Last Friday, April 14th, marked the 40th anniversary of the release of David Bowie's 15th and most successful album, ‘Let's Dance.’ We’re looking back at this remarkable album.
Because of the strength of the album’s #1 hit “Let’s Dance,” “Modern Love,” and “China Girl,’ the album has sold more than 10-million copies worldwide, with two-million in sales in the U.S. alone.
Nile Rodgers co-produced the album. Bowie tasked him with the job to "make hits," and it was the first Bowie album in which the rocker did not play an instrument. Let's Dance also showcased a then unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan who Bowie had seen in 1982 in Switzerland at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Vaughan’s debut album with Double Trouble, Texas Flood, wasn't released until June of that year.
David Bowie once described “Let’s Dance, saying, “A really good blues song — that did me in. [Laughs] Funnily enough we did that at the Neil Young show, “Let’s Dance,” as a city blues, with bottle caps on the bottom of me shoes and used that as the rhythm source, like the old blues guys used to play up in Chicago. And, uh, it sounded really cool as a blues. It’s a great blues song.”
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[Source: Classic Hits Today]