Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
David Bowie was never going to be the type of artist to stand still, to languish in the times he was born into and stay safe, to be seen as a harmless product of the 60s and then fade like so many others as the following decade altered the landscape of British music forever.
Yet, perhaps, to be there at the beginning of his career, when The Mannish Boys and The Lower Third were affixed to his name, when the legendary Sheldon Talmy and a future illustrious figure in the shape of Jimmy Page were shaping the sound of the then David Jones, is more enlightening than we may think, and in the truly cool recordings of David Bowie: The Shel Talmy Recordings what comes across is the burgeoning fever of the icon, unsettled perhaps, but a talent already focused on exactly what he wanted, and how he wanted to deliver.
In the decades before social media exposure its not unfathomable to understand just how important this album would have been if it had been released at the start, if the Mannish Boys or The Lower Third had been pushed further, been honed in the same way that Bowie would connect later with Mick Ronson for example. If social media had been around at the time, the contrast would have been explosive, the attitude, in a similar way to The Small Faces, would have been electric, the sense of enormity would have held sway with Pete Townsend, the lyrical genius would have been noted, and the overall humanity of the man would have been half a decade ahead of his time.
Such is the man that in the end it didn’t matter, but the building blocks were there, the foundation was perfect, and what was to come was the finest of creations, a creature of many faces but all of them intensely beautiful and respected.
A couple of the songs on the album did make early singles, but out of context from the actual recording sessions it becomes easy to see why they disappeared quickly; but you wouldn’t judge a book by a single paragraph, you shouldn’t judge a person by a single interaction, and so a single should not be the cornerstone of your belief when an album of songs is waiting to be discovered; and that is true of The Shel Talmy Recordings.
Across tracks such as Glad I’ve Got Nobody, Certain Woman, You Gotta Tell Her, and Cupid, the expressions of a man pre-destined for greatness is overwhelmingly clear; his fierce sense of grace is alluring, and the ideas conjuring magic from stardust.
A terrific album highlighting the very start of the journey, one to which deservedly lives up to a final top billing.
Ian D. Hall