Not sure if this should be in 'News' or under the 'Nicholas Pegg' section, but the forthcoming edition (October) of Record Collector (RC) magazine has an interesting article re the Denmark St recording session of May 17th 1965.

Nicholas writes (In The Complete DB) that Born Of The Night is the only confirmed recording from the above session, but RC features a reader who back in the day picked up 3 single-sided 8" acetates numbered 1 - 3: Born Of The Night, I Wish You Would & I Don't Mind (previously unknown?) respectively which suggests that they were all recorded during the same session.

Plenty more info in the magazine article for which I'm someone will find a link once it appears online.

Assuming they're genuine one can only speculate how much this would be worth to the current swath of bootleggers...

I Don't Mind could possibly be the James Brown song, as covered by The Who and The Moody Blues around the same time, and also features on Bowie's beloved Live At The Apollo album by JB himself.

Yes that's what the author in RC speculates - I didn't want to plagiarize too much an unpublished article. Obviously playing the acetate will provide the conclusive answer.

I've not seen the new issue yet, will be picking it up when I do though.

https://exploringdavidbow ... the-night/

1965 acetates now listed in Bonhams Entertainment Memorabilia sale on 15th December:

http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23527/lot/137/?category=list&length=10&page=14
http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23527/lot/138/?category=list&length=10&page=14
http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23527/lot/139/?category=list&length=10&page=14

Hopefully they find their way into the hands of someone willing to let others hear them

Surely the Bowie estate will snap them up.
Without calling in the lawyers, does anyone here know what the '50 year copyright' status of these 51 year old, never before released recordings would be?
Unless i'm mistaken, if Bob Dylan and the Beatles etc are to be believed, the owner of these could release these legally and make some money back.

Christian

Assuming the recordings have never been played in public or communicated to the public (radio etc.), I believe that’s correct. Both the copyright in the sound recording and the performers’ rights in the sound recording will have expired in 2015.

Not forgetting that anyone can copy and re-publish music that's published without a copyright to protect it. Publishing these recordings would also be an invitation to legally bootleg them?

Thanks Alan.

it's interesting because these things, in theory, are a potential business investment as well as being attractive to collectors as unique items.

A small record label with an established pressing and distribution network in place could also bid on something like this I guess, with an eye to turning a profit on it. Good news for fans who might get to hear this (and other music) and i'm sure the discs would still retain a fair bit of the value at resale even if the audio is in the public domain.

Conversely, a collector could offset the outlay by licensing the audio to a label. My understanding of the industry is minimal so excuse me if I have oversimplified that.

It also opens up options of people such as Ken Pitt or Tony Defries being able to cash in things they might have. Anyway, time will tell. I'm sure the copyright extension issue will be a matter for Bowie sooner rather than later.

I recently read that "Born of the night" acetate is in quite a bad way, with quite a lot of jumps/clicks, and the acetate itself is in poor condition (something that wasnt mentioned on the auction info)
I would image you would play it once, record it and put it back away, I pretty sure the owner has already done this.
the other 2 are suppose to be in good order despite their age.

Whats to stop the owner releasing what he has recorded even after the auction has ended?

Wouldnt that make your investment worthless (apart from having the original acetate)

Lots of money, but not that out of bounds as these do contain unreleased music. Unexpected that Born Of The Night fetched the smallest amount of all three, maybe due to condition?

I was online bidding on these, but sadly didnt win any, but didnt expect anything less.

So after bidding high amounts on money at Bonhams, I won sod all, so the following Bowie items arrived at the following prices.

David Bowie: A rare acetate recording of 'I Don't Mind' by Davy Jones And The Lower Third, sold for 6250 pounds.

David Bowie: A rare acetate recording of 'Born Of The Night' by Davy Jones And The Lower Third,
1965
Sold for £5,250 (AU$ 8,864) inc. premium

David Bowie: A rare acetate recording of 'I Wish You Would' by Davy Jones And The Lower Third,
1965,
Sold for £6,875 (AU$ 11,608) inc. premium

David Bowie: An acetate recording of 'Let's Dance' signed on the album cover,
EMI Records Ltd, 1983,
Sold for £1,062 (AU$ 1,794) inc. premium

David Bowie: a lithograph Saucer II,
1996,
Sold for £6,250 (AU$ 10,553) inc. premium