David Bowie’s 1972 opus The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was his first really traditional album, and it stays one of the crucial vital rock information of all time. Fifty-one years later, Ziggy‘s centerpiece “Starman” is being reimagined because the lead single off Ziggy Stardub, a fantastically crafted reggae model of Bowie’s iconic LP from New York’s Straightforward Star All-Stars, who’ve constructed a profession on reinterpreting rock for the dread set.
“It’s the track most pivotal to the unfastened storyline of the unique album,” says Michael Goldwasser — arranger and multi-instrumentalist with the Straightforward Star All-Stars and co-founder of Straightforward Star Data.
The lead single options veteran British-Jamaican vocalist Maxi Priest, who turns in a uncooked, but upbeat — nearly bubbly — model of the iconically alien tune. “Maxi Priest made sense for the track as a result of his vocal versatility has crossed genres and limits,” Goldwasser says. “The refrain of ‘Starman’ has this elevate that basically attracts individuals in as a result of it jumps a complete octave from the ‘star’ to ‘man.’ We would have liked an achieved singer who may do one thing like that. It’s not straightforward, and I suspected Maxi may pull that off, and, in fact, he did.”
Ziggy Stardub drops on April 21 as the most recent installment in Straightforward Stars’ bold sequence of reggae reworkings of traditional rock and pop albums, every organized and produced by Goldwasser. The perfect identified is 2003’s Dub Aspect of the Moon; different releases embrace 2006’s Radiodread (which took on OK Computer), 2009’s Straightforward Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band, and 2012’s Straightforward Star’s Thrillah, their tackle the Michael Jackson masterpiece.
“Selecting the following album on this sequence was a drawn-out course of, with loads of discussions and arguments,” says Eric Smith, who co-founded Straightforward Star Data in 1996 with Goldwasser, Lem Oppenheimer, and Remy Gerstein. “We took the leap with Ziggy Stardust; as soon as Michael nailed down the preparations and we began recording the primary tracks, we immediately knew that Bowie’s glam rock masterpiece was the correct alternative all alongside.”
Joshua Reynolds*
Featured visitor artists on Ziggy Stardub embrace UK reggae legends Metal Pulse (“5 Years”), Fishbone, Vernon Reid, and Macy Grey (“Rock and Roll Suicide”). Rising Jamaican abilities Naomi Cowan (“Moonage Daydream”), Mortimer (“Soul Love”), and Samory I (“It Ain’t Straightforward”) spherical out the roster.
“I listened to Ziggy Stardust as an adolescent however as soon as we determined to do it because the tribute album, I listened to it like loopy,” explains Goldwasser, whose wide-ranging manufacturing credit additionally embrace Jason Mraz’s 2020 album Search for the Good. “I thought of parts from the unique songs, the little particulars that may be cool to interpolate or simply copy into the brand new variations as a result of I need individuals to pay attention many instances over and listen to various things each time. David Bowie was a genius however to be able to do what I do, it takes a sure stage of craziness to execute each element of each association, after which hold monitor of the large image.”
Maxi Priest’s personal profession started within the mid-Nineteen Seventies as a singer with the London-based reggae sound system Saxon Worldwide. Equally influenced by pop and R&B, he scored a number of US Prime 20 hits, most memorably the hip-hop infused 1990 chart-topper “Near You” and his candy 1987 tackle Cat Stevens’ “Wild World.” On “Starman,” Priest infuses the track with a heat, almost-huggable model of the melody, because the All-Stars put down a roots groove anchored in pulsing bass, a flying drum sample, reside strings and dub reverb. The outcomes doesn’t simply honor Bowie’s imaginative and prescient — it expands on the unique monitor’s intergalactic really feel.
Try an unique premier of “Starman” right here: