David Bowie

David Bowie
David Bowie, 2006.
Background information
Birth name	David Jones
Also known as	"Ziggy Stardust" "The Thin White Duke"
Born	8 January 1947 (1947-01-08) Brixton, England
Genre(s)	Rock, glam rock, art rock, pop rock, blue-eyed soul, experimental
Instrument(s)	Vocals, multi-instrumentalist
Years active	1964—present
Associated acts	The Konrads, The King Bees, The Manish Boys, The Lower Third, The Riot Squad, Tin Machine
Website	www.davidbowie.com

David Bowie (pronounced /ˈboʊiː/) (born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, producer, arranger, and audio engineer. Active in five decades of rock music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is regarded as an influential innovator, particularly for his work through the 1970s.

Although he released an album and numerous singles earlier, David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when his space-age mini-melodrama "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK singles chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era as a flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona epitomised a career often marked by musical innovation, reinvention and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer identified as "plastic soul." The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low – the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno. His most experimental works to date, the so-called "Berlin Trilogy" nevertheless produced three UK top-five albums.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes" and its parent album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). He paired with Queen for the 1981 UK chart-topper "Under Pressure," but consolidated his commercial – and, until then, most profitable – sound in 1983 with the album Let's Dance, which yielded the hit singles "China Girl," "Modern Love," and most famously, the title track.

In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie ranked 29. Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 196 million albums ^{[citation needed]}, and ranks among the ten best-selling acts in UK pop history. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Biography

1947 to 1967: Early years

David Robert Jones was born in Brixton, London, to a father from Tadcaster in Yorkshire and a mother from an Irish family; Bowie's parents were married shortly after his birth. When he was six years old, his family moved from Brixton to Bromley in Kent, where he attended the Bromley Technical High School.

Bowie's interest in music was sparked at the age of nine when his father brought home a collection of American 45s, including Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and, most particularly, Little Richard. Upon listening to "Tutti Frutti," Bowie would later say, "I had heard God". His half-brother Terry introduced him to modern jazz. He formed his first band in 1962, the Konrads and then played with various blues/beat groups, such as The King Bees, The Manish Boys, The Lower Third and The Riot Squad in the mid-1960s, releasing his first record, the single "Liza Jane," with the King Bees in 1964. His early work shifted through the blues and Elvis-inspired music while working with many British pop styles.

Bowie released his first album in 1967 for the Decca Records offshoot Deram, simply called David Bowie, an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall.

Influenced by the dramatic arts, he studied with Lindsay Kemp—from avant-garde theatre and mime to Commedia dell'arte—and much of his work would involve the creation of characters or personae to present to the world. During 1967, Bowie sold his first song to another artist, "Oscar" (an early stage name of actor-musician Paul Nicholas).

1969 to 1973: Psychedelic folk to glam rock

Bowie's first flirtation with fame came in 1969 with his single "Space Oddity," written the previous year but recorded and released to coincide with the first moon landing. It became a Top 5 UK hit. The corresponding album, his second, was originally titled David Bowie, which caused some confusion as both of Bowie's first and second albums were released with that name in the UK (in the U.S. the second album bore the title Man of Words, Man of Music). In 1972, this album was re-released by RCA Records as Space Oddity.

In 1970 Bowie released his third album, The Man Who Sold the World, rejecting the acoustic guitar sound of the previous album and replacing it with the heavy rock backing provided by Mick Ronson, who would be a major collaborator through to 1973. Much of the album resembles British heavy metal music of the period, but the album provided some unusual musical detours, such as the title track's use of Latin sounds and rhythms. The original UK cover of the album showed Bowie in a dress, an early example of his androgynous appearance.

His next record, Hunky Dory in 1971, saw the partial return of the fey pop singer of "Space Oddity," with light fare such as the droll "Kooks." Elsewhere, the album explored more serious themes on tracks such as "Oh! You Pretty Things" (a song taken to UK #12 by Herman's Hermits' Peter Noone in 1971), the semi-autobiographical "The Bewlay Brothers," and the Buddhist-influenced "Quicksand." As with the single "Changes," Hunky Dory was not a big hit but it laid the groundwork for the move that would shortly lift Bowie into the first rank of stars, giving him four top-ten albums and eight top ten singles in the UK in eighteen months between 1972 and 1973.

