Win (song) - Album Development

Album Development

Begun on 11 August 1974, during breaks in David Bowie's Diamond Dogs Tour, Young Americans was recorded by Tony Visconti primarily at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was agreed early on to record as much of the album as possible live, with the full band playing together, including Bowie's vocals, as a single continuous take for each song. According to Visconti, the album contains "about 85% 'live' David Bowie."

In order to create a more authentically soulful sound, Bowie brought in musicians from the funk and soul community, including an early-career Luther Vandross and Andy Newmark, drummer of Sly and the Family Stone. It was also Bowie's first time working with Carlos Alomar, leading to a working relationship spanning more than 30 years. The song "Young Americans", which Bowie said was about "the predicament on two newlyweds," took two days to record.

The sessions at Sigma Sound lasted through November 1974. The recording had attracted the attention of local fans who began to wait outside the studio over the span of the sessions. Bowie built up a rapport with these fans, whom he came to refer to as the "Sigma Kids". On the final day of tracking the Sigma Kids were invited into the studio to listen to rough versions of the new songs.

"Across the Universe" and "Fame" were recorded at Electric Lady Studios with John Lennon. They replaced previously recorded tracks "Who Can I Be Now" and "It's Gonna Be Me" on the record, though these songs were later released as bonus tracks on reissues of the album. The guitar riff for "Fame", created by Alomar, was based on the song "Foot Stompin'" by the doo-wop band The Flairs.

Bowie considered several different titles for the album, including "Somebody Up There Likes Me", "One Damned Song", "The Gouster" and "Fascination."

In the UK, the "Young Americans" title track was released as a single in 1975 and reached #18 (in the US it reached #28). The UK single featured a rather awkward live version of "Suffragette City" possibly lifted from the David Live LP as its B-side. Bowie performed "Young Americans" on the Dick Cavett Show in the US - his flaming red hair now being a feature of a gaunt looking Bowie that was later to be nicknamed "The Thin White Duke" - his lead character on the following sessions for Station to Station Bowie had an acoustic string guitar strapped to his back for much of the performance, suggesting that it was only a prop and not really required on stage. Vandross can be seen on the TV footage as a session backing singer, along with Ava Cherry.

"Fame" became the second single featuring "Right" on the B-side, this time reaching #17 (with Bowie scoring his first US #1). The writing of "Fame" is credited to Bowie, Alomar and Lennon. Legend has it that in 1974, "Fame", recorded at Electric Lady Studios NY, developed out of a combination of Bowie listening to a great deal of soul music during his US Diamond Dogs Tour and Alomar playing a guitar 'lick' during a break in recording. Alomar's lick has since been confirmed as that taken from "Foot Stompin'" by The Flairs. Lennon, who was still on his 'lost weekend' from Yoko Ono but was celebrating the release of his Walls and Bridges album, had dropped into the studio and took up the opportunity to jam with the boys. Lennon had just been recording with Harry Nilsson and others, the fruits of which were to be released a year later on his Rock 'n' Roll album. Bowie was said to have particularly enjoyed Lennon's company at the recording sessions which also saw a re-working of Lennon's famous Beatles track "Across the Universe". Lennon later remarked that he thought Bowie's version to be the best. As for the soul music Bowie was listening to, it is believed that Shirley & Company's "Shame Shame Shame" was a favourite at the time. Earl Slick, who had been on the Diamond Dogs Tour with Bowie in the US and who appeared on the David Live–the live record taken from the tour–was present during some of the Young Americans sessions and went on to work with Bowie on Station to Station (though not the resulting tour in 1976) and the Serious Moonlight Tour in the 1980s. Slick appears on "Fame".

A third single was mooted but did not materialise from the Young Americans sessions until November 1979 when an edited version of "John I'm Only Dancing Again" (catalogue number: RCA Bow 4) was released in the UK. This track had been recorded as part of the original sessions but rejected from the final cut of the LP. In fact the UK single version, which was also issued as a full-length version on 12" single, was released as a result of RCA putting pressure on a new Bowie recording ahead of the sessions that were to shape Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). The single came with "John I'm Only Dancing 1972" which had also not been available as a 7" single in the UK but had appeared on the Bowie compilation ChangesOneBowie in late 1975. "John I'm Only Dancing Again" featured in 1980 on ChangesTwoBowie. The slot for the proposed third single in 1975 from Young Americans was taken by "Golden Years" from the emerging new sessions from what became Station to Station. Ironically, the B-side of "Golden Years" was "Can You Hear Me" - thought by many fans to be a worthy A-side and likely third single from the Young Americans sessions. "Can You Hear Me" is an outstanding Bowie vocal, possibly the best of his career. In the UK, late 1975 saw the re-release of "Space Oddity" ahead of "Golden Years" - "Space Oddity" finally brought Bowie his first #1 single.

However, in 1991, "John I'm Only Dancing Again" surfaced again together with two other rejected tracks not previously released from the original Young Americans sessions, "It's Gonna Be Me" and "Who Can I Be Now". All three tracks were issued on the Rykodisk/EMI CD version of Young Americans - part of the Sound/Vision CD series that resulted in a number of previously unreleased tracks coming to the fore on the various new CD pressings of Bowie's back catalogue LPs. "John I'm Only Dancing Again" recorded at Sigma Studios Philadelphia, features a young Luther Vandross on backing vocals with Ava Cherry and Robin Clark.

The Young Americans sessions also included David Sanborn on saxophone, one of his first times in a recording studio. Vandross co-wrote "Fascination" with Bowie, the album's third track.

Young Americans marked the end of Bowie's glam rock characters' creations of "Ziggy Stardust" and "Aladdin Sane" and his theatrical staging/concepts such as on the Diamond Dogs Tour.