David Bowie invited confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees, Bowie renamed himself after the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he had popularised. His April 1967 solo single, "The Laughing Gnome", using speeded-up thus high-pitched vocals, failed to chart. Released six weeks later, his album debut, "David Bowie", an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, met the same fate. It was his last release for two years. Bowie met dancer Lindsay Kemp in 1967 and enrolled in his dance class at the London Dance Centre. He commented in 1972 that meeting Kemp was when his interest in image
David Bowie on Wood". After a break in Philadelphia, where Bowie recorded new material, the tour resumed with a new emphasis on soul. The fruit of the Philadelphia recording sessions was "Young Americans" (1975). Biographer Christopher Sandford writes, "Over the years, most British rockers had tried, one way or another, to become black-by-extension. Few had succeeded as Bowie did now." The album's sound, which the singer identified as "plastic soul", constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. "Young Americans" yielded Bowie's first US number one, "Fame", co-written with John Lennon, who contributed backing vocals, and