Robyn Hitchcock - Covers Hunky Dory by David Bowie, Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London, Britain, 10-31-2010

From 2003 to 2011, Robyn Hitchcock performed annual benefit concerts where he covered one of his favorite albums by others in their entirety. I've already posted two such concerts, one a collection of "naff" 1970s hits, and the other the "Revolver" album by the Beatles. This time, it's "Hunky Dory," the 1971 David Bowie album.

Hitchcock has been a huge fan of Bowie's music for his entire career, so it's no surprise that he decided to cover a Bowie album. In fact, I'm surprised he only did one out of all his yearly benefit concerts. He started the concert performing the songs from the "Hunky Dory" album in order. But that would have made for a rather short concert if he stopped there. So he played another seven Bowie songs to finish off the show. Those were all hits from the 1970s, including "All the Young Dudes," which was a 1972 hit for Mott the Hoople, but was actually written by Bowie.

The source is an audience bootleg. Those usually don't sound as good as soundboard bootlegs, but luckily this one sounded better than most audience boots. However, to make sure this was up to snuff with other albums posted on this blog, musical friend Mike Solof volunteered to improve the sound with some remixing. He boosted the lead vocals relative to the instruments for all the songs. In my opinion, that was a significant improvement.

Like the other annual benefit concerts he did, he played with a full band that attempted to duplicate the original recordings as much as possible. They did a good job of that, even nailing little details, yet it was still very much a Hitchcock performance with his distinctive singing style and banter. 

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Changes (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Oh, You Pretty Things (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Eight Line Poem (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Life on Mars (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Kooks (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Quicksand (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Fill Your Heart (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Andy Warhol (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Song for Bob Dylan (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 Queen Bitch (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 The Bewlay Brothers (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Soul Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 The Jean Genie (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 Rebel Rebel (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 Golden Years (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 TVC-15 (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 All the Young Dudes (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 Sound and Vision (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15932462/RobynH_2010_HunkyDryThreeKingsClerkenwell__10-31-2010_atse.zip.html

 At first, I didn't know what to do for the cover art. So I did an Internet search for images related to David Bowie and Hunky Dory. I found a photo of Bowie in 1972, during his Ziggy Stardust persona phase, with the Hunky Dory album in his hands. That gave me an idea. I found a photo of Hitchcock in 1986 with his face at a similar angle and similar lighting. Then I pasted his face over Bowie's. The result is pretty weird, but hopefully in a good, amusing way.