David Bowie’s 1965 Unheard Recordings Arrive Sept. 18, Featuring Jimmy Page

Q: Why were David Bowie's first recordings with Jimmy Page hidden for over sixty years?

They were not publicly available for so long mainly because producer Shel Talmy kept the 1965 tapes in secure storage and did not circulate them. Talmy said he had several completely unreleased Bowie tracks in his files for many years and, for security reasons, had never even played them in full to others. The recordings also came from a period before David Bowie became David Bowie in the public imagination. In 1965 he was still performing as Davy Jones, making bluesy mod-pop with groups such as the Manish Boys and the Lower Third. At the time, Talmy believed the material was strong but “six years ahead of the market,” suggesting there was little commercial incentive to push it then. That helps explain why the sessions slipped into obscurity rather than becoming part of Bowie’s official early catalog. Some songs from the era did come out, including “I Pity the Fool” and “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving,” but a wider body of material remained unheard, even by dedicated Bowie collectors. Their release now appears to be the result of Talmy’s long-held intention to open the archive, followed by work with the Bowie estate and labels after his death in 2024. So the recordings were “hidden” less because of a mystery than because they were privately held, never properly issued, and only later recognized as historically important documents of Bowie’s pre-fame years with players including a young Jimmy Page.

Q: Before Ziggy Stardust and Led Zeppelin, what did this forgotten 'supergroup' sound like?

It sounded like a raw, mid-1960s London R&B-pop band: sharp-suited, bluesy, hook-driven and louder than polished beat music, with hints of the hard-edged attack that Jimmy Page and producer Shel Talmy would later bring to bigger acts. The newly issued 1965 recordings capture David Bowie before Bowie, still performing as Davy or Davie Jones with the Manish Boys and the Lower Third. Rather than the theatrical art-rock of Ziggy Stardust, the music leans on American rhythm and blues, British mod energy and compact pop songwriting. Tracks such as “I Want Your Love” have been described as lurching R&B numbers with fuzzy guitar, upbeat drumming and endings that explode in a Who-like burst. Page’s presence is part of what makes the sessions feel like a “forgotten supergroup.” Before Led Zeppelin, he was a top session guitarist, and here he adds bite and flash, including the solo on “I Pity the Fool.” Nicky Hopkins, another elite London session player, contributes piano, giving the songs extra drive and swing. Talmy, who also shaped the early sound of the Kinks and the Who, ties it together with a tough, punchy production style. Vocally, Bowie is not yet the chameleon he became. He sounds like an ambitious young singer working in the idiom of the day: somewhere between mod R&B swagger and blues-pop melodrama. As historian Alec Palao argues, these recordings make most sense when heard not as proto-Ziggy, but as vivid documents of the excitement of London in 1965.

3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 15

A Sept. 18 compilation, David Bowie: The Shel Talmy Recordings, will release unheard 1965 tracks from Bowie’s early Davy Jones period, with one song — “I Want Your Love” — already available.
Several recordings feature a pre-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page, then a session guitarist working with producer Shel Talmy; pianist Nicky Hopkins also appears on the sessions.
The set gathers solo performances and tracks with the Lower Third and the Manish Boys, including previously unreleased songs such as “Cupid,” “Leave Her to Me” and “I Live in Dreams.”
Recorded before Bowie adopted his new name in 1966 and years before 1969’s Space Oddity, the material captures his mid-60s bluesy, mod-era pop-rock beginnings rather than his later experimental style.
The release extends a long reappraisal of Bowie’s early work, which he revisited in 2000 for Toy — an album shelved at the time and issued posthumously in 2021.