Ray, not exactly a secret, but if you haven't heard Bowie's Live at the Tower recording check it out. Not blues-rock by any stretch, but still rocks very hard. Earl Slick on guitar is very underrated, and David Sanborn on sax adds a great dimension. One of the albums I wore out as a kid.
That album came out at the beginning of my junior year in high school. I was a year young for my grade, so all of my friends were driving, but I wouldn't get my license until the end of that school year. Which meant I relied on friends for rides and double dates and cruising around town in cars on Friday nights. I spent more nights than I can possibly count riding around in three different friends cars that year, one hopped up Mustang, one old Saab, one beater Fiat - the only thing they had in common was that album playing on the bad 8-track machine. CONSTANTLY! To say I knew that album well would be the understatement of my youth. I didn't know it was from the Tower Theater until I'd lived in the Philly area for a while, but it wouldn't have meant anything to me in my Southwestern youth anyway. I listened to it again yesterday and it brought back some pretty specific memories...
That album is indelibly imprinted in my memory whether I always want it there or not!
I like Bowie now, and I didn't hate him then. I just didn't worship him, which I guess made it seem like I hated him to those who did? I was always a Stones guy more than a Beatles guy. I LOVE the Beatles, am absolutely amazed by the huge volume of incredible songs and albums they put out over what I now realize was a very very short time. BUT, I was just more into the edgier, bloozy stuff like the Stones. More of a John guy than a Paul guy when it came to the Beatles, by a huge margin! To me, Bowie had more Beatles in him than Stones. Even if he did evidently have quite a bit of Jagger in him at one point
A lot of his singing almost sounds like a Broadway performer (he even works "On Broadway" into Aladdin Sane on that Live album, and it fits!) - it's great stuff, he was a huge talent - it just wasn't my thing as much as a lot of other people who were making music at the time. Some of his more basic stuff - Rebel Rebel, Changes, Jean Genie, All the Young Dudes, etc, I really love(d) about as much as anything. And over the years, I changed and lord knows HE
constantly changed and I came to like him a lot. But except for a few days of nostalgia and tribute, he never has been and probably never will be in regular rotation in my house or car. Someone I sometimes listen to with interest, but not much passion.
I was always into a lot of jazz and blues and roots type stuff (American and British) and most of the rock I liked came from those directions as well. The Stones, the Dead, Springsteen, Petty, Dylan, Richard Thompson, Bonnie Raitt were more my cup of tea. Bowies was one of those guys I respected more than liked, but I came to like him too over the years...
-Ray