The Guitars of David Bowie?
Posted by Moonage | Filed under The World Of David Bowie
Luke Slater over at TinMachine does a really neat survey of the guitars Bowie has used through the years. He comes to the conclusion Bowie basically has two guitars. One acoustic, one electric. Luke then finishes up with a conclusion that loses me. He thinks this is sad.
Now, ya gotta remember that for the most part, Bowie never considered himself a guitar player. Sure, he’s strummed a lot, but find a video where Bowie gets down on a guitar. It don’t happen. He plays piano, keyboards, saxophone, whatever it takes to get the sound he wants. No biggie. Also, consider the guitar players he’s hung out with over the last forty years or so:
- Mick Ronson
- John Lennon
- Jeff Beck
- Peter Frampton
- Stevie Ray Vaughn
- Nile Rodgers
- Charlie Sexton
- Earl Slick
- Carlos Alomar
- Adrian Belew
- Robert Fripp
- Reeves Gabrels
- David Gilmour
If I could count on that line-up to make me sound good, I’d have two less guitars than Bowie does.
Tags: Adrian-Belew, Carlos-Alomar, Charlie-Sexton, david bowie, David-Gilmour, Earl-Slick, guitar, Jeff-Beck, John-Lennon, mick ronson, nile-rodgers, Peter-Frampton, Reeves-Gabrels, Robert-Fripp, Stevie-Ray-Vaughn, The World Of David Bowie
Giorgio Moroder
Posted by Moonage | Filed under The World Of David Bowie
|
In 1975, like most 40 somethings, I learned to dance to Donna Summer. I didn’t like disco, but the babes did exclusively and if you wanted to even touch them, you danced. Now, Donna was a little different than most. Her music was usually very rich and usually the music itself was fun to listen to. I Feel Love was the disco song that kicked disco into high gear. However, if you really wanted to get the girl, you danced the entire disco version of Love to Love You Baby. After more than 16 minutes of bumping and grinding, you knew everything about your potential date. Usually, a lot more than you wanted to. I didn’t mind the song, it was lush and had a quality sound to it. In 1978 my dancing preference changed dramatically as I fell in love with the song Heart of Glass by Blondie. Musically it was a lot like I Feel Love, but it was newer, fresher, and Debra Harry had a piercingly clear voice that I just fell in love with. They immediately followed their breakout album with an even better album that featured my favorite Blondie song, Union City Blue. Now, this is where you might THINK Bowie ties in. If you bought the re-released Eat to the Beat, you would get their version of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. But, it’s not the catch I’m getting to. Although Blondie was cruising, their biggest hit was yet to come. In 1980 Blondie released Call Me. It was their biggest hit, and pretty much signaled the end of Blondie as we knew it. It pretty much established Giorgio Moroder as a music producer for films. Call Me was the theme song to the hit movie, American Gigolo. In 1982, Moroder was producing the soundtrack for another movie, Cat People. For the vocals of the theme song, Putting Out Fire, he teamed up with Bowie. Now, the film version was very dark and brooding. I REALLY liked it. Bowie remixed it and put it on his grab-bag of miscellaneous new and old songs CD called Let’s Dance. He kept some of the original mix, but pepped it up a little with the help of Nile Rodgers. By combining two of the gods of disco, Bowie produced a monster hit well after people were burning disco albums and publicly blowing them up. Cat People wasn’t the biggest hit on the album, but it was the richest musically and is my favorite song from the album. Here’s my version. I enjoy it a lot. Moroder then produced Flashdance ( What a Feeling ), No More Words by Berlin ( most excellent band! ), Janet Jackson’s Dream Street, soundtrack to The Neverending Story, the soundtrack to Top Gun, Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone ( from Top Gun ), Berlin’s Take My Breath Away ( from Top Gun ), and most recently with Enrique Iglasias on Escape, and rumored to now be working with Jessica Simpson. And, I bet, most of the people who started reading this post at the beginning were thinking “Who is Giorgio Moroder?”. I didn’t even list nearly all that he’s done, just the parts I like best! |
Tags: cat-people, david bowie, georgio-moroder, nile-rodgers, The World Of David Bowie
Nile Rodgers
Posted by Moonage | Filed under The World Of David Bowie
In 1977 Nile Rodgers exploded on the scene with Chic’s “Le Freak“. Now, disco bands were cranking out monster hits with regularity and vanishing. Rodgers stood out. After leaving Chic, he produced:
Sister Sledge, We Are Family, Cotillion, 1979.
Diana Ross, Diana, Motown, 1980.
Debbie Harry, Koo Koo, 1981.
Madonna, Like a Virgin, Sire, 1984.
Jeff Beck, Flash, CBS, 1985.
The Power Station, The Power Station, Capitol, 1985.
Thompson Twins, Here’s to Future Days, 1985.
Duran Duran, Notorious, Capitol, 1986.
Grace Jones, Inside Story, 1986.
The B-52’s, Cosmic Thing, Reprise, 1989.
Vaughan Brothers, Family Style, CBS, 1990.
In regards to this board, he teamed up with Bowie and Stevie Ray Vaughan for Bowie’s monster Let’s Dance. Now, Bowie had been thinking he was black during the Young Americans genre, but Rodgers made him black, just for one day. What made this work is Bowie let Rodgers, Vaughan, and the myriad of performers on this collection do the talking, he just sang. Bowie didn’t even try to act like the star on this one. And it worked. It gave Rodgers and Vaughan especially the spotlight they earned. And, it gave Bowie the comeback album he needed to prove he was still a viable force in creating music. It was a big deal in the career of Bowie.
So, what is Nile doing now?
Nile has been attacked by Dr. Charles Dobson for making a gay-leaning Spongbob Squarepants video featuring “We Are Family”. I kid you not.
Nile is apparently doing just fine 20 years after Let’s Dance. Which, given the fate of most of Bowie’s famous recording partners, is a very, very, good thing.
Tags: chic, nile-rodgers, spongebob, The World Of David Bowie, we-are-family
