David Bowie
(; [1] born David Robert Hayward-Jones
; [2] 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Active in five decades of popular music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He has been cited as an influence by many musicians [3] and is known for his distinctive voice [4] [5] and the intellectual depth of his work. [6] [7]
Although he released an album (David Bowie
) and several singles earlier, David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when the song "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 the 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", co-written with John Lennon, [8] 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. [9] 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 over the next two years. The so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all reached the UK Top Five.
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-topping single "Under Pressure", but reached a commercial peak in 1983 with the album Let's Dance
, which yielded the hit singles "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Modern Love".
In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie ranked 29. Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 136 million albums, [10] 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 Rock Artists of All Time. [11]
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DAVID BOWIE TICKETS
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1947–67: Early years
David Bowie was born David Robert Hayward-Jones in Brixton, London to parents who were married in September 1947 shortly after his birth.
[12] [13] His mother Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns), of Irish descent
[14] worked as a cinema usherette and his father Hayward Stenton "John" Jones was a promotions officer for
Barnardo's.
[15] Bowie attended a school in
Stockwell until he was six years old, when his family moved from Brixton to the suburb of
Bromley,
Kent, where he attended Bromley Technical High School.
[16]
When Bowie was 15-years-old, his friend, George Underwood, wearing a ring on his finger, punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. Bowie was forced to stay out of school for eight months so that doctors could conduct operations to repair his potentially blinded eye.
[17] [18] Doctors could not fully repair the damage, leaving his pupil permanently
dilated. As a result of the injury, Bowie has faulty
depth perception. Bowie has stated that although he can see with his injured eye, his colour vision was mostly lost and a brownish tone is constantly present. Each iris has the same blue colour, but since the pupil of the injured eye is wide open, the hue of that eye is commonly mistaken to be
different.
Despite the fight, Underwood and Bowie remained good friends, and Underwood went on to do the artwork for Bowie's earlier albums.
[19]
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".
[20] His half-brother Terry introduced him to
modern jazz and Bowie's enthusiasm for players like
Charles Mingus and
John Coltrane led his mother to give him a plastic
saxophone for Christmas in 1959. Graduating to a real instrument, he formed his first band in 1962, the Konrads. He then played and sang in 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.
During the early 1960s, Bowie was performing either under his own name or the stage name "Davie Jones", and briefly even as "Davy Jones", creating confusion with
Davy Jones of
The Monkees. To avoid this, in 1966 he chose "Bowie" for his stage name, after the
Alamo hero
Jim Bowie and his famous
Bowie knife.
[21] During this time, he recorded singles for
Parlophone under the name of
The Manish Boys and Davy Jones and for
Pye under the name David Bowie (and The Lower Third), all without success.
Bowie released his first album in 1967 for the
Decca Records offshoot
Deram, simply called
David Bowie
. It was an amalgam of
pop,
psychedelia, and
music hall. Around the same time he issued a novelty single, "
The Laughing Gnome", which utilised sped-up
Chipmunk-style vocals. None of these releases managed to chart, and he would not cut another record for two years. His Deram material from the album and various singles was later recycled in a multitude of compilations.
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). Bowie wrote Oscar's third single, "Over the Wall We Go", which satirised life in a British prison.
[22] In late 1968, his then-manager, Kenneth Pitt, produced a half-hour promotional film called
Love You Till Tuesday
featuring Bowie performing a number of songs, but it went unreleased until 1984.
1969–73: 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.
[23] This
ballad told the story of
Major Tom, an astronaut who becomes lost in space, though it has also been interpreted as an
allegory for taking drugs.
[24] It became a Top 5 UK hit. Bowie put the finishing touches to the track while living with Mary Finnigan as her lodger. Finnigan and Bowie joined forces with Christina Ostrom and the late Barrie Jackson to run a Folk Club on Sunday nights at The Three Tuns
pub in
Beckenham High Street, south London.
[25] This soon morphed into the Beckenham Arts Lab and became extremely popular. In August 1969, The Arts Lab hosted a Free Festival in a local park, later immortalised by Bowie in his song "
Memory of a Free Festival".
