On The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie Finds His Career Blueprint

The passing of the legendary all-around artist David Bowie has shaken the whole world. It was when he started recording The Man Who Sold the World did he actually arrived at his career crossroads and had more of his artistic doors opening.

Though The Man Who Sold the World did not do so much for Bowie's commercial fortunes, it still became his gateway to meeting two new and great musicians; guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer Woody Woodmansey, who later became a part of Spiders from Mars.

Woodmansey tells The A.V. Club how he never heard any songs of Bowie. He knew there was a man called David Bowie, and since he considers himself as a hard rocker, he didn't think he could jive with someone who was belonging to the folk music area, until he Bowie played his songs before him. Woodmansey adds that as a frontman himself, he knew Bowie was confident and knew how to put songs across.

In an interview he did with The A.V. Club, bassist Tony Visconti who produced Bowie's self-titled album in the year 1969, said that music was their life for at that time, they had no money and other forms of distractions. They lived the album. He also explained how they took took it ever so seriously that by the time they went in the studio, they knew exactly what to do. Although they still didn't have enough material, they were so tight as a band that they made multiple songs at a time.

"I mean, we couldn't have done that wih session musicians", Visconti added. "It was very smart of David to want a band. We had both talked about it: 'We need a band. We just can't go in the studio with just anybody.' The mist important thing about the album is that we were a band." 

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