"He says, 'Look, you gotta do me a favor. You have to get me some time at Record Plant because I want to finish my album so I can get home by Christmas, and it's getting late.'

"I said, 'No problem, let me see what I can do.' He said, 'You gotta do one other thing for me - you gotta produce the rest of the album.' I took the phone away from my ear like I was hallucinating, then put it back and said, 'Ah, I think I can do that.' I hung up the phone and told my friends and they all thought I was full of shit."

Maslin helped Bowie produce "Across the Universe" and the funky classic "Fame" - with John Lennon playing and singing along - and ended up with co-production credit for every song on the album except "Young Americans."

Pleased with their work together, Bowie then asked Maslin to co-produce his next album - his highest-charting in the U.S. - Station to Station. Recorded at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood with Bowie in character as the icy, arch-European Thin White Duke, Station is a strange but ultimately successful amalgam of Bowie's Young American soul stylings and muscular rock jamming (led by lead guitarist Earl Slick).

The title track is a 10-minute medley of mechanical beats and soul-rock riffing that somehow combines Kraftwerk and early-Bruce Springsteen. "Golden Years" is great, tuneful, uptempo soul and was the only song on the album to be recorded quickly and easily.

"TVC15" is odd - even for Bowie - with lyrics inspired by his starring role in the science fiction film classic The Man Who Fell to Earth, Roy Bittan's (of the E Street Band) jaunty whorehouse piano, martial dance beats, and a mesmerizing refrain. "Stay" rocks to the dual guitars of Alomar and Slick, and Dennis Davis's syncopated drumming.

With Bowie wired on coke, working vampire's hours, and writing/rewriting songs in the studio, Station was very difficult to make, but somehow came out a classic.