Bowie's androgynous persona was further explored in June 1972 with the seminal concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which presents a world destined to end in five years and tells the story of the ultimate rock star, Ziggy Stardust. The Ziggy Stardust character became the basis for Bowie's first large-scale tour beginning in 1972, where he donned his famous flaming red hair and wild outfits. The tour's success made Bowie a star, and soon the six-month-old Hunky Dory eclipsed Ziggy Stardust, when it peaked at #3 on the UK chart.

Around the same time Bowie began promoting and producing his rock and roll heroes including former Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed's solo breakthrough Transformer.

1974 to 1976: Soul, R&B, and The Thin White Duke

1974 saw the release of another ambitious album, Diamond Dogs, with a spoken word introduction and a multi-part song suite ("Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise)"). Diamond Dogs was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell's 1984 to music. Bowie also made plans to develop a Diamond Dogs movie, but the project did not materialize.

For Ziggy Stardust fans who had not discerned the soul and funk strains already apparent in Bowie's recent work, the "new" sound was considered a sudden and jolting step. 1975's Young Americans was Bowie's definitive exploration of Philly soul—though he himself referred to the sound ironically as "plastic soul." It contained his first #1 hit in the US, "Fame," co-written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon (who also contributed backing vocals). Young Americans was the album that cemented Bowie's stardom in the U.S.

Station to Station (1976) featured a darker version of this soul persona, called "The Thin White Duke." Visually the figure was an extension of Thomas Jerome Newton, the character Bowie portrayed in The Man Who Fell to Earth. Station to Station was a transitional album, prefiguring the Krautrock and synthesizer music of his next releases, while further developing the funk and soul music of Young Americans.

The 1976 World Tour featured a starkly lit set and highlighted new songs such as the dramatic and lengthy title track, the ballads "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," and the funkier "TVC 15" and "Stay." The tour was highly successful but also entrenched in controversy, as the media claimed that Bowie was advocating fascism. The accusation was false and had resulted from a misinterpretation of Bowie's essentially anti-Fascist message.

1976 to 1980: The Berlin era

Bowie's interest in the growing German music scene, as well as his drug addiction, prompted him to move to West Berlin to dry out and rejuvenate his career. Sharing an apartment in Schöneberg with his friend Iggy Pop, he co-produced three more of his own classic albums with Tony Visconti, while aiding Pop with his career. With Bowie as a co-writer and musician, Pop completed his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life.

Bowie joined Pop's touring band in the spring, simply playing keyboard and singing backing vocals. The group performed in the UK, Europe, and the US from March to April 1977.

The brittle sound of Station to Station proved a precursor to Low, the first of three albums that became known as the "Berlin Trilogy." Low was recorded with Brian Eno as an integral collaborator but, despite widespread belief, not the album's producer.

Partly influenced by the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and Neu! and the minimalist work of Steve Reich, Bowie journeyed to Neunkirchen near Cologne and recorded new songs that were relatively simple, repetitive and stripped-down, a perverse reaction to punk rock, with the second side almost wholly instrumental. The album provided him with a surprise #3 hit in the UK when the BBC picked up the first single, "Sound and Vision," as its 'coming attractions' theme music.

His next record, "Heroes", was similar in sound to Low, though slightly more accessible. The mood of these records fit the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city that provided its inspiration.

Bowie and his band embarked on an extensive world tour in 1978 that featured music from both Low and Heroes. A live album from the tour was released as Stage the same year. Songs from both Low and Heroes were later converted to symphonies by minimalist composer Phillip Glass. 1978 was also the year that saw Bowie narrating Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.

1979's Lodger was the final album in Bowie's so-called "Berlin Trilogy," or "triptych" as Bowie calls it. The style was a mix of New Wave and world music, including pieces such as "African Night Flight" and "Yassassin." In 1980, Bowie did an about-face, integrating the lessons learnt on Low, Heroes, and Lodger while expanding upon them with chart success. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) included the #1 hit "Ashes to Ashes," featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer, and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity."

1980 to 1989: Bowie the superstar

In 1981, Queen released "Under Pressure," co-written and performed with Bowie. The song was a hit and became Bowie's third UK #1 single. Bowie scored his first truly commercial blockbuster with Let's Dance in 1983, a slick dance album co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers. The title track went to #1 in the United States and United Kingdom and many now consider it a standard.

Bowie's next album was originally planned to be a live album recorded on the Serious Moonlight Tour, but EMI demanded another studio album instead. The resulting album, 1984's Tonight, was also dance-oriented, featuring collaborations with Tina Turner (and Iggy Pop), as well as various covers, including one of The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows." Critics labeled it a lazy effort, but the album bore the transatlantic Top Ten hit "Blue Jean" whose complete video - the 21-minute short film "Jazzin' for Blue Jean" - reflected Bowie's long-standing interest in combining music with drama. This video would win Bowie his only Grammy to date, for Best Short Form Music Video.

