Dave Hadfield – Kon-rads Drummer and Guardian of David Bowie’s Earliest Recording

Taking over from Dave Crook

Dave Hadfield joined The Kon-rads after the departure of founding drummer Dave Crook. While Crook had helped establish the group, Hadfield quickly became a key figure in its continued development.

Older and more organised than several of the other members, Hadfield naturally assumed responsibilities that went beyond drumming. He helped coordinate rehearsals, secure bookings and guide the band through an increasingly ambitious period.

By the time David Jones was becoming more confident within the group, Hadfield had become one of the most influential figures in its day-to-day operation.

The Kon-rads become more ambitious

Under the evolving line-up, The Kon-rads gradually moved beyond simply playing local youth clubs and community events. Like countless British beat groups of the period, they hoped to attract attention from record companies and break into the professional music business.

David Jones was still primarily known as the band’s saxophone player, although he had begun singing more frequently. His ambitions were growing rapidly, and his interest in songwriting, performance and image was becoming increasingly apparent.

Hadfield later recalled that Jones stood out from many other young musicians. He possessed unusual determination and a willingness to experiment that hinted at a larger future.

David Jones before David Bowie

During the Kon-rads period, David Jones was still years away from becoming David Bowie. He had not yet developed the distinctive personas, theatrical concepts or musical innovations that would later define his career.

To Hadfield and the rest of the group, he was simply an enthusiastic and highly creative teenager trying to establish himself within the local music scene. Nevertheless, there were already signs that he viewed music differently from many of his peers.

Former bandmates remembered that Jones was constantly generating ideas about presentation, publicity and the future direction of the group. Even before achieving success, he was thinking beyond the limitations of a typical local beat band.

Rehearsals, performances and learning the craft

The Kon-rads rehearsed extensively throughout Bromley and the surrounding area. These sessions provided Bowie with invaluable practical experience and allowed him to develop confidence as both a musician and performer.

Hadfield helped maintain the discipline required to keep the band functioning. Like many young groups of the era, The Kon-rads depended on commitment, enthusiasm and hard work rather than professional resources.

Every rehearsal, school dance and community performance contributed to Bowie’s education as a musician. These experiences laid the foundations for the far more ambitious projects that would follow.

Towards a recording session

By 1963, Hadfield was actively searching for opportunities to move the group beyond local performances. One possibility emerged when the band arranged a recording session intended to showcase a local singer they hoped to promote.

The plan seemed straightforward. The Kon-rads would provide the backing and the singer would perform the lead vocal. However, events did not unfold as expected.

What happened next would unexpectedly create one of the most important documents in David Bowie history.

The Decca recording session

In 1963, Dave Hadfield arranged what would become one of the most historically significant recording sessions in David Bowie’s early career. At the time, however, nobody involved could have imagined its future importance.

The Kon-rads secured a recording session at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, London. The purpose of the session was not to launch David Jones as a singer, but to create a demonstration recording for a local vocalist whom the band hoped to promote.

Hadfield had taken responsibility for organising the session and ensuring that the band was properly prepared. It represented a major opportunity for a young local group hoping to attract attention within the competitive British music scene.

A change of plans

According to Hadfield’s later recollections, the singer who was expected to front the recording ultimately failed to make a strong impression. Faced with the prospect of wasting valuable studio time, the band needed an alternative solution.

Hadfield later explained that David Jones seemed the obvious choice. Although still primarily known within the group as a saxophone player, Jones possessed a distinctive voice and an enthusiasm that set him apart from the other members.

Rather than abandoning the session, the band decided that David Jones should sing the lead vocal himself.

Recording “I Never Dreamed”

The song selected for the session was I Never Dreamed, a composition originally associated with the American singer and songwriter Charles Mingus associate Moondog? No—this is one of the areas where confusion has often appeared in later retellings.

In reality, the version recorded by The Kon-rads was a contemporary song chosen for the session rather than an original Bowie composition. What makes the recording historically important is not the song itself but the identity of the young vocalist performing it.

During the session, David Jones stepped up to the microphone and recorded the lead vocal while also contributing saxophone. The result was a performance that captured Bowie at the very beginning of his development as a singer.

The oldest known Bowie recording

Today, the Decca recording of I Never Dreamed is recognised as the earliest known surviving recording of David Bowie.

Unlike later recordings made with the King Bees, the Manish Boys or the Lower Third, this performance predates Bowie’s professional recording career and documents him while he was still very much an aspiring local musician.