[26] In 1969 and 1970, "Space Oddity" was used by the BBC during both its
Apollo 11 moon landing coverage and its coverage of
Apollo 13.
The corresponding album, his second, was released in November 1969 and 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 same album originally bore the title
Man of Words, Man of Music
to overcome that confusion. In 1972, the album was re-released on both sides of the Atlantic by
RCA Records as
Space Oddity
, a title it has kept until today.
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. In the U.S., the album was originally released in a cartoonish cover that did not feature Bowie.
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 number twelve by
Herman's Hermits'
Peter Noone in 1971), the semi-autobiographical "
The Bewlay Brothers", and the
Buddhist-influenced "
Quicksand". Lyrically, the young songwriter also paid unusually direct homage to his influences with "
Song for Bob Dylan", "
Andy Warhol", and "
Queen Bitch", which Bowie's somewhat cryptic liner notes indicate as a
Velvet Underground pastiche. 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 further explored his androgynous persona 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 album's sound combined the
hard rock elements of
The Man Who Sold the World
with the lighter experimental rock of
Hunky Dory
and the fast-paced
glam rock pioneered by
Marc Bolan's
T.Rex. Many of the album's songs have become rock classics, including "
Ziggy Stardust," "
Moonage Daydream," "
Rock & Roll Suicide" and "
Suffragette City."
The Ziggy Stardust character became the basis for Bowie's first large-scale tour beginning in 1972, where he donned his famous flaming red
mullet and wild outfits, designed by
Kansai Yamamoto. The tour featured a three-piece band representing
The Spiders from Mars: Ronson on guitar,
Trevor Bolder on bass, and
Mick Woodmansey on drums. This was Bowie’s first tour to visit the US, making his first appearance on 22 September 1972 at Public Hall in
Cleveland,
Ohio.
[27] The album made number five in the UK on the strength of the number ten placing of the single "
Starman". Their success made Bowie a star, and soon the six-month-old
Hunky Dory
eclipsed
Ziggy Stardust
, when it peaked at number three on the UK chart. At the same time the non-album single "
John, I’m Only Dancing" (not released in the U.S. until 1979) peaked at UK number twelve, and "
All the Young Dudes", a song he had given to, and produced for,
Mott the Hoople, made UK number three.
Around the same time Bowie began promoting and producing his rock and roll heroes, two of whom he met at the popular New York hangout
Max's Kansas City [28]: former Velvet Underground singer
Lou Reed, whose solo breakthrough
Transformer
was produced by Bowie and Ronson; and
Iggy Pop, whose band,
The Stooges, signed with Bowie's management, MainMan Productions, to record their third album,
Raw Power
. Though he was not present for the tracking of the album, Bowie later performed its much-debated
mix.
[29] Bowie sang back-up vocals on both Reed's
Transformer
, and Iggy's
The Idiot
.
The Spiders From Mars came together again on
Aladdin Sane
, released in April 1973 and his first number one album in the UK. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America",
[30] all the new songs were written on ship, bus or trains during the first leg of his US
Ziggy Stardust
tour. The album's cover, featuring Bowie shirtless with Ziggy hair and a red, black, and blue lightning bolt across his face, has been described as being as "startling as rock covers ever got."
[31] Aladdin Sane
included the UK number two hit "
The Jean Genie", the UK number three hit "
Drive-In Saturday", and a rendition of
The Rolling Stones' "
Let's Spend the Night Together".
Mike Garson joined Bowie to play piano on this album, and his solo on the
title track has been cited as one of the album's highlights.
[32]
Bowie's later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both
Ziggy Stardust
and
Aladdin Sane
, as well as a few earlier tracks like "Changes" and "
The Width of a Circle", were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a
sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating
oral sex with Ronson's guitar.
[33] Bowie toured and gave
press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's
Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. His announcement—"Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do. Thank you."—was preserved in a live recording of the show, filmed by
D. A. Pennebaker and belatedly released under the title
Ziggy Stardust - The Motion Picture
in 1983 after many years circulating as an audio bootleg.
[34]
Pin Ups
, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, was released in October 1973, spawning a UK number three hit in "
Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one, making David Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK.
