The next entry in the series of David Bowie box sets — Who Can I Be Now? 1974-1976 — will feature the pop star’s previously unreleased album The Gouster.
Recorded with Bowie’s longtime producer Tony Visconti and described by him as “40 minutes of glorious funk”, The Gouster‘s demos and musical ideas would go on to become Bowie’s 1975 album Young Americans.
Following last year’s 12-CD box set Five Years 1969 – 1973, Who Can I Be Now? is still without a release date, but Parlophone Records is promising to release more information next week.
As for The Gouster itself, a post on Bowie’s Facebook page today includes some of Visconti’s liner notes from the box set, touching on the unreleased album.
“‘Gouster’ was a word unfamiliar to me but David knew it as a type of dress code worn by African American teens in the ’60’s, in Chicago. But in the context of the album its meaning was attitude, an attitude of pride and hipness,” Visconti says.
“Of all the songs we cut we were enamored of the ones we chose for the album that portrayed this attitude.
“So The Gouster began with the outrageous brand new, funkafied version of David’s classic John, I’m Only Dancing, a single he wrote and recorded in 1972, only this time our version sounded like it was played live in a loft party in Harlem and he added ‘(Again)’ to the title. It wasn’t the two and a half minute length of the original either.”
The Facebook post also includes new cover art for the album in the form of an unreleased photo from the original photoshoot. You can check it out, along with the full excerpt of Visconti’s linear notes, below.
Watch: David Bowie – ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’
https://youtu.be/6VrqCBsbeuc
