Happy Birthday David Bowie - Let's Dance (Demo) released today

Original flyer for "Let's Dance"

Happy 71st birthday, David Bowie. 
To celebrate it right, record company, Parlophone, released the until now, unreleased, original demo for "Let's Dance" recorded in 1982 in Switzerland.

According to the press release from Parlophone, Nile Rodgers was visiting David at his home in Switzerland to talk about the songs which would be on his then-new album "LET'S DANCE"

Nile remembers: "This recording was the first indication of what we could do together as I took his 'folk song' and arranged it into something that the entire world would soon be dancing to and seemingly has not stopped dancing to for the last 35 years! It became the blueprint not only for Let’s Dance the song but for the entire album as well."

On a creative high and inspired by all the new compositions that Bowie had written, Nile and David decided to record some demos, but they had no band to do so. With the help of the late Montreux Jazz Festival organizer "funky" Claude Nobs, they secured rock band Queen's Mountain Studio (now a museum) then still inside the Montreux Casino. Claude was also responsible to provide the duo with some additional musicians to record the demos. One was Turkish born Erdal Kizilcay, who would later work extensively with Bowie on "LABYRINTH" (86), "THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA" (93) and "1. OUTSIDE" (95).

Speaking of those early “Let’s Dance” pre-production sessions, Nile Rodgers commented: “I’ve been blessed with a wonderful career but my creative partnership with David Bowie ranks very, very, very high on the list of my most important and rewarding collaborations. This demo gives you, the fans, a bird's eye view of the very start of it! I woke up on my first morning in Montreux with David peering over me. He had an acoustic guitar in his hands and exclaimed, ‘Nile, darling, I think this is a hit!’"

So 35 years later Nile Rodgers and Russell Graham mixed the demo at Nile’s Le Crib Studios in Westport, Connecticut to be able to release the song demo for the first time.

By the way - the record company, not knowing who played drums and the 2nd guitar, is looking for the musicians that were involved in this legendary recording at Mountain Studios in Montreux, on December, 19th & 20th, 1982, engineered by the late David Richards, the famous Queen producer.
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At the end of the track, Bowie’s voice can be heard laughing saying "That’s it, that’s it! Got it, got it!”. And Bowie was right, it became a huge hit all over the world.
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Sources: David Bowie (flyer), Parlophone, Spotify