David Bowie and John Lennon Find No. 1 Fame
09/20/2010
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On this day in 1975, David Bowie scored his first U.S. number one hit with "Fame," a song that was co-written with John Lennon. Gibson takes a look at the recording of this landmark track: David Bowie had met John Lennon at a party thrown by social butterfly Elizabeth Taylor. Although Lennon had been a hero of Bowie's for years, the two were able to speak on equal footing and very quickly became friends. When John accepted Bowie's invitation to stop by the studio, the band was in the middle of trying to reinterpret a funky track that had a great lick, but had somehow fallen a bit flat on the last tour. The song was a cover of the old Flairs hit, "Foot Stompin'." Alomar had played around with the riff enough to give it a character of its own. As Alomar later told the Examiner:"David liked my guitar line when we did that song on tour, but felt that the song went nowhere. So we sliced it and were in the process of putting it back together another way. As I had to overdub my guitar parts, I was deep in thought concerning the outcome and what I would layer onto the tracks. "When Bowie arrived, he informed me that Lennon was to arrive later on and maybe he would like to play on the tracks. So I started thinking about my first overdub. Lennon appeared about 10 minutes later, jovial, outgoing and excited. He heard what I was doing and commented on how much he like it and how funky it was. David encouraged him to lay an acoustic guitar track down and he did. After that, David asked if I wanted to go out with them to get something to eat. As I had much work ahead of me and my possible overdubs were still fresh in my head, I decided to decline their invitation and remain in the studio. To my delight, when David returned he loved all the guitar overdubs. He recorded a guitar line and the song was completed."
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