My name is Earl
Breezy memoir from Bowie’s key guitarist. By Mark Paytress.
Guitar: Playing With David Bowie, John Lennon And Rock And Roll’s Greatest Heroes
★★★
Earl Slick with Jeff Slate
PENGUIN MICHAEL JOSEPH, £25
ASTRUGGLING YOUNG guitarist gets the nod in 1974 to attend a big-name audition. He is met by an inscrutable young PA named Coco, invited into a darkened studio and asked to play along to several backing tracks.
Twenty minutes later, in walks a skinny, pale figure, “dressed the way an English rock star might think a Harlem pimp would dress”. It’s David Bowie, in need of a guitarist for his first touring band since the Spiders.
The next day, 22-year-old Earl Slick is invited to Bowie’s hotel suite and given the go-ahead. What he hadn’t expected was a makeover: a hairdresser removed his long locks, a stylist put him in a 1940s-style suit. Slick, whose ideal was Keith Richards, felt ashamed. Musically, though, he was a great fit. Five tours, five studio albums and two live albums pay testament to his importance in the Bowie universe. Between 1974 and his work on (2013), Slick was called back half a dozen times – usually by Coco or the management, rarely by Bowie. He was never officially dropped; it’s just that things would go silent for a few years.
Understandably, as his breezy, anecdotal memoir confirms, this played havoc with Slick’s various attempts to ignite his own career. Neither writer nor frontman, Slick’s forte was as a flash, fearless sideman who played loud rock’n’roll and cherished any opportunity to subvert it. That was Bowie all over.
Initially, Slick was regarded as a bridge between the Mick Ronson era and Bowie’s incoming Americanised sound. He then devised intros for Young Americans and Golden Years and played at the Bowie/Lennon session. But the pair str uck gold while working on
“one of the true highlights of my career,” Slick writes. “David pulled shit out of me that I didn’t even know was there.”
The title track marked a memorable moment in the pair’s working relationship. “We spent more time on that solo than I’ve ever done on any record in my life,” Slick recalls. “We were both in a cocaine haze, so we’d just keep
“Slick’s forte was as a flash, fearless sideman who played loud rock’n’roll…”
working until we were done,” sometimes up to
24 hours later.
After an interlude that included working on
John and Yoko’s
– a more orderly affair with breaks for fine sushi – Slick got the call for Bowie’s 1983 Serious Moonlight tour.
After that, his personal life darkened with addiction, a car crash and hit rock bottom in 1988. By
1992 he was selling timeshares and declining offers of work from Prince, Joe
Cocker and David Coverdale. Things were different the day Bowie called, just before Christmas 1999. He wanted his old stage foil to join his new band for a mini tour the following June. “David was a lot softer,” Slick recalls. “He wasn’t as intense. Sobriety will do that.”
Later, Slick witnessed Bowie’s collapse during the tour. He was also present at sessions for 2013’s
During a playback of (You Will) Set The World On Fire, Bowie exclaimed: “Man, that would be great live!” Slick, not always privy to Bowie’s innermost thoughts, knew David was never going out again. “I could see it in his eyes.”
Dogs
●
Diamond