In 1986, Bowie contributed several songs to as well as acted in the film Absolute Beginners. The movie was not well reviewed but Bowie's theme song rose to #2 in the UK charts. He also took a role in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, as Jareth, the Goblin King who steals the baby brother of a girl named Sarah (played by Jennifer Connelly), in order to turn him into a goblin. Bowie wrote five songs for the film, the script of which was partially written by Monty Python's Terry Jones.

Bowie's final solo album of the 80s was 1987's Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light sound of his two earlier albums, instead offering harder rock with an industrial/techno dance edge. The album, which peaked at #6 in the UK, contained hit singles "Day In, Day Out," "Time Will Crawl," and "Never Let Me Down."

In August of 1988, Bowie portrayed Pontius Pilate in the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ.

1989 to 1991: Tin Machine

In 1989, for the first time since the early 1970s, Bowie formed a regular band, Tin Machine, a hard-rocking quartet, along with Reeves Gabrels, Tony Sales, and Hunt Sales. Tin Machine released two studio albums and a live record. The band received mixed reviews and a somewhat lukewarm reception from the public, but Tin Machine heralded the beginning of a long-lasting collaboration between Bowie and Gabrels. The original album, Tin Machine (1989), was a success, holding the number three spot on the charts of the UK.

After the less successful second album Tin Machine II and the complete failure of live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby, Bowie tired of having to work in a group setting where his creativity was limited, and finally disbanded Tin Machine to work on his own. But the Tin Machine venture did show that Bowie had learned some harsh lessons from the previous decade, and was determined to get serious about concentrating on music more than commercial success.

1992 to 1999: Electronica

In 1992 he performed his hits "Heroes" and "Under Pressure" (with Annie Lennox) at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. 1993 saw the release of the soul, jazz and hip-hop influenced Black Tie White Noise, which reunited Bowie with Let's Dance producer Nile Rodgers. The album hit the number one spot on the UK charts with singles such as "Jump They Say" (a top 10 hit) and "Miracle Goodnight."

Bowie explored new directions on The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), based on incidental music composed for a TV series. It contained some of the new elements introduced in Black Tie White Noise, and also signalled a move towards alternative rock. The album was critical success but received a low-key release and only made number 87 in the UK charts.

The ambitious, quasi-industrial release Outside (1995), conceived as the first volume in a subsequently abandoned non-linear narrative of art and murder, reunited him with Brian Eno. The album introduced the characters of one of Bowie's short stories, and achieved chart success in both the UK and US.

Receiving some of the strongest critical response since Let's Dance was Earthling (1997), which incorporated experiments in British jungle and drum 'n' bass and included a single released over the Internet, called "Telling Lies"; other singles included "Little Wonder" and "Dead Man Walking." There was a corresponding world tour, which was fairly successful. Bowie's track in the Paul Verhoeven film Showgirls, "I'm Afraid of Americans" was remixed by Trent Reznor for a single release. The video's heavy rotation (also featuring Reznor) contributed to the song's 16-week stay in the US Billboard Hot 100.

1999 to present: Neoclassicist Bowie

In 1998, David Bowie had reunited with Tony Visconti to record a song for The Rugrats Movie called "(Safe in This) Sky Life." Although the track was edited out of the final cut, and did not feature on the film's soundtrack album, the reunion led to the pair pursuing a new collaborative effort. "(Safe In This) Sky Life" was later re-recorded and released as a single b-side in 2002 where it was retitled "Safe".

1999 found Bowie composing the soundtrack for a computer game called "Omikron: The Nomad Soul." Bowie and his wife, Iman, made appearances as characters in the game.

Plans surfaced after the release of 'hours...' for an album titled Toy, which would feature new versions of some of Bowie's earliest pieces as well as three new songs. Sessions for the album commenced in 2000, but the album was never released, leaving a number of tracks, some as yet unheard, on the editing floor. Bowie and Visconti continued collaboration with the production of a new album of completely original songs instead. The result of the sessions was the 2002 album Heathen, which had a dark atmospheric sound, and was Bowie's biggest chart success in recent years. 2002 also saw Bowie curate the annual Meltdown festival in London. Amongst the acts selected by Bowie to perform were Phillip Glass, Television and The Polyphonic Spree. Bowie himself played a show at the Royal Festival Hall which notably included a rare performance of his experimental opus Low in its entirety.

In September 2003, Bowie released a new album, Reality, and announced a world tour. 'A Reality Tour' was the best-selling tour of the following year. In October 2004, Bowie released a live DVD of the tour, entitled A Reality Tour of his performances in Dublin, Ireland on 22 November and 23 November 2003, which included songs spanning the full length of Bowie's career, although mostly focusing on his more recent albums.

Despite hopes for a comeback, in 2005, Bowie announced that he had made no plans for any performances during the year. After a relatively quiet year, Bowie recorded the vocals for the song "(She Can) Do That," co-written by Brian Transeau, for the movie Stealth. Rumours flew about the possibility of a new album, but no announcements were made. In April 2005, film writer and director Darren Aronofsky revealed Bowie was working on a rock opera adaptation of the comic book Watchmen.

On February 8, 2006, David Bowie was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November, Bowie performed at the Black Ball in New York for the Keep a Child Alive Foundation alongside his wife, Iman, and Alicia Keys. He duetted with Keys on "Changes," and also performed "Wild is the Wind" and "Fantastic Voyage."

For 2006, Bowie once again announced a break from performance, but he made a surprise guest appearance at David Gilmour's May 29 2006 concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He sang "Arnold Layne" and "Comfortably Numb," closing the concert. The former performance was released, on December 26 2006, as a single.

In May 2007, it was announced that Bowie would curate the High Line Festival in the abandoned railway park in New York called the High Line where he would select various musicians and artists to perform.

Acting career

Bowie's first major film role in The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976, earned acclaim. Bowie's character Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien from a planet that is dying from a lack of water. In 1979's Just a Gigolo, an Anglo-German co-production directed by David Hemmings, Bowie played the lead role of a Prussian officer Paul von Pryzgodski returning from World War I who is discovered by a Baroness (Marlene Dietrich) and put into her Gigolo Stable.

In the eighties, Bowie continued with film roles and also starred in the Broadway production of The Elephant Man (1980-1981). In 1982, he made a cameo appearance as himself in Christiane F., focusing on a young girl's drug addiction. Bowie also starred in The Hunger (1983), a revisionist vampire movie with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. In the film, Bowie and Deneuve are vampire lovers, with her having made him a vampire centuries ago. While she is truly ageless, he discovers to his horror that although immortal, he can still age and rapidly becomes a pathetic, monstrous husk as the film progresses. In Nagisa Oshima's film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), based on Laurens van der Post's novel The Seed and the Sower, Bowie played Major Jack Celliers, a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp. Another famous musician, Ryuichi Sakamoto, played the camp commandant who begins to be undermined by Celliers' bizarre behavior. Bowie had a cameo as The Shark in Yellowbeard, a 1983 pirate comedy made by some of the members of Monty Python, and a small part as Colin the hit man in the 1985 film Into the Night. During this time Bowie was also asked to play the villain Max Zorin in the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985), but turned down the role, stating that "I didn't want to spend five months watching my stunt double fall off mountains."

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence impressed some critics but his next major film project, the rock musical Absolute Beginners (1986), was both a critical and box office disappointment. The same year he appeared in the Jim Henson cult classic, the dark fantasy Labyrinth (1986), playing Jareth, the king of the goblins. Jareth is a powerful, mysterious creature who has an antagonistic yet strangely flirtatious relationship with Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), the film's teenage heroine. Appearing in heavy make-up and a mane-like wig, Bowie sang a variety of new songs specially composed for the film's soundtrack. Bowie also played a sympathetic Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). He was briefly considered for the role of The Joker by Tim Burton and Sam Hamm for 1989's Batman. Hamm recalls "David Bowie would be kind of neat because he's very funny when he does sinister roles." The role ended up going to Jack Nicholson.

Bowie portrayed a disgruntled restaurant employee opposite Rosanna Arquette in the 1991 film The Linguini Incident, and played mysterious FBI agent Phillip Jeffries in David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). He took the small but pivotal role of Andy Warhol in Basquiat, artist/director Julian Schnabel's 1996 biopic of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1998 Bowie also co-starred in an Italian film called Gunslinger's Revenge (renamed from the original Il Mio West). However, it was not released in the United States until 2005. In it he plays the most feared gunslinger in the region.

