David Bowie’s first demo was just discovered in an old bread basket
Only one is known to exist
The first demo recorded by David Bowie when he was just 16-years-old has recently been found, tracing back the historic career of the iconic artist to the very beginning.
Before he released his first solo single at the age of 17, David Bowie was steadily gaining experience with his first band, The Konrads, as the group's saxophonist. That said, he decided to record vocals on one of the band's demos. That unique demo, which only one is known to exist, has now been found and is set to reach about £10,000 at auction by Omega Auctions in Newton-le-Willows on Merseyside in September.
According to the Guardian, the demo was recorded by Bowie and The Konrads at RG Jones studio in Morden while the band was managed by their agent, Eric Easton, who was also then managing the Rolling Stones. The result was a demo for 'I Never Dreamed', which was turned down by record company Decca. Bowie later left the band due to artistic differences.
Fast forward to 2018, The Konrads' drummer David Hadfield was moving to a new home when he found the demo in his grandfather's old bread basket, along with photographs, promotional sketches and booking forms.
Hadfield described what it was like recording the demo at the time: “We had decided that we would do a couple of guitar instrumentals and one original song. I chose ‘I Never Dreamed’ as it was the strongest, the other two were a bit weak. I also decided that David was the best person to sing it and give the right interpretation. So this became the very first recording of David Jones (Bowie’s birth name) singing 55 years ago.”
After Bowie left The Konrads, the band released two singles. A studio recording with Bowie involved has never surfaced, until now. As Hadfield adds: “There is no other recording of the demo featuring David as lead in existence. Decca initially turned us down, but when they eventually gave us an audition later that year, vocalist Roger Ferris was the lead voice and David sang backing harmonies.”
Listen to snippet of The Konrads 'I Never Dreamed' demo below.
For more Bowie, check out nine of the best remixes of his music here and listen to an unreleased version of 'Let's Dance' that was shared by Nile Rodgers here.