Wilco celebrate David Bowie’s birthday with cover of ‘Space Oddity’

Wilco have shared a cover of David Bowie‘s ‘Space Oddity’ to celebrate what would have been the late star’s 77th birthday.

The live recording of the cover is the first taster of a new compilation album from live performance radio station Mountain Stage.

The album, ‘Live On Mountain Stage: Outlaws and Outliers’, will be released in full on April 19 via Oh Boy Records, and also feature Margo Price, John Prine, Jason Isbell and more.

“As a gratefully, if not begrudgingly, Earth-bound band, it’s always an honour and a challenge to tackle any of David Bowie’s space-soaring arrangements,” Wilco said of their ‘Space Oddity’ cover.

“Striving to reach the heights of his freedom and talent is a wise goal for any band. We thank Mountain Stage for letting us give this song another home on Earth.”

Mountain Stage founder Larry Groce added: “Mountain Stage has always been about our guests.

“Our only purpose has been to showcase their incredible talent. We’ve heard a lot in forty years and these songs are just a few of the treasures from our archives that we want to share with the world. When we got the chance to work with Oh Boy Records on this project, we jumped at it.

“John Prine is an American music icon who set the bar for performing songwriters like the ones in this collection.There’s a lot of fun here but there’s also a lot of insight as to what life is all about.”

Another release announced to mark Bowie’s birthday is a new ‘Ziggy Stardust’-era album set to be released on Record Store Day this year.

‘Waiting In The Sky (Before The Starman Came To Earth)’ is a collection of recordings from Trident Studios in 1971, and features the majority of songs that would go on to form the legendary ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ album.

Included in the new album but not on ‘Ziggy Stardust’ are four songs including a cover of Chuck Berry‘s ‘Round And Round’.