Before appearing in The Hunger, a TV horror serial based on the 1983 movie, Bowie was invited by musician Goldie to play the aging gangster Bernie in Andrew Goth's Brighton Rock inspired movie, Everybody Loves Sunshine. He played the title role in the 2000 film, Mr. Rice's Secret, in which he played the neighbour of a terminally ill twelve year old. In 2001, Bowie appeared as himself in the film Zoolander, volunteering himself to be a walkoff judge between Ben Stiller's character Zoolander, and Owen Wilson's character, Hansel.

In 2006, Bowie portrayed Nikola Tesla alongside Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman in The Prestige, directed by Christopher Nolan. It follows the bitter competition between two magicians around the turn of the century. Bowie has voice-acted in the animated movie Arthur and the Minimoys (known as Arthur and the Invisibles in the U.S.) as the powerful villain Maltazard. He also appeared as himself in an episode of Extras. Bowie (in the context of the show) improvised and sang a song mocking the main character Andy Millman, played by Ricky Gervais. He also lent his voice to the character "Lord Royal Highness" in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis" who, like Bowie, has mismatched eyes. His latest project is a supporting role as Ogilvie in the new film, August, directed by Austin Chick (best known for writing and directing the 2002 romantic drama XX/XY), and starring Josh Hartnett and Rip Torn (with whom he also worked on The Man Who Fell to Earth).

Personal life

Bowie met his first wife Angela Bowie in 1969. According to Bowie, they were "fucking the same bloke" (record executive Calvin Mark Lee). Angie's sense of fashion and outrage has been credited as a significant influence in Bowie's early career and rise to fame. They married on 19 March, 1970 at Bromley Register Office in Beckenham Lane, Kent, England where she permanently took his adopted last name. Their son was born on 30 May, 1971 and named Zowie (Zowie later preferred to be known as Joe/Joey, although now he has reverted to his legal birth name - "Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones"). They separated after eight years of marriage and divorced on 8 February, 1980, in Switzerland. The marriage has been cited as one of convenience for both.

Bowie married his second wife, the Somali-born supermodel Iman Abdulmajid, in 1992. The couple have a daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones (known as Lexi), born August 15, 2000, and live in Manhattan and London. As a bi-sexual, Bowie has not hid his sexual preferences.

In September 2007, he made a contribution of $10,000 to the NAACP for the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund to help with legal bills of six teenagers arrested and charged with crimes related to their involvement in the assault of a teenager in Jena.

Discography

Studio albums

• David Bowie (1967)
• Space Oddity (1969)
• The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
• Hunky Dory (1971)
• The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
• Aladdin Sane (1973)
• Pin Ups (1973)
• Diamond Dogs (1974)
• Young Americans (1975)
• Station to Station (1976)
• Low (1977)
• "Heroes" (1977)
• Lodger (1979)
• Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
• Let's Dance (1983)
• Tonight (1984)
• Never Let Me Down (1987)
• Black Tie White Noise (1993)
• Outside (1995)
• Earthling (1997)
• 'hours...' (1999)
• Heathen (2002)
• Reality (2003)

Awards

The Saturn Awards

• Best Actor, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1977)

Daytime Emmy Award

• Outstanding Special Class Special, Hollywood Rocks the Movies: The 1970s (2003, Shared with Kevin Burns, David Sehring, and Patty Ivins Specht)

Grammy Awards

• Best Video, Short Form; "Jazzin' for Blue Jean" (1985)
• Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2006)

BRIT Awards

• Best British Male Solo Artist (1984)
• Outstanding Contribution To Music (1996)

Webby Awards

• Outstanding Contribution To Music (2007)

He has also previously declined the British honour Commander of the British Empire in 2000, and knighthood in 2003.

See also

• Bowie Bonds
• Best selling music artists - World's top selling music artists chart.
• List of number-one hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
• List of Number 1 Dance Hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart
• List of people who have declined a British honour
• 100 Greatest Britons
• Low Symphony and Heroes Symphony

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Buckley, David [1999] (2000). Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story. London: Virgin. ISBN 075350457X. 
• Carr, Roy and Murray, Charles Shaar (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record. New York: Avon. ISBN 0380779668. 
• Pegg, Nicholas [2000] (2004). The Complete David Bowie. London: Reynolds & Hearn. ISBN 1903111730. 

External links

• Official David Bowie website
• David Bowie at the Internet Movie Database
• David Bowie at All Music Guide
• David Bowie at Rollingstone
• David Bowie's portrait by Stephen Finer in the National Portrait Gallery
• David Bowie at Last.fm

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