Bowie never was a young American - he was born and raised in England. Bowie said that this was the result of cramming his "whole American experience" into one song.
This was recorded between tour dates at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios, which was the capital of black music in the area. The soul influence had a very obvious effect on Bowie's style. He even completely redesigned the stage for the rest of his Diamond Dogs tour.
Over the course of about eight very creative days, Bowie recorded most of the songs for Young Americans at Sigma Studios. He usually recorded his vocals after midnight because he heard that's when Frank Sinatra recorded most of his vocals, and because there weren't so many people around. Sigma had a staff of very talented producers and musicians (known as MFSB - the same folks who had a #1 hit with "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)"), but Bowie used his own people - Tony Visconti produced this track.
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