’, the band renewed their attempts to lay down a studio version of The Flares’ ‘Foot Stomping’, a staple in the previous autumn’s tour repertoire. However, the song which had worked so well in concert and during an appearance on the Dick Cavett show proved lacklustre in the studio, and Bowie elected instead to discard ‘Foot Stomping’ and salvage the guitar riff created by Carlos Alomar.

According to Alomar, “David recorded my chord changes and riff, and he hated it. He took out the lyrics and ended up with the music and cut it up on the master so that it would have classic R&B form. He’s a perfectionist and experiments with the original tape, running it backwards, cutting it up, doing things on the master as opposed to recording them live. ‘Fame’ was totally cut up. When he had the form of the song he wanted, he left. I stayed behind and overdubbed four or five different guitar parts on it. He listened to it and said, ‘That’s it’.”

Bowie would later question Alomar’s recollection of multiple guitar overdubs: “Carlos’s memory is a little off here,” he revealed in 2006. “Tony Visconti took the tapes to a studio for the 5.1 mix last year and found that Carlos had only overdubbed one extra guitar. The other electric guitar which makes the long ‘Wah’ and the echoed ‘Bomp!’ sound was played by myself, and John Lennon played the acoustic. John supervised the backwards piano on the front. I also spent several hours creating the end section.”

Like many of the Bowie classics, ‘Fame’ was clearly the product of a happy collision of accidents and methodologies. John Lennon later suggested in 1980 that “We took some Stevie Wonder middle eight and did it backwards, you know, and we made a record out of it! I like that track.”

“With John Lennon in the studio it was more the influence of having him that helped,” said Bowie. “There’s always a lot of adrenalin flowing when John is around, but his chief addition to it all was the high-pitched singing of ‘Fame!’ The riff came from Carlos and the melody and most of the lyrics came from me. But it wouldn’t have happened if John hadn’t been there. He was the energy, and that’s why he got a credit for writing it. He was the inspiration.”

‘Fame’ sums up Bowie’s very immediate disaffection with the trappings of stardom: money-grabbing managers, mindless adulation, unwanted entourages and the hollow vacuity of the limousine lifestyle. Having spent most of 1974 simultaneously touring America and fighting with his manager Tony DeFries over control of his finances and career, David was singing from the heart.

“There was a degree of malice,” Bowie later agreed. “I’d had very upsetting management problems and a lot of that was built into the song.” On another occasion he recalled that he and Lennon had “spent hours talking about fame, and what it’s like not having a life of your own any more.”

Despite its intensely personal nature, Bowie was initially unenthusiastic about ‘Fame’. “That was my least favourite track on the album,” he recalled in 1990.

Ironically, ‘Fame’ was the Bowie single that finally broke America and propelled him into the full glare of Stateside celebrity. It became a US number 1 in the summer of 1975.

On 4 November 1975 Bowie gave a mimed performance of ‘Fame’ on ABC TV’s Soul Train. A fortnight later he performed the song again on CBS’s The Cher Show.

In January 1976 James Brown released a single called ‘Hot’ which was a blatant and un-sanctioned cover of ‘Fame’. However the record failed to chart.

by The Thin White Duke – 25 July 1975

Key facts

It was co-written by David Bowie, guitarist Carlos Alomar, and John Lennon.
John Lennon also contributed guitar and backing vocals during the recording session.
The song was produced by Harry Maslin.
"Fame" is a funk rock track and was part of Bowie's album Young Americans, released in March 1975, with the single released later in July 1975.
It became Bowie's first number-one hit in the United States.
The song critiques the nature of fame and its impact on creativity and personality, with Bowie famously describing fame as something that "can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them."