Wednesday (Jan. 8) would have marked late rock icon David Bowie's 73rd birthday, a black celebration marked by Parlophone Records' announcement of two posthumous projects. The first is a nine-track album due out on 2020 Record Store Day (April 18) on vinyl and CD for the first time entitled ChangesNowBowie, culled from a 1996 session with longtime bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, guitarist Reeves Gabrels and producer Mark Plati during rehearsals for a 50th birthday Madison Square Garden show.
As the first taste of that project, Parlophone released a mostly acoustic version of Bowie's beloved 1970 track "The Man Who Sold The World," (listen below) which will also appear on a six-song EP of unreleased and rare tracks, David Bowie Is It Any Wonder?, slated to be released in weekly batches over the next six weeks beginning on Jan. 17. ChangesNowBowie features tracks originally recorded for radio and broadcast by the BBC on Bowie's 50th birthday on Jan. 8, 1997, with a cover image taken by renowned photographer Albert Watson in 1996.
In more Bowie news, BBC News reports that a 30-minute experimental film of the late rock icon shot by friend/collaborator Prof. Martin Richardson will be played for a select group of 300 Bowie fans on Friday (Jan. 10) at Leicesters's National Space Centre to mark four years since's the singer's passing. The 35mm film of Bowie walking towards a camera and striking various poses had reportedly been stored in a box at Leicester's De Montfort University for several years and was used to produce a moving hologram for the 1999 Hours album.
Richardson said Bowie told him, "'When you've done your bloody hologram it will be up and down the width and breadth of the country. I am going to make you famous.'" Bowie died on Jan. 10, 2016 at age 69 of cancer.
