Bowie would have been 74 on January 8th

Rhino has announced a slew of David Bowie vinyl releases coming in January. First up is a special birthday single commemorating what would be the Spaceman’s 74th birthday on January 8th with a single capturing two previously unreleased cover songs. Bowie’s take on John Lennon’s “Mother” and Bob Dylan’s “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven” will be released as a very special limited edition 7″ single.

The 7” single is limited to 8147 numbered copies, 1000 of which will be on cream colored vinyl available only from the official David Bowie store and Rhino.com with the remainder to be pressed on black vinyl. Both tracks will be available to stream and download.

Originally recorded by Lennon for his 1970 album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Bowie’s version of “Mother” was produced by Tony Visconti in 1998 for a Lennon tribute that never came to fruition. Bob Dylan’s original “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven” was released on his 1997 album of the Year GRAMMY winning Time Out Of Mind. Bowie’s version was recorded in February 1998 during the mixing sessions for the live album LiveAndWell.com.

A week later on January 15th, Parlophone Records will issue the third in a series of six very special Bowie live releases from the 90’s that will be released on CD and vinyl over the coming months. David Bowie LiveAndWell.com is a live album previously released in 2000 in limited quantities to BowieNet subscribers. This expanded edition includes two bonus tracks: “Pallas Athena” and “V-2 Schneider.”

LiveAndWell.com was recorded in New York, Amsterdam, and Rio De Janeiro during the 1997 Earthling tour. Its first 10 tracks have, until now, been physically available only on the BowieNet release, while the two bonus tracks were released as a 12” single under the name The Tao Jones Index (the alias Bowie and his band employed to play an unannounced set in the dance tent at the Phoenix Festival in England in 1997). These limited edition vinyl and CD sets are released in newly designed artwork featuring a cover shot of Bowie taken by Scarlet Page while rehearsing for his June 1997 London Hanover Grand shows.

LiveAndWell.com was produced by David Bowie, co-produced by Reeves Gabrels and Mark Plati and mixed by Plati at Looking Glass Studios, New York City.

Finally on January 22nd, Parlophone will release Station to Station: 45th Anniversary as a special limited edition “bricks & mortar” pressing on both red and white vinyl. Originally released January 23, 1976, Station To Station was David Bowie’s tenth studio album. Considered a classic among fans and critics alike, the record was unusual for a Bowie album in that it contained just six tracks, even though it still clocked in at a little over 38 minutes.

For the first time ever, a David Bowie album was a bigger commercial success Stateside than in the UK. It reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 on the official UK album chart.

Four of Station To Station’s six songs were released as commercial A-sides by RCA, with” Golden Years” being the pre-album hit on both sides of the Atlantic. The song scored Bowie yet another top ten just in time for the Christmas UK chart in 1975, where it remained right up to the release of the album in January 1976.

Forty-five years on from its release, Station To Station is now seen as a musical bridge between the “plastic soul” of 1975’s Young Americans and the start of Bowie’s Berlin era with 1977’s Low

Due to the continued restrictions of the pandemic, all of these albums should be available online and at your favorite vinyl outlets.