IN one previous newspaper article, guitarist Earl Slick is quoted as saying he remembered very little about the recording of David Bowie’s Station to Station album.

“I actually remember a lot of the recording of that album,” he replies in his distinctive New York drawl, “which considering the condition I was in, I admit, is a bit of a surprise, but hey you don’t make a record like that and not remember a damn thing.

“It’s also kind of nonsense to think that none of us were focussed. We were all pretty damn focussed, especially David.

“Putting something like that together back in the day David would come in with the songs and we would work them out. It’s the same with the other records we worked on but that was David’s talent.

“Much like John Lennon did, he knew the creative people he wanted to work with to get the sound he was after, and he made sure they were there.”

For Station to Station Earl was there for the guitars.

“I remember putting a lot of feedback on that record,” he recalls. “But there was also something really interesting about how David worked. He started in the studio banging out material, then going back and forth to us and we would listen to what he had done.

“That’s when I realised a lot of the guitar sounds were actually being influenced by what I was into when I first started out, which was a lot of Keith Richards.”

Earl Slick was initially hired by David Bowie to replace Mick Ronson as lead guitarist for the Diamond Dogs tour in 1974.

He went on to work with former Mott the Hoople frontman Ian Hunter and then with John Lennon, and Yoko Ono. He performed on Lennon and Ono’s Double Fantasy album. During the sessions for Double Fantasy, the material for 1984’s Milk and Honey was recorded as well. He also joined Ono in the studio for her solo album, Season of Glass.

Earl then returned to working with David Bowie on several occasions including on 1983’s The Serious Moonlight Tour, on the Reality album and world tour in 2003/4 and finally on Bowie’s 2013 comeback album The Next Day.

“Being on stage with him was always special,” Earl says. “He always gave me a lot of leeway to do my thing, even occasionally walking off the stage. There’s not many frontmen that would do that. He was generous, flattering and also smart because when he comes back after three minutes, you know who the audience are all going to look to.”

A night of incredible stories, tunes and a look behind the scenes of a life in rock n roll, Earl Slick: In Conversation is at the Colchester Arts Centre on September 10. Doors open at 7pm, with tickets priced £12, £10 concessions, available from 01206 500900 or on-line at colchesterartscentre.com