“David said, ‘Slicky, you don’t have Les Pauls anymore.’ I said, ‘I haven’t been playing them.’ He said, ‘You need to get a couple’”: The one time David Bowie ordered Earl Slick to swap his Fenders for Gibsons

Earl Slick and David Bowie during David Bowie Gives Fans a Strong Dose of "A Reality Tour" at Special Poughkeepsie Warm Up Show For His Upcoming World Tour at The Chance Nghtclub in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States.

Earl Slick’s resumé certainly isn’t short of high-profile session stints – he’s played and recorded with John Lennon, Robert Smith, John Waite and David Coverdale over the years – but his time in David Bowie’s band could widely be considered his crowning achievement as a guitarist.

Slick first replaced Bowie’s outgoing electric guitar player Mick Ronson in the mid-1970s, and stuck by Bowie’s side for the Diamond Dogs tour, later contributing to both Young Americans and Station to Station. Though he left in 1976, he’d return to the Bowie band in the early 2000s for more shows, and more albums.