For historians, collectors and fans, the recording offers a rare opportunity to hear the teenage David Jones before fame, before artistic reinvention and before he became one of the defining performers of the twentieth century.

Hadfield remembers the session

Decades later, Dave Hadfield recalled the circumstances surrounding the recording and explained why David Jones had been chosen to sing. According to Hadfield, Bowie possessed a different quality from the other musicians around him, even at that early stage.

Hadfield’s memories provide valuable first-hand testimony about a period of Bowie’s life that is often poorly documented. Because relatively little material survives from these years, accounts from early bandmates remain important historical sources.

His recollections help bridge the gap between the teenage David Jones of Bromley and the future David Bowie who would later transform popular culture.

The tape survives

After the recording session, the tape was stored away and largely forgotten. The Kon-rads eventually dissolved, Bowie moved on to other projects and the recording disappeared from public view.

Remarkably, Dave Hadfield kept the tape among his personal belongings for decades. Unlike many musicians who discarded old rehearsal recordings and demos, Hadfield preserved the recording long after its original purpose had been forgotten.

This decision would prove extraordinarily important. Without Hadfield’s care, the earliest known recording of David Bowie might have vanished forever.

A lost piece of Bowie history rediscovered

For many years Bowie historians believed that the earliest surviving recordings dated from his later rhythm-and-blues period. The existence of the Kon-rads tape was largely unknown outside a small circle of former band members.

When the recording eventually resurfaced, it generated significant interest because it pushed the documented history of Bowie’s recorded work back to 1963. Suddenly, listeners could hear a teenage David Jones performing years before the emergence of the artist the world would come to know.

The rediscovery transformed Dave Hadfield from a little-known former bandmate into an important custodian of a unique piece of music history.

Why the recording matters

The historical importance of the Kon-rads recording extends far beyond its musical quality. By modern standards, it is a simple demonstration recording made by a local beat group. Yet its value lies in what it captures: the earliest surviving sound document of an artist who would later become David Bowie.

The recording allows listeners to hear David Jones before the invention of Ziggy Stardust, before major record contracts, before international fame and before the artistic reinventions that would define his career. It captures him at the point where ambition existed but destiny remained uncertain.

For Bowie historians, the tape represents a direct connection to the beginning of a remarkable creative journey.

Bowie leaves The Kon-rads

Despite the progress made by the group, David Jones eventually became frustrated by the limitations of the local beat scene. His interests were evolving rapidly and he wanted to explore rhythm and blues, songwriting and lead vocals in greater depth.

By late 1963 and early 1964, he began moving away from The Kon-rads and towards new projects. This transition would eventually lead to the King Bees, the Manish Boys, the Lower Third and a succession of increasingly ambitious musical ventures.

Although his time with The Kon-rads was relatively brief, the experience provided a crucial apprenticeship. Bowie learned how bands functioned, how audiences reacted and how determination could transform a hobby into a serious pursuit.

Hadfield’s unique place in Bowie history

Many early Bowie associates played a role in his development, but Dave Hadfield occupies a particularly distinctive position. Unlike most former bandmates, his contribution is connected to a specific and highly significant historical document.

Hadfield was not simply a drummer who shared a stage with Bowie. He organised the recording session that produced the earliest known Bowie performance on tape and preserved that recording for more than half a century.

As a result, his name remains permanently linked to one of the most important discoveries in Bowie archival history.

The Kon-rads legacy

The Kon-rads never achieved commercial success, but their importance lies in the opportunities they provided for the young David Jones. Within the group he developed confidence, gained practical experience and began to emerge as a performer capable of leading rather than simply accompanying.

Dave Hadfield played a major role in that process. His leadership, organisational skills and commitment helped sustain the band during a critical stage of Bowie’s development.

Without The Kon-rads, and without figures such as Hadfield, the story of David Bowie would have unfolded very differently.

Legacy

Dave Hadfield‘s place in music history rests on two achievements. First, he helped guide The Kon-rads during David Jones‘s formative years as a musician. Second, he preserved the earliest surviving recording of the future David Bowie.

While he never became a household name, his contribution remains invaluable. Through a combination of foresight, organisation and preservation, Hadfield ensured that one of the most important artefacts from Bowie’s earliest years survived for future generations.

Within the wider Bowie narrative, Dave Hadfield stands not merely as an early bandmate but as the guardian of the first recorded chapter of an extraordinary career.