David Bowie unreleased album 'The Gouster' coming out in box set

The original seven-song album later became 1975's Young Americans

David Bowie died of cancer aged 69 in January

(Getty Images)

An unreleased David Bowie album is set to appear in an upcoming box set.

Who Can I Be Now? (1974-1976) will be the first release from Bowie’s archive since his death from cancer aged 69 in January and, excitingly, it will feature seven-song record The Gouster. The album was the original version of what eventually became 1975’s Young Americans.

Full details of the box set will be announced next week, but Bowie’s co-producer Tony Visconti has offered some insight into the origin of The Gouster, which has never been released as a full album.

“Gouster was a word unfamiliar to me but David knew it as a type of dress code worn by African American teens in the Sixties, in Chicago,” he said. “But in the context of the album its meaning was attitude, an attitude of pride and hipness. Of all the songs we cut we were enamoured of the ones we chose for the album that portrayed this attitude.”

The Gouster was a result of Bowie’s “soul obsession” in the Seventies. “David had a long infatuation with soul, as did I. We were fans of the TV show Soul Train,” Visconti explained. “We weren’t ‘young, gifted and black’ but we sure as hell wanted to make a killer soul album, which was quite insane but pioneers like the Righteous Brothers were there before us.”

The track list for The Gouster as it was initially intended is:

Side 1

“John I’m Only Dancing (Again)”

“Somebody Up There Likes Me”

“It’s Gonna Be Me”

Side 2

“Who Can I Be Now?”

“Can You Hear Me”

“Young Americans”

“Right”