Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter

David Bowie CD: "Rarest One Bowie"

Sleeve and track listing

  1. All The Young Dudes
  2. Queen Bitch (live)
  3. Sound And Vision (live)
  4. Time (live)
  5. Be My Wife (live)
  6. Footstompin' (live)
  7. Ziggy Stardust (live)
  8. My Death (live)
  9. I Feel Free (live)

Review

This sub-standard collection of "rare" Bowie material was released in 1995. It is short by CD standards (about 35 minutes), which is a shame considering the material which must lay hidden in Mainman's vaults. Perhaps more will see the light of day in a Rarest...Two collection. Anyhow, about half this collection features Mick Ronson on guitar, and so will be of interest to completists.

ATYD opens the album, and is at a slower tempo than Mott's version. Although planned for the Aladdin Sane album, it stayed in the can. I can see why; this version sounds half finished, with Bowie sounding bored with it. Mott's is the definitive version of Dudes, a fact Bowie himself must have realised.

Time is taken from the 1980 Floor Show performances at London's Marquee in October 1973, but lacks a certain spark... Bowie had all but disbanded the Spiders by this time and it shows in the performance.

Ziggy Stardust hardly qualifies as rare, since it has already been released on the Santa Monica live set. My Death is more interesting, as it is taken from a Carnegie Hall, NYC performance in 1972. The album closes with a live performance of the Cream classic I Feel Free, recorded at Kingston Polytechnic in 1972. Now I don't know, but it sounds to these ears like an audience recording (it is certainly in mono). Scraping the barrel or what?