Rhino Historic Tours: David Bowie and Iggy Pop

38 years ago today, Iggy Pop kicked off the North American leg of his so-called Idiot World Tour, a jaunt which featured a band that included three future members of Tin Machine: Tony Sales on bass, Hunt Sales on drums, and on keyboards and backing vocals, the one and only David Bowie.

Arriving in New York after completing a six-pack of dates in London with the Vibrators as his openers, the esteemed Mr. Pop and his buddy Mr. Bowie flew to New York, where – per the invaluable website BowieGoldenYears.com – they met up with Mr. and Mrs. David Johanssen and caught a performance by the Patti Smith Group sans Ms. Smith. (Iggy apparently hopped onstage at some point to sing “96 Tears.” Whether he was actually invited to do so is unknown.) From there, they made their way across the border and into Montreal, Quebec, where the tour kicked off on March 13, 1977, with Blondie serving as Iggy’s opening act.

Bowie carried on with the tour all the way through April 15, when it concluded with a performance at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. No matter how the show ultimately went that evening, however, we can’t imagine it could’ve topped the performance turned in by Iggy and Bowie when they were guests on Dinah! earlier that day. Not so much the musical performance, which involved them doing “Sister Midnight” and “Fun,” but their performance during the interview, in which Mr. Pop talks to Dinah Shore about scoring dope in NYC.

Seriously, how great was television in the ‘70s?

Since it was ’77 and both Bowie and Iggy were involved, we’ve put together a playlist which features both of their efforts from that particular year. Take a trip in the wayback machine and enjoy.