Unreleased Early David Bowie Recordings Set for September Release

Classic rock fans have fresh reason to dig into David Bowie’s formative years. Parlophone has announced David Bowie: The Shel Talmy Recordings, a comprehensive collection of 1965 sessions that includes ten previously unreleased tracks. The set arrives on September 18, 2026, in CD, vinyl, and digital formats, offering the most complete look yet at the period when the future star still recorded as Davie Jones.

These recordings date from a pivotal stretch in mid-1960s London when Bowie, then in his late teens, was working the circuit with bands The Manish Boys and Davie Jones & The Lower Third. He crossed paths with producer Shel Talmy on Denmark Street, the heart of the British music industry at the time. Talmy had already shaped the sound of the Kinks and the Who with hard-edged hits like “You Really Got Me” and “My Generation.” He signed Bowie and guided sessions at IBC Studios, engineered by a young Glyn Johns.

The results capture a young singer experimenting with blues, R&B, and sharp British beat styles that were dominating the charts at the time. Tracks feature contributions from two future legends working as session players. Jimmy Page, still years away from forming Led Zeppelin, added guitar, often employing a custom fuzz tone. Keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, who later played with the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Jeff Beck, also appears. The collection mixes finished singles, alternative takes, instrumentals, and demos under the names Davie Jones, Davie Jones & The Lower Third, and The Manish Boys.

Ten tracks make their official debut on the CD and digital editions (six appear on the vinyl). Among them are “I Want Your Love,” a bluesy rocker already streaming as a preview, along with “Cupid,” “Leave Her to Me,” “Certain Woman,” “Keep Up With the Jones” (an instrumental), and several demos such as “Today,” “I Live in Dreams,” and “I Do Believe I Love You.” Previously issued material receives 2026 remasters by John Webber, including the singles “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving,” “Baby Loves That Way,” “I Pity the Fool,” and “Take My Tip.” Alternative vocal takes and overdubs expand the picture further.

Talmy himself long believed in the material’s potential. In a 2017 comment, he recalled thinking Bowie “absolutely was going to make it,” adding that the only problem was that “he and I were about six years ahead of the market.” Music historian Alec Palao, who contributed sleeve notes, frames the recordings as an essential early chapter. “David Bowie the artist is a book of chapters,” Palao writes, “the turn of each page delivering something completely different and unexpected from the last.” He urges listeners to judge the tracks by the standards of 1965 Britain rather than by the later innovations of Ziggy Stardust or the Berlin period.

Bowie never quite abandoned this material and he revisited several of the songs decades later for the Toy project, re-recording them with his 2000 band for a planned album that eventually surfaced in 2021. The new collection therefore sits neatly alongside that later reflection, giving fans both the original 1965 versions and a fuller historical context.

Formats include a standard LP, CD, digital, a limited red vinyl exclusive to the official Bowie store, and a special alternative-cover vinyl pressed in just 1,965 copies for Record Store Day outlets and HMV. Pre-orders are already open.

For many listeners, Bowie’s story begins with “Space Oddity” or the glam explosion of the early 1970s. The Shel Talmy Recordings pushes the timeline earlier, revealing a sharp-suited young performer absorbing the same R&B and beat influences that fueled his contemporaries. The presence of Page and Hopkins adds extra historical weight, linking Bowie’s beginnings to two of the era’s most important sidemen.

The release continues a careful posthumous campaign that has steadily opened the vaults while respecting the quality of the source material. Earlier box sets and reissues have filled gaps across the decades. This one reaches all the way back to the moment before the name change that avoided confusion with the Monkees’ Davy Jones, before the first self-titled album, and before the artistic leaps that made Bowie a permanent fixture in rock history.

Whether these tracks rank among his strongest work is secondary but they do document the restless energy of a musician already searching for his voice amid the competitive London scene of 1965. For collectors and longtime admirers, the chance to hear ten previously locked-away performances with this pedigree is significant. The September release date gives fans a few months to prepare. When the records arrive, they will add another clear page to one of rock’s most varied and thoroughly documented careers.