The Lower Third

The Lower Third were the third of the groups with whom David Bowie recorded. Formed in 1963 in Margate, they moved to London in early 1965, and shortly afterward, Bowie (then still going by his real name, David Jones) won an audition to be the band's singer. In the '60s, Bowie unabashedly sponged off the day's trends to dictate the evolution of his own music. Although the two previous groups he had recorded a single apiece with, Davie Jones & the King Bees and the Manish Boys, had been into R&B, the Lower Third would get into mod rock, in the style of the Who and the Kinks. That would be made easier by the presence of producer Shel Talmy, who produced the Who and the Kinks, behind the board on the band's first single. (Talmy had already produced Bowie on the Manish Boys' sole 45.)