Not only did he play guitar, he wrote the arrangements, baroque soundscapes that perfectly complemented Bowie's vision.
He also wrote the arrangements, which is very old school; a lot of times in modern recordings people just bash things out.
He wrote: "The arrangements clearly operate to the disadvantage of those living locally, with only eight offers of places being made to the 104 residents of Hammersmith and Fulham who were seeking a place.
He wrote "Midnight In Harlem" and "Bound For Glory," those are songs where Derek and I wrote the arrangements and worked closely with him on them.
In 1957, Osborne wrote the arrangement for Gracie Fields' hit recording of "Around The World", which was produced by Norman Newell.
Tony Kadleck, a member of the orchestra's trumpet section who is writing the arrangement, said the piece's rhythmic complexity had led him to notate in 3/4 time, despite the piece's 6/8 feel, to make the score's swirl of polyrhythmic patterns and dueling ostinatos less dense and more readable on the printed page.
With re-recording the song, he had re-written the arrangement and lyrics to address the demise of his volatile marriage to Anna Gordy Gaye, who happened to be the original song's co-writer.
He wrote the musical arrangements for Ken Russell's film of The Boy Friend.
He also wrote the string arrangements for, and played accordion on, "Dreams Don't Count," a new album of "chamber pop" from the singer-songwriter Jules Shear.
Dori Caymmi, son of the great Bahian composer Dorival Caymmi, is a great composer in his own right; he wrote the piquant arrangements for the debut albums of Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, and he also worked with Sarah Vaughan in the 80's.
