17 Jul Bowie Shel Talmy Recordings: The First Track Is Here

▶ 6:14 min read

Since July 15th, a song no one had ever heard before has been out in the world: “I Want Your Love,” recorded in 1965 when David Bowie was still Davie Jones. It’s the lead single from an archive set due September 18. Nine more unreleased tracks from the same sessions remain under wraps until then.

The first track is already out

Archive announcements usually work like promises. You read a date, note a name, and wait. This time, it’s different: Parlophone released a track the moment they announced the set. “I Want Your Love” has been streaming on official channels since July 15, two months ahead of the full release.

Rolling Stone calls the track a wobbly R&B number with fuzzy guitar chaos, a drumbeat locked on the upstroke, and a guitar apocalypse straight out of The Who’s playbook. The magazine hears echoes of Van Morrison and Mick Jagger in Bowie’s phrasing. Whether you agree is something you can decide for yourself-since July 15.

For everything else, patience is still required. Nine more unreleased recordings remain under lock and key until September. No one outside the estate has heard them in full. For now, all you get is one song-and the question of what it reveals about the rest.

This sequence is unusual for an archive project. Normally, it’s announcement first, then months of silence, then the album. Here, you’re handed a sample upfront. That gives you a basis for your own judgment two months before the record hits stores.

Why the vinyl bears the number 1965

The alternate-cover pressing is limited to 1,965 copies-a nod to the year the tapes were made.

It’s a small gesture with a ripple effect. It turns 1965 into its own distinct creative period, one with its own weight. If you have the record on your shelf, you’re holding a year. Available through Record Store Day shops and HMV, plus a red vinyl exclusive to the official Bowie store, alongside standard CD, LP, and digital editions.

Limited editions are standard in the vinyl business, usually with round numbers. This one carries meaning. It tells you the theme before you’ve even flipped the record over.

Who Sat in the Room in 1965 Held Careers in Their Hands

The most intriguing question about these sessions is how an eighteen-year-old even got in. Bowie, born in 1947, was in 1965 a singer with a few unsuccessful singles to his name. Shel Talmy, meanwhile, was the man who had produced “You Really Got Me” and would soon record “My Generation.”

The band names from those months read like a search for identity: The Manish Boys, followed by Davie Jones and The Lower Third. Neither lineup lasted long. Both left behind recordings that will partly be heard for the first time in September. Today, anyone coming across those names knows them almost exclusively because of the singer-who was the least known participant at the time.

London’s music industry back then operated through a handful of key players. A producer with current hits had studio time, label connections, and access to the city’s best session musicians. That’s why Jimmy Page is on guitar in these recordings-years before he founded Led Zeppelin. That’s why Nicky Hopkins plays piano, later working with the Stones and the Beatles. Both were part of Talmy’s network, booked wherever he needed them. Bowie was just one of many he let through his door.

That’s precisely what makes these recordings so fascinating. They show a young singer caught in a machine built for hits. The hits never came. The singles from this period sold poorly, the label lost interest, and the singer soon changed his name.

Talmy himself said in 2017 that he believed the kid would make it-they were just about six years ahead of the market. He meant market readiness, not a specific album. Still, the gap is striking: it took roughly that long for his first major success.

Six Years to *Hunky Dory*

Six years pass between these sessions and *Hunky Dory*. Six years in which the person in the studio was called Davie Jones, then David Bowie, then a series of personas that became more famous than his real name. The name change happened in late September 1965, just months after the Talmy recordings.

You might know two songs from this era in later versions. “You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving” and “Baby Loves That Way” were released as Parlophone singles in 1965. Bowie re-recorded both decades later with his Glastonbury band for the album *TOY*. It was recorded in 2000 but only released in 2021, five years after his death. The older man, in other words, revisited the songs of the eighteen-year-old that almost no one had heard.

Between the two versions lies an entire career. The comparison is unusually well-documented: rarely can you hear the same artist perform the same material 35 years apart. The early singles have been available for decades, *TOY* since 2021. Starting in September, the alternate takes will join them.

That an artist returns to the very material he once failed with says a lot. Clearly, it wasn’t just left behind.

What’s Coming in September

The set compiles singles, alternate takes, and demos from the sessions, mastered and remastered in 2026 by John Webber, with all recordings produced by Shel Talmy. The estate presents it as the most complete collection of this phase to date. Reports vary on the total number of tracks, so the most reliable figure is the count of unreleased recordings: ten on CD and digital, six on vinyl.

Alternate takes are the real substance of archival sets. They reveal what was discarded. For an artist later known for his transformations, the question is obvious: how many versions of himself were already on the table in 1965? The answer won’t come until September.

Until then, there’s the lead-up: a preview you can listen to now, a few singles from the same period that have been available for decades, plus Talmy’s productions for other bands from that year. Anyone who engages with this material won’t be a stranger when this archive drops in September.

Whether the limited pressing will still be available by then depends on the stores. A run of 1965 copies is distributed through Record Store Day outlets and HMV. Experience suggests it won’t last long. If you want that number on your shelf, keep an eye on pre-orders.

How to Prepare

The following selection sets the scene: early singles released under the name Davie Jones, a Manish Boys recording featuring Jimmy Page, plus two Talmy productions from the same year for the bands that cemented his reputation. A side note for Spotify users: the estate spells it “Davie Jones,” while streaming credits list the tracks as “Davy Jones.” Both refer to the same person.

Q&A After the Show

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