Tag Archives: David Bowie

Old Fruit

Old Fruit 13th February 2026

Leonard Cohen & Sonny Rollins – Who By Fire

This week’s journey through some vintage musical selections has a theme of unlikely or, as is the case with all six choices, very welcome collaborations. It was spurred by my chance encounter with our opening offering, a 1989 TV collaboration between a song writing icon and a free jazz legend. The programme which brought this pairing about was called ‘Night Music,’ hosted by David Sanborn and Jools Holland, a show well known for its matching of bright lights from seemingly opposite ends of the musical spectrum. This was an especially inspired pairing, as Rollins in tandem with Cohen’s backing singers and the Was (Not Was) band transformed the poets meditation on the fragility of life into a spiritual prayer of some considerable, freeform and exuberant, force. Best of all, behind that solemn face, you can easily detect Leonard’s delight in this transformative interpretation of one of his strongest works.

Nick Cave (with Toots Thielemans & Charlie Haden) – Hey Joe

‘Night Music’ was a new discovery to me and it turns out that pulling together unusual, first time, collaborators for live performances was one of its specialities. It was curated by Hal Willner and other intriguing sounding pairings included Conway Twitty with the Residents, Lou Reed & John Cale alongside Harry Connick Jr and Miles Davis (more on him in a bit) playing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. For my other ‘Night Music’ pick today I have gone for this Nick Cave rendition of the sixties classic ‘Hey Joe’ because, once again, it speaks to oceans of untapped potential in the marrying up of deep singer-songwriters and the cutting edge of the bebop jazz world. Charlie Haden is a celebrated double bassist and composer who, among many other landmark appearances, had played on the 1959 ground breaker by Ornette Coleman, ‘The Shape Of Jazz To Come.’ And if that were not enough it also features the man routinely titled ‘the best harmonica player in the world’ Toots Thielemans and a very early televised sighting of Nick Cave playing with his long time band mate Mick Harvey.

Amy Winehouse & Paul Weller – Don’t Go To Strangers

This one is from the days when Jools Holland’s ‘Hootenanny’ on New Years Eve still had the capacity to delightedly overwhelm with its musical guests and match ups. Taken from the 2006 edition and capturing Amy at the end of a year that regrettably would prove to be the peak of her powers before they were tragically cut short. Together these two real-deal performers covered ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ in addition to this sympathetic rendition of a song originally heard in 1954 by The Orioles. It gave Amy a chance to once again flex the jazz stylings she had been known for when breaking through only a few years before and Paul an opportunity to prove what a jazz-soul connoisseur he is at heart. It is wholly understandable when watching back that this should be one of the all-time great appearances on the long running show and one that many frequently refer back to.

Anne Briggs & Bert Jansch – Go Your Way My Love

I include this one simply because any filmed appearance by the reclusive, legendary folk singer Anne Briggs is a super rare thing and to be treasured. She recorded a pair of albums during her time as an active artist in the sixties and early seventies, both highly regarded and influential to all leading names in folk these past fifty years and beyond, even bands like Led Zeppelin were indebted to her. But she retreated from public view permanently in the early seventies never to re-appear, save for this short, soon to be terminated, moment at the start of the nineties when she briefly indulged requests with an occasional appearance. One of those is here where she was filmed with guitar legend Bert Jansch at the old ‘Howff’ Folk Club on The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, for the 1992 BAFTA nominated music film documentary ‘Acoustic Routes.’

Miles Davis & John Coltrane – So What

Not strictly a double billing because John Coltrane was a part of Miles Davis first famous quintet from 1955 onwards and then, by the time Miles was laying down his ‘Kind Of Blue’ masterpiece in 1959, Coltrane was a long established and vital member of the group that, by then, was a sextet. This is of course the opening track from that classic album which also boasted a jazz heavyweight line up in the other players, featuring Cannonball Adderley on alto sax, Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums. In any other genre more would be made of two legends in the form appearing side by side like this on a record that, still today, is regarded as one of the greatest in the music’s history. Jazz can be more about respecting the music as much as the stars but still, for anyone that finds it an impenetrable genre I would point them to ‘So What’ and say just go from there. If something as timeless and wonderful as this does not pull you in, then get yourself another interest, music is not for you!

David Bowie & David Gilmour – Comfortably Numb

From a 2006 show at the Royal Albert Hall when David Gilmour was touring in support of his recent superb return to form solo album, ‘On An Island.’ Bowie had been out of the spotlight for a couple of years by this point following a health scare that prematurely terminated his ‘Reality’ tour. Little did we know at the time that his gentle return to public view in 2006 was not a step back into full time activity but instead the prelude to a final decade spent entirely out of the spotlight (save for the two late album releases prior to his death). It is of course understandable after the onstage trauma he had been through if he was reluctant to put himself in that situation again so, therefore, we are fortunate that this occasion was captured on film. If nothing else it shows the power of the man that he could, as near as possible, turn arguably David Gilmour’s signature Pink Floyd contribution into a David Bowie song for one night. Not that Gilmour did not step up and stamp his mark on it by the end too, both were on dazzling top form for sure.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 16th January 2026

David Bowie – Boys Keep Swinging

For the first edition of Old Fruit of the new year I have turned to the artist whose music has been receiving a very pleasing amount of attention around the tenth anniversary of his death. Bowie’s catalogue is an immersive maze once you get into it and I sense that the deep diving of his audio creations has only just begun. I did not see any credibility in a Guardian article claiming his influence is on the decline, you cannot measure the value of an artist like this on Spotify streams alone. Besides, skim away the pop hits of his 1983-86 period and you have to accept he was mostly an act outside of the mainstream, spearheading trends rather than following them. But, Bowie was also a master at infiltrating the popular arena even when the sound was edgy or abrasive. A rare trick aided by his willingness to appear in comedic TV skits such as this one, on the Kenny Everett Television Show.

David Bowie – White Light White Heat

Ask any serious David Bowie fan what they thought of the 1987 Glass Spider tour and chances are the feedback will not be that positive. Perhaps, more than any other time in his career, this was the moment when he was creatively drinking from an empty cup, with that years ‘Never Let Me Down’ album offering little to inspire. So, he presented a show high on scenery, props and choreography with a slick band at a time when appetite for eighties excess and tinny synths had all but dried up, especially in the underground and alternative scenes close to Bowie’s heart. Certainly, concert recordings from that year do have a little of the Spinal Tap doing ‘Stonehenge’ about them, especially the spoken dialogue that introduces ‘Glass Spider’ itself. That said, with a guitar line up on some dates that included the double kick of Peter Frampton and future Bob Dylan mainstay Charlie Sexton, the shows had their moments, like this energised scrub down of a Velvet Underground classic.

David Bowie – 5.15 The Angels Have Gone

The late careers of many a 20th century music icon have much in the way of undiscovered treasure, it seems that the bigger the impact of the early years the more likely it is that quality later work will be overlooked or underappreciated. I include Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen in this list but it does absolutely apply to David Bowie. If you look at the final twenty years of his life, bearing in mind he took eight of those away from music, then the final seven albums in the catalogue present some of the best produced, most engaged, switched on and ultimately exciting music of his career. Starting with ‘Earthling’ all the way up to ‘Blackstar’, and I am including, unreleased at the time, ‘Toy’ in this because it is so good, and these alone represent a body of timeless work to match the best of all but the upper echelons of music artists in our time.

David Bowie & Cher – Young Americans Medley

The prime time TV studio medley of hits type performance might be the domain of far smoother operators than Bowie, it is the kind of thing you would expect from Neil Diamond or Tom Jones rather than the man who made music with Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Trent Reznor. But he wasn’t labelled a chameleon for nothing and the brilliant thing about this performance, rather than the medley itself which has so many rough joins it should be sent back to carpentry school, is the way David plays it totally straight without a hint of irony or detached cool. Just like Cher, he throws himself into it and in doing so delivers an improbable moment of music TV gold dust.

Tin Machine – Heaven’s In Here

Whilst the new documentary about Bowie’s later years, ‘The Final Act,’ has a lot to recommend it, I did feel it miscast the Tin Machine era of 1989-91 somewhat. It is very true that the UK music press especially ripped them apart and mocked Bowie’s attempts at fading into the background as a band member. It was like they felt he was being dishonest, just wanting him to be who he is rather than dictate that writers had to accept this new framework. It is a mystery that the more clued up journalists did not see that he was just feeling the times in an era when baggy and grunge alternative culture were rebelling against the pop star trappings and trying to reprioritise music. I feel that the documentary should have reflected more how Tin Machine were a fairly well executed idea, and a vital shake down for the fringes of Bowie’s audience that he probably rightly feared would hold him back creatively. And as this clip proves, the band did indeed have some very good moments wherein Tin Machine’s David adopted the front man role with real engaged commitment.

David Bowie – Let Me Sleep Beside You

We close this edition with a little sixties London pop gem from the future space cadets early years. This is exactly what I mean about the appreciation of his life’s work still being in its early days. Before he first troubled the charts in 1969 with ‘Space Oddity’ David made a lot of great records, of their time but without ageing badly, including a Deram album, that did not register commercially at all. Today, time has levelled things out to the extent that tracks like this sound like a whimsical, British psych era, colourful pop nugget. It matters little that hardly anyone heard it in 1967, it has risen over the years, just as several others from this period have, to a place of belonging in the vast, varied and vital David Bowie catalogue.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 27th June 2025

The Waterboys – When Ye Go Away

As it is Glastonbury weekend I thought it topical to share a few of the Fruit Tree Records Glastonbury favourites from over the years for this weeks vintage selection. The Waterboys are an act whose free flowing, boundary tumbling, questing romantic spirit have summed up the essence of Glastonbury over the decades and they are knitted into the fabric of the festivals history as well as my own back pages with the event. For it was in 1994 (my debut year as a Glastonbury attendee) that Mike Scott roamed the site, his Waterboys band not booked to play as the man himself was about to embark on a solo project gear change, but he made his presence felt all the same by popping up unannounced on at least two occasions playing old Waterboys classics, as here when he played with ex-Waterboy Sharon Shannon on a timeless masterpiece from the ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ album.

Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues

Another 1994 memory, this was probably the seed of the Sunday lunchtime main stage line-up position that would later be branded the ‘legends slot’. I remember clearly dozing with my friends in the Sunday afternoon sun wondering whether to bother sticking around for Johnny Cash then being absolutely floored by the mans sheer stage presence and star aura. I knew little of the man and his music before he came onstage, my musical education was about to get a serious injection.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand

If bands were to follow a guideline for guaranteed Glastonbury success it might say on page one play a hits set, this is not the place to audience test the new record that has not been released yet. Back in 1998 the current Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds release was a ‘best of’ compilation and so their festival set reflected this, although the legendary status of the performance might also be down to the band being at the very peak of their powers at this time. This would have been the occasion Nick Cave has spoken about where he met Bob Dylan backstage, receiving warm praise from the elder statesman for his musical output. There is no BBC film footage of the Dylan set, the nineties being a time when bigger names could opt out of television coverage.

R.E.M. – It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

R.E.M. came on the mainstage as headliners in 1999 with a point to prove. Their most recent album ‘Up’ had not performed as well as expected and so the initial statement that there would not be a tour around the album was revised and 1999 saw them return to the stage with punch and purpose. I do not have many memories of being down the front at gigs, my height normally sees me settling for a further back position, but this was one occasion where I felt the moment and was drawn closer to the source. R.E.M. are one of my top three all time favourite bands and this was one Glastonbury headline slot with everything I had hoped for, a legendary band seizing the moment and delivering the goods.

David Bowie – Rebel Rebel

If you were a TV viewer of the festival in the first ten years of TV coverage you were at the mercy of the broadcaster’s choice of stages and acts to cover. The iPlayer control that enables us all to explore and select as we would if attending was some way off and this was never more frustratingly felt, for me, than in 2000 when all us viewers were aware that David Bowie was playing a mouth watering headline slot on the main stage as we tuned in, but the BBC only offered us short excerpts from his set, no direct live broadcast as you would have reasonably expected. Instead they kept cutting to Bassment Jaxx on the other stage, an alternative selection that did not, could not, meet with the viewers expectations. The dance based duo looked like they knew this as well, appearing to be a little too crouched behind their mixing desk as their dancers took care of stage craft and the Jaxxees (as they would later be known thanks to Primal Scream) pepper sprayed us with generic bland dance toss. In the subsequent years Bowie’s set attained a near legendary status, if only the TV audience could have shared in that euphoria live in real time too.

The White Stripes – Hotel Yorba

The excitement that was exploding around the White Stripes at this time is, I think, tangibly captured in this Glastonbury performance of 2002. At a time when indie was starting to head for the landfill and dance was repetitively beating itself into a stupor, it took a stripped back duo playing the electric blues to ignite the scene with something fresh and vital. This TV exposure could have been the first time many in the UK caught a glimpse of Jack and Meg but they were ready to take you down by this stage, no questions asked

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