'Significant' Bowie Recording Found in Bread Basket

Misplaced oddity? David Bowie's very first demo track, made when he was just 16, is set to go on the auction block in September and could fetch as much as $13,000. The Guardian and Independent report that the 1963 recording of Bowie—then known by his given name, David Jones—with his first band, The Konrads, was found by the group's former drummer and manager, David Hadfield, in his grandfather's bread basket while he was cleaning out his garage loft in the 1990s. At the time "I Never Dreamed" was recorded to impress record executives at Decca, Bowie was actually the band's saxophonist, though the group decided for this particular song he'd take the lead vocals.

"His heart and mind were focused on becoming a world-class saxophone player," Hadfield says, per the Independent. The demo didn't lead to a signing with Decca, and Bowie left the band shortly after an audition with the record company later that year, which also didn't lead to a deal. The tape, which auctioneer Paul Fairweather calls a "significant … completely unique" recording, will be up for auction along with other memorabilia from Hadfield, including letters, photos, and booking papers from Bowie's earliest days as a performer, per the BBC. (More David Bowie stories.)