I'm just ploughing through Kevin Cann's Any Day Now, and (amongst many other things) enjoying the fact that it finally pins down recording details and personnel for a lot of the '70/'71 outtakes that have been floating around for years with innacurate info attached - Lightning Frightening, Rupert the Riley, the Arnold Corns stuff, Shadowman etc.

By my reckoning, there are still a handful of songs from this time that KC doesn't deal with in detail. Does anyone know when any of the following were recorded, and who's playing on them?

The Supermen demo/rehearsal - could this perhaps be a rough mix of the initial attempt at this song, with John Cambridge from the Memory of a Free Festival sessions?
How Lucky You Are (original version, not the orchestrated Mickey King one) - it's mentioned that a tape of this song was given to Tom Jones in early January 1971, so maybe it's from late 1970? Possibly done at the the Holy Holy sessions?
Tired of My Life - KC seems to place this vaguely around the time of Man Who Sold the World, but it's not really substantiated
Don't Be Afraid - again, there seems to be a vague suggestion that this is from the early Ziggy sessions. Is it definitely David singing on this one?

I know that all four of these songs have had many different details attached to them, mainly made up by bootleggers. I'd be interested in anyone's views on where they're really from.

No thoughts on this from anyone?

i guess if neither Kevin Cann nor Nicholas Pegg know the stories behind these tracks, then the information will remain elusive until an insider from the sessions (that bowie chap for example) decides to reveal all.

isn't The Supermen demo believed to be a BBC session?
Tired of My Life generally thought to be a Haddon Hall home-demo.
Don't Be Afraid not a Bowie vocal and likely to be a bootlegger's scam a la Something Happens.
How Lucky You Are - i don't think this is the Holy Holy band.

Ah, so there's nothing in the Pegg book on these either? I haven't got that one you see...

The Superman has been attributed as a BBC track but it doesn't match any of the extant versions - the fragments from Sounds of the Seventies 25/3/70, the Peel concert version from 5/6/71 and the Bowie/Ronson duo version from 21/9/71 are all different. Plus the recording doesn't seem to be BBC studio quality, which suggests it's maybe a demo/rehearsal/rough mix of some sort. Hmm.

Tired of My Life as a Haddon Hall home demo fits, but there doesn't seem to be any proper attribution other than bootleg sleeves, and I'm reluctant to take the bootlegers' word for it.

Don't Be Afraid, I know what you mean. But then the backing doesn't sound unlike the Spiders, and he wasn't averse to recording with other vocalists circa '71 (eg Mark Carr Pritchard, George Underwood, Geoffrey Alexander, Freddi...)

How Lucky You Are - yeah, I've listened again and it sounds like it could be Woody on drums. Could it be a Hunky Dory outtake perhaps? But then there's no sign of any guitar... maybe Ronno is on piano?

On "Dont be affraid" I dont think it sounds like Bowie either, but could it be Ronno and didnt Ronno have a song that sounder similar?

Some further thoughts on these tracks...

Don't Be Afraid has obviously been identified as non-Bowie since my initial post so can be discarded! So that leaves...

The Supermen - this clearly has John Cambridge on drums rather than Woody, so it's from before April 1970. The lyrics, however, are virtually the album version rather than the early draft he used for the BBC session on on 25th March. So that basically narrows it down to the last week of March 1970. Maybe it could even be a (very) rough mix of the version they were working on during the sessions for the Memory of a Free Festival single?

How Lucky You Are assuming this is the version that was sent to Tom Jones' people in Jan '71, late 1970 seems most probable. The sound isn't dissimilar from the other material recorded at Radio Luxembourg, so it would be from after he signed up with Chrysalis in Oct '70. Still a mystery about who played on it though.

Tired of My Life I've become sceptical that this was done at Haddon Hall. Although the production is non-existent, the actual sound fidelity isn't too bad. I'm saying Radio Luxembourg again, late 1970. After all, if he was able to make recordings of this standard at home, he wouldn't have needed Radio Luxembourg in the first place.

Any thoughts anyone?

Just in case anyone was in any doubt, Herbie Flowers has confirmed he was nothing to do with How Lucky You Are. Sent him a message through his website, didn't expect a reply, got a nice email back. What a gent!