44 years ago to day (12/17/71), David Bowie released arguably his strongest recorded effort to date Hunky Dory. Bowie’s fourth album was the first production featuring all the members of the band that would become known the following year as Ziggy Stardust’s Spiders From Mars which consisted of consisted of Mick Ronson on guitars, Trevor Bolder on bass guitar and Mick Woodmansey on drums, although Hunky Dory also featured Rick Wakeman on piano. With only two singles (“Life on Mars” “Changes”) on the album, it was rounded out with a complete package of 11 songs that are all classic in their own variety. Bowie himself considers the album to be one of the most important in his career. Speaking in 1999, he said: “Hunky Dory gave me a fabulous groundswell. I guess it provided me, for the first time in my life, with an actual audience – I mean, people actually coming up to me and saying, ‘Good album, good songs.’ That hadn’t happened to me before. It was like, ‘Ah, I’m getting it, I’m finding my feet. I’m starting to communicate what I want to do. Now: what is it I want to do?’
Watch Bowie perform “Oh You Pretty Things” off Hunky Dory from The BBC’s “Old Grey Whistle Test”