[35] By this time, Bowie had broken up the Spiders from Mars and was attempting to move on from his Ziggy persona. Bowie's own back catalogue was now highly sought:
The Man Who Sold the World
had been re-released in 1972 along with the second
David Bowie
album (
Space Oddity
).
Hunky Dory
s "
Life on Mars?" was released as a single in 1973 and made number three in the UK, the same year Bowie's novelty record from 1967, "
The Laughing Gnome", hit number six.
1974–76: Soul, R&B, and The Thin White Duke
thumb
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 didn't get very far. Bowie had originally planned on writing a musical to
1984
, but his interest waned after encountering difficulties in licensing the novel. He used some of the songs he had written for the project on
Diamond Dogs
. The album—and an
NBC television special,
The 1980 Floor Show
, broadcast at around the same time—demonstrated Bowie headed toward the genre of
soul/
funk music, the track "
1984" being a prime example. The album spawned the hits "
Rebel Rebel" (UK number five) and "
Diamond Dogs" (UK number twenty-one), and itself went to number one in the UK, making him the best-selling act of that country for the second year in a row. In the US, Bowie achieved his first major commercial success as the album went to number five.
To follow on the release of the album, Bowie launched a massive
Diamond Dogs
tour in North America from June to December 1974. Choreographed by
Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production broke with contemporary standard practice for rock concerts by featuring no encores. It was filmed by
Alan Yentob for the documentary
Cracked Actor
. The documentary seemed to confirm the rumours of his cocaine abuse, featuring a pasty and emaciated Bowie nervously sniffing in the backseat of a car and claiming that there was a fly in his milk. Bowie commented that the resulting live album,
David Live
, ought to have been called "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only In Theory," presumably in reference to his addled and frenetic psychological state during this period. Nevertheless the album solidified his status as a superstar, going number two in the UK and number eight in the US. It also spawned a UK number ten hit in a cover of "
Knock on Wood". After the opening leg of the tour, Bowie mostly jettisoned the elaborate sets. Then, when the tour resumed after a summer break in
Philadelphia for recording new material, the
Diamond Dogs
sound no longer seemed apt. Bowie cancelled seven dates and made changes to the band, which returned to the road in October as the
Philly Dogs
tour.
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 number one hit in the US, "
Fame", co-written with
Carlos Alomar and
John Lennon (who also contributed backing vocals). It was based on a riff Alomar had developed while covering
The Flares' 1961
doo-wop classic "Foot Stompin'", which Bowie's band had taken to playing live during the
Philly Dogs
period. One of the backing vocalists on the album is a young
Luther Vandross, who also co-wrote some of the material for
Young Americans
. The song "
Win" featured a hypnotic guitar riff later taken by
Beck for the track/live staple "
Debra" off his
Midnite Vultures
album. Despite Bowie's unashamed recognition of the shallowness of his "plastic soul," he did earn the bona fide distinction of being one of the few white artists to be invited to appear on the popular "
Soul Train." Another violently paranoid appearance on
ABC's The Dick Cavett Show
(1974 5 December) seemed to confirm rumours of Bowie's heavy
cocaine use at this time.
[36] Young Americans
was the album that cemented Bowie's stardom in the U.S.; though only peaking there at number nine, as opposed to the number five placing of
Diamond Dogs
, the album stayed on the charts almost twice as long. At the same time, the album achieved number two in the UK while a re-issue of his old single "Space Oddity" became his first number one hit in the UK, only a few months after "Fame" had achieved the same in the US.
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
. By this time, Bowie had become heavily dependent on drugs, particularly cocaine; many critics have attributed the chopped rhythms and emotional detachment of the record to the influence of the drug, to which Bowie claimed to have been introduced in America. Bowie refused to relinquish control of a satellite, booked for a worldwide broadcast of a live appearance preceding the release of
Station to Station
, at the request of the Spanish Government, who wished to put out a live feed regarding the death of Spanish Dictator
Francisco Franco. His sanity—by his own later admission—became twisted from cocaine: he overdosed several times during the year. Additionally, Bowie was withering physically after having lost an alarming amount of weight.
