>> DAVID BOWIE

David Bowie as Rainbow Man and myself as Hypeman playing at Chalkfarm, London 1969.

I am associated with David Bowie as the producer of 12 of his albums.

Most are considered classics by fans and critics. I am deeply satisfied with the production on most of these and it's very hard for me to choose a favorite, but I think I like David Live the least. It was a rush job; we just needed product out to promote his tour.

Among my favorites are The Man Who Sold the World and Scary Monsters. The Low, Heroes and Lodger triptych (as Bowie calls them) are three albums I'm also very proud of. Many think Brian Eno produced these, and I can't believe that professional critics (reviewing the Outside collaboration with Eno) never even read the credits on these CDs, which clearly state that I co-produced these with Bowie; but Eno's abstract ideas as a "non-musician" (he tried to have this as his stated occupation on his passport) were essential to the amazing departure from normal rock and into the realms of really cool new stuff!

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David Bowie and myself at the Brits Pop Awards Show, 1980.

Sometime in the autumn of 1967 my former boss, David Platz, asked me into his office to listen to the work of a writer he had signed. Out of his speakers wafted such diverse songs as "When I Live My Dreams" and "The Laughing Gnome". My original reaction was, "This guy's all over the place." Hardly any two songs on his first album sounded as if they were in the same style, and the vocal styles were equally diverse. But I admitted to liking what I had heard anyway. David Platz asked, "How would you like to meet him?" I said yes, and was escorted into another room where 20-year-old David Bowie was eagerly waiting to meet me! I immediately noticed the different colored eyes. He was nervous, but very charming and outgoing. David Platz said he'd leave the two of us alone to get acquainted.

We spent the rest of the day together. We had so much in common, every time one of us opened a new subject the other would join in with shared knowledge and interest. We liked The Fugs (an American underground group), Andy Warhol, foreign films by the likes of Roman Polanski, etc.

We knew we had to record together. I told him he'd have to specialize in a style to avoid a disastrous repeat of his debut album, and he agreed. We listened to the new material he'd written, and three songs really stuck out and were ready to roll: "Let Me Sleep Beside You", "Karma Man" and "In The Heat of The Morning". We found ourselves in Decca and Advision Recording studios shortly afterwards.

Our early attempts at making hits were not well received. His label, Deram, hated them and he was dropped as a result, in favor of promoting their other male soloist, Cat Stevens. So we had a bumpy start to a professional relationship which would not yield commercial fruit for many years to come. I heard it said by others that we were simply many years ahead of our time.

For more information on Bowie, check out his own website at www.davidbowie.com.

My deepest gratitude to Cindy Morgan for her editorial suggestions.