The Mercury Demos
collects the ten songs
David Bowie
recorded with
John "Hutch" Hutchinson
in the spring of 1969 with the intent of snagging a contract with the record label. At the time of recording,
Bowie
was a bit adrift, left without a recording deal after he failed to hit the big time at
Deram
. His folk trio with
Hutchinson
and
Hermione Farthingale
had become a duo once he split with
Farthingale
, and he didn't have many other label options since he struck out at most imprints in the U.K. Fortunately, he was on a creative upswing, armed with the lovely "Letter to Hermione," the delicate "Conversation Piece," the softly majestic "Janine," and "Space Oddity," the song that would become his calling card. Some of these songs had been in the works for a while -- they can be heard on
Spying Through a Keyhole
The Clareville Grove Demos
, cumbersome sets of 7" singles that also chronicle other bedroom demos from 1968 and 1969 -- but "Space Oddity" has gained greater shape here and it's paired with sharper originals, along with a cover of
Lesley Duncan
's "Love Song" which
Elton John
would later popularize on
Tumbleweed Connection
. All of the performances are ingratiatingly unaffected:
laugh, make nervous jokes, and sing earnestly, a combination that's quite endearing. Because the duo sound so amateurish, listening to
feels like eavesdropping -- and while that's appealing, it's also hard to deny that the album isn't quite revelatory. It's a demo tape, deliberately rough and functional, the kind of thing designed to spark interest from professionals but not meant for public listening. That
was released officially -- in an absurdly lavish box set filled with tchotchkes, no less -- is a testament to
's enduring legacy, a legacy that effectively started once
Mercury
heard this tape and signed him to a record contract. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine