Coming Tomorrow: Gail Ann Dorsey!

I can’t help but be excited to post my interview with Gail Ann Dorsey tomorrow (so, come back for that). Gail was one of Bowie’s major collaborators, beginning with the Outside Tour in 1995 through her work on The Next Day. She’s been an active member of the Bowie alumni community ever since, collaborating with Donny McCaslin with the Blackstar Symphony, with Henry Hey and Mark Plati in the annual Sound and Vision of David Bowie concerts in New York and other venues. But Gail is much more than that and not simply defined by her association with Bowie. I’ve had the pleasure to see her live many times over the years, with Bowie, featuring her solo material and with Bowie alumni. Gail has been working on a new album, The Appearance of Life, which isn’t out yet. So, tomorrow, you’ll hear some of her many great stories about the past, present, and future.

When I get a chance to interview someone like Gail who has given many interviews, I try to ask about topics that are less prominent in other interviews. One of the benefits of the timing of this one is that, since it comes before the release of her new album, I was able to ask about a project that nobody has heard yet. That said, Gail has released one song that will be on The Appearance of Life, “(It Takes All Kinds) To Make A World.”

As I wrote yesterday, I first saw Gail, with Bowie, 31 years ago (to the week). Yet the new song shows that her voice is as strong and melodic as ever. Gail’s first album, The Corporate World, was released in 1988, which was around the time of the movie Wall Street (that was actually 1987) and some of the finance and business figures who had become infamous for everything from ruthless practices to actual crimes. Gail describes the new album as a sequel of sorts. If Mammon was in the ascent in the late 80s, he has reached the top of the mountain today.

Gail takes pains to say that she is not political. In the interview I clarify that what she means is that she’s not political in the way that Bruce Springsteen is, in the sense that Springsteen gives endorsements and gets involved with specific political issues. Yet many of Gail’s songs are about the condition of the world and how people relate to one another. For two years in a row I attended a festival in Woodstock called Democracy Rocks at which Gail performed. If she’s not political per se, I would say that her music reaches into the realm of the socially relevant.

But what’s most compelling about Gail as an artist has less to do with her subject matter and much more to do with her artistry. Known as a bass player, I’ve seen her perform with a guitar and, to my recollection, not even pick up a bass for an entire concert (last year at Club Passim in Cambridge). Personally, it is Gail’s voice that blows me away.

During the interview I asked Gail about three songs she did with Bowie that I haven’t heard her asked about much, if at all before, and one which she gets asked about all the time. That latter song was “Under Pressure.” Bowie tapped her to take the Freddie Mercury part, and that song became a standout of their live performances together. Think of that, though—Freddie Mercury had one of the most distinctive and, frankly, just impressive voices ever. How do you take the role? Gail did so well that, I suspect, her singing on that one song elevated her profile from a bassist to one of the reasons to go to the concert in the first place. And oh, by the way, she played bass while singing, which Freddie Mercury did not have to do.

But for me, she does even more with her voice on some less-well-known songs, like “Dead Man Walking” from Earthling (1997) and “If You Can See Me,” the surreal nightmare song from The Next Day (2013). In both cases, Gail emits an unearthly, I don’t know—wail? She said the sound we hear on that latter song was done in one take. Amazing.

I’m including the video here for “Dead Man Walking” because it is, in fact, a video. You can see Gail in her famous horse costume, designed by Bowie, and devil horns. Bowie himself had taken on a demonic appearance at the time and the video has a horror movie vibe. I know we’re supposed to assume that “dead man walking” is metaphorical, but the term equally applies to an actual zombie. (Come to think of it, Bowie has a lot of dead people doing stuff—“We Are the Dead,” “Lazarus,” “Walking the dead” from “Where Are We Now”—maybe he was trying to tell us about the zombie apocalypse).

Finally, I asked about the only song she is credited with having cowritten with Bowie, “Planet of Dreams.” The song, which should be much better known, was released on the 1997 compilation Long Live Tibet. Perhaps because it wasn’t on a Bowie album per se, it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It is now included in Re:Call 5, the compilation of Bowie’s non-album singles, single versions, remixes and b-sides included in the 2021 box set Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001). Surely it is one of the highlights and, for many, secret toy surprises (well, not Toy surprise, but you get what I mean).

Anyway, you can hear about all this AND MORE, tomorrow, when Gail joins me for the interview. So be sure to come back and check it out.