Nonetheless, there was another large tour, the
Isolar - 1976 Tour, which 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 core band that coalesced around this album and tour—rhythm guitarist Alomar, bassist
George Murray, and drummer
Dennis Davis—would remain a stable unit through the 1970s. The tour was highly successful but also mired in political controversy. Bowie was quoted in
Stockholm as saying that "Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader", and detained by
customs in
Eastern Europe for possessing
Nazi paraphernalia.
[37] Matters came to a head in London on 2 May 1976, in what became known as the '
Victoria Station incident', when Bowie arrived in an open-top
Mercedes convertible and apparently gave a Nazi salute to the crowd that was captured on film and published in
NME
. Bowie claimed that the photographer simply caught him in mid-wave,
[38] and later blamed his addictions and the character of The Thin White Duke for his troubles at this time.
[39]
1976–79: 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.
[40]
The brittle sound of
Station to Station
proved a precursor to
Low
, the first of three albums that became known as the "
Berlin Trilogy".
Partly influenced by the
Krautrock sound of
Kraftwerk and
Neu! Bowie journeyed to
Neunkirchen near
Cologne to meet the famed German producer
Conny Plank. Proto-punk
Nick Lowe recorded an EP entitled "Bowi".) The album provided him with a surprise number three hit in the UK when the BBC picked up the first single, "
Sound and Vision", as its 'coming attractions' theme music. The album was produced in 1976 and released in early 1977.
Much of the band were present for the first five days only, after which Eno, Alomar and Gardiner remained to play overdubs. By the time Bowie wrote and recorded the lyrics everybody but Visconti and studio engineers had departed. The 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. The
title track, a story of two lovers who met at the
Berlin Wall, is one of Bowie's most-covered songs.
[41]
In 1977, Bowie also appeared on the Granada music show
Marc
, hosted by his friend and fellow glam pioneer
Marc Bolan of
T.Rex, with whom he had regularly socialised and jammed before either achieved fame. He turned out to be the show's final guest, as Bolan was killed in a car crash shortly afterward.
[42] Bowie was one of many superstars who attended the funeral.
[43]
thumb
For Christmas 1977, Bowie joined
Bing Crosby, of whom he was an ardent admirer, at the ATV Television Studio in Herts England to do "
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy", a version of "
Little Drummer Boy" with a new lyric.
[44] The resultant video in a Christmas seasonal setting was actually recorded during a late summer heatwave with the air conditioning breaking down. The two singers had originally met on Crosby's Christmas television special two years earlier (on the recommendation of Crosby's children—he had not heard of Bowie) and performed the song. One month after the record was completed, Crosby died.
[45] Five years later, the song would prove a worldwide festive hit, charting in the UK at number three on Christmas Day 1982.
[46] Bowie later remarked jokingly that he was afraid of being a guest artist, because "everyone I was going on with was kicking it", referring to Bolan and Crosby.
[47]
Bowie and his band embarked on an extensive world tour in 1978 (including his first concerts in Australia and New Zealand) which 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
.
Lodger
(1979) was the final album in Bowie's so-called "
Berlin Trilogy", or "triptych" as Bowie calls it.
[48] It featured the singles "
Boys Keep Swinging", "
DJ" and "
Look Back in Anger" and, unlike the two previous
LPs, did not contain any instrumentals. The style was a mix of
New Wave and
world music, which included pieces such as "
African Night Flight" and "
Yassassin". A number of tracks were composed using the non-traditional Bowie/Eno composition techniques: "Boys Keep Swinging" was developed with the band members swapping their instruments while "Move On" contains the chords for an early Bowie composition, "All The Young Dudes", played backwards.
[49] This was Bowie's last album with Eno until
1. Outside
in 1995.
1980–89: From superstar to megastar
In 1980, Bowie did an about-face, integrating the lessons learnt on
Low
,
Heroes
, and
Lodger
while expanding upon them with chart success.
[50] Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
included the number one hit "
Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist
Chuck Hammer, and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The imagery Bowie used in the song's
music video gave international exposure to the underground
New Romantic movement and, with many of the followers of this phase being devotees, Bowie visited the London club "Blitz"—the main New Romantic hangout—to recruit several of the regulars (including
Steve Strange of the band
Visage) to act in the video, renowned as being one of the most innovative of all time.
[51]
While
Scary Monsters
utilised principles that Bowie had learned in the Berlin era, it was considered by critics to be far more direct musically and lyrically, reflecting the transformation Bowie had gone through during his time in Germany and Europe. By 1980 Bowie had divorced his wife Angie, stopped the drug use of the "Thin White Duke" era, and radically changed his concept of the way music should be written. The album had a hard rock edge that included conspicuous guitar contributions from
King Crimson's
Robert Fripp,
The Who's
Pete Townshend, and
Television's
Tom Verlaine.
As "Ashes to Ashes" hit number one on the UK charts, Bowie opened a three-month run on Broadway starring in
The Elephant Man
on 23 September 1980.
[52]
In 1981,
Queen released "
Under Pressure", co-written and performed with Bowie. The song was a hit and became Bowie's third UK number one single. In the same year Bowie made a cameo appearance in the German movie
Christiane F. Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo
, the real-life story of a 13 year-old girl in Berlin who becomes addicted to
heroin and ends up prostituting herself. Bowie is credited with "special cooperation" in the credits and his music features prominently in the movie. The soundtrack was released in 1982 and contained a version of "
Heroes" sung partially in German that had previously been included on the German pressing of its parent album. The same year Bowie appeared in the BBC's adaptation of
Bertolt Brecht's play
Baal
. Coinciding with transmission of the film, a five-track
EP of songs from the play was released as
David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal
, recorded at Hansa by the Wall the previous September. It would mark Bowie’s final new release on RCA, as 1983 saw him change record labels from RCA to
EMI America. In April 1982, Bowie released "
Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" with
Giorgio Moroder, for director
Paul Schrader's film
Cat People
.
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 number one in the United States and United Kingdom. The album also featured the singles "
Modern Love" and "
China Girl", the latter causing something of a stir due to its suggestive promotional video. "China Girl" was a remake of a song which Bowie co-wrote several years earlier with
Iggy Pop, who recorded it for
The Idiot
. In an interview by
Kurt Loder, Bowie revealed that the motivation for recording "China Girl" was to help out his friend Iggy Pop financially, contributing to Bowie's history of support for musicians he admired.
Let's Dance
was also notable as a stepping stone for the career of the late
Texan guitarist
Stevie Ray Vaughan, who played on the album and was to have supported Bowie on the consequent
Serious Moonlight Tour
. Vaughan, however, never joined the tour after various disputes with Bowie. Vaughan was replaced by the Bowie tour veteran
Earl Slick. Frank and George Simms from
The Simms Brothers Band appeared as backing vocalists for the tour.
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". 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. It also featured "
Loving the Alien", a remix of which was a minor hit in 1985. The album also has a pair of dance rewrites of "
Neighborhood Threat" and "
Tonight", old songs Bowie wrote with Iggy Pop which had originally appeared on
Lust for Life
.
In 1985, Bowie performed several of his greatest hits at
Wembley for
Live Aid. At the end of his set, which comprised "Rebel Rebel", "TVC 15", "Modern Love" and 'Heroes', he introduced a film of the
Ethiopian
famine, for which the event was raising funds, which was set to the song "
Drive" by
The Cars. At the event, the video to a
fundraising single was premièred – Bowie performing a duet with
Mick Jagger on a version of "
Dancing in the Street", which quickly went to number one on release. In the same year Bowie worked with the
Pat Metheny Group on the song "
This Is Not America", which was featured in the film
The Falcon and the Snowman
. This song was the centrepiece of the album, a collaboration intended to underline the espionage thriller's central themes of alienation and disaffection.
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 number two 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 number six in the UK, contained hit singles "Day In, Day Out", "Time Will Crawl", and "Never Let Me Down". Bowie himself later described it as "my
nadir" and "an awful album".
[53]
Bowie decided to tour again in 1987, supporting the
Never Let Me Down
album. The
Glass Spider Tour was preceded by nine promotional press shows before the 86-concert tour actually started on 30 May 1987. In addition to the actual band, that included
Peter Frampton on lead guitar, five dancers appeared on stage for almost the entire duration of each concert. Taped pieces of dialogue were also performed by Bowie and the dancers in the middle of songs, creating an overtly theatrical effect. Several visual gimmicks were also recreated from Bowie's earlier tours. Critics of the tour described it as overproduced and claimed it pandered to then-current
stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing.
[54] However, fans that saw the shows from the Glass Spider Tour were treated to many of Bowie's classics and rarities, in addition to the newer material.
In August 1988, Bowie portrayed
Pontius Pilate in the
Martin Scorsese film
The Last Temptation of Christ
.
[
]
1989–91: 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. Tin Machine launched its first world tour, featuring a now unshaven David Bowie and additional guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, that year. Despite the success of the Tin Machine venture, Bowie was mildly frustrated that many of his ideas were either rejected or changed by the band.
Bowie began the 1990s with a stadium tour, in which he played mostly his biggest hits. The Sound + Vision Tour
(named after the Low
single) was conceived and directed by choreographer Edouard Lock of the Quebec contemporary dance troupe La La La Human Steps, with whom Bowie collaborated and performed on stage and in his videos. Bowie vowed during the tour that he would never play his early hits again.
Though he surprised no one when he later reneged on that promise and also on the promise that his set in each country would be focused on the favourite hits voted by phone poll in that country — an idea quickly jettisoned when a campaign by the British magazine NME
resulted in a landslide in favour of The Laughing Gnome
, it is true that his later tours generally featured few of those hits, and when they appeared, they were often radically reworked in their arrangement and delivery.
Bowie's negative press-image continued when the cover of Tin Machine's second album became unusually controversial, due to the presence of naked statues as its cover art.
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.
1992–99: 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 a critical success but received a low-key release and only made number 87 in the UK charts. [55]
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. [56] The album and its singles put Bowie back into the mainstream of rock music. In September 1995, Bowie began the Outside Tour
with Gabrels returning as guitarist. In a move that was equally lauded and ridiculed by Bowie fans and critics, Bowie chose Nine Inch Nails as the tour partner; [57] Trent Reznor also contributed a remix of the Outside
song "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" for its single release. On 17 January 1996, Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the eleventh annual induction ceremony. [58]
Receiving some of the strongest critical response since Let's Dance
was Earthling
(1997), [59] 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. 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 the 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". [60]
Among their earliest work together in this period, was a reworking of Placebo's track "Without You I'm Nothing", from the album of the same name, in which Visconti oversaw the additional production required when Bowie's harmonised vocal was added to the original version for a strictly limited edition single release.
In 1999 Bowie made the soundtrack for "Omikron," a computer game. Bowie and his wife, Iman, made appearances as characters in the game. That same year, re-recorded tracks from Omikron and new music was released in the album 'hours...'
featured "What's Really Happening", with lyrics by Alex Grant, the winner of Bowie's "Cyber Song Contest" Internet competition. This album was Bowie's exit from heavy electronica, with an emphasis on more live instruments.
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. [61] 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 2003, a report in the Sunday Express
named Bowie as the second-richest entertainer in the UK (behind Sir Paul McCartney), with an estimated fortune of £510 million. However, the 2005 Sunday Times Rich List
credited him with a little over £100 million.
thumbIn 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. However, it was cut short after Bowie suffered chest pain while performing on stage at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel, Germany, on 25 June 2004. Originally thought to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, the pain was later diagnosed as an acutely blocked artery; an emergency angioplasty was performed at St. Georg Hospital in Hamburg by Dr Karl Heinz Kuck. [62]
He was discharged in early July 2004 and continued to spend time recovering. Bowie later admitted he had suffered a minor heart attack, resulting from years of heavy smoking and touring. The tour was cancelled for the time being, with hopes that he would go back on tour by August, though this did not materialise. He recuperated back in New York City. [63]
In October 2004, Bowie released a live DVD of the tour, entitled A Reality Tour
of his performances in Dublin on 22 and 23 November 2003, which included songs spanning the full length of Bowie's career, although mostly focusing on his more recent albums.
Still recuperating from his operation, Bowie worked off-stