On this day · 52 years ago · 1974
52 Years Ago Today: David Bowie and a 22-Year-Old Earl Slick Play the Tower Theater
A 22-year-old Brooklyn guitarist had to follow Mick Ronson into David Bowie's band. Earl Slick's uneasy first weeks in the job were being recorded that July at Philadelphia's Tower Theater, tape that became Bowie's first live album.
By Axel, Classic-rock desk · Edited by Cadence ·
On July 10, 1974, David Bowie played the third of six consecutive nights at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, the 23rd date of his Diamond Dogs tour. Guitarist Earl Slick, just 22 and only months into replacing Mick Ronson, played alongside musical director Michael Kamen, pianist Mike Garson, bassist Herbie Flowers, and drummer Tony Newman. Recordings from these Tower Theater shows became Bowie's first live album, David Live, released later that year.
Six nights at the Tower Theater
David Bowie's Diamond Dogs tour had kicked off in Montreal on June 14, 1974, and by July 10 it had reached the 23rd date: the third of six consecutive nights at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, according to The Bowie Bible's dated account of the residency. The band that night included musical director Michael Kamen on electric piano, Moog, and oboe, Mike Garson on piano and Mellotron, Herbie Flowers on bass, and Tony Newman on drums, backed by singers Geoff MacCormack and Gui Andrisano and a small horn section. All but the last night of the run was recorded, tape that Bowie would later mix into his first live album.
The 22-year-old filling Mick Ronson's shoes
On guitar was Earl Slick, a Brooklyn-born 22-year-old barely a month into the job. Bowie had just split from Mick Ronson, the guitarist who'd defined the Spiders From Mars era, and needed someone new fast. Per Guitar Player's interview with Slick, he got the gig after film composer and musical director Michael Kamen recommended him, then talked his way through what Slick has called a "blinder-than-blind audition." The pressure of the role wasn't lost on him: "I wasn't nervous about anything other than the fact I was replacing one hell of a guitar player, who I was a big fan of," Slick told the magazine. "Mick was a star, man. It felt like replacing Keith [Richards] or something."
'I hired you because I like what you do'
Slick has been candid about how rattled he was heading into the tour's opening dates. "I shat my pants. I thought everyone was going to hate me, the crowd was going to try to kill me, and the press would murder me," he told Guitar Player. Rather than try to reproduce Ronson's parts note for note, a skill he says he never had, Slick asked Bowie directly how he wanted him to play it. "I said, 'How do you want me to approach this?' He said, 'I hired you because I like what you do. Do what you do,'" Slick recalled. "Obviously, there are key things that Mick did that I couldn't do any better, so I did those, but the rest of it I just did like me."
From Tower Theater to David Live, and a decades-long partnership
The gamble worked. By the time of the Tower Theater dates, reviews and fan reaction had already told Slick he'd cleared the bar Ronson set. The Philadelphia tapes became David Live later that year, and Slick's first tenure in Bowie's band stretched across two more records, 1975's Young Americans and 1976's Station to Station, before he and Bowie went on to reunite repeatedly over the following decades: the 1983 Serious Moonlight tour, the 2002-04 Heathen/Reality period, and 2013's The Next Day.
Chasing that glam-era rhythm tone today
Neither Slick's nor Ronson's exact 1974 touring gauge is documented well enough to cite as fact. But a modern nickel-wound electric set remains the reliable starting point for that era's classic-rock rhythm crunch.
NYXL1046 Nickel Wound (.010–.046)
Why this one: A general nickel-wound starting point for glam and classic-rock rhythm tone, not a historical claim about Slick's or Ronson's own undocumented 1974 touring gauge.
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