Earl Slick

Best-known as one of David Bowie's guitarists (during one of his most successful periods commercially -- the mid-'70s), Earl Slick has gone on to play on a variety of other projects before returning back to Bowie in the early 21st century. Slick (then only 22 years old), came out of virtually nowhere to serve as Bowie's first proper replacement for Mick Ronson after Bowie had spilt up The Spiders From Mars. Although Bowie supplied most of the guitar work for his hit 1974 release, Diamond Dogs, he sought the then-unknown Slick to replicate his and Ronson's previous guitar parts on tour. Not only did Slick duplicate them, but the incredibly versatile guitarist managed to expand on them and inject his own style into the tunes, resulting in one of the greatest rock guitar albums of all time (albeit usually woefully overlooked), David Live, recorded at a stop at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia. Slick remained with Bowie for his next two studio albums, which saw the singer transform into his "Thin White Duke" persona and take on the funk genre, resulting in the classic full-lengths Young Americans (1975) and the more experimental Station To Station (1976), as well as the hit singles "Fame" and "Golden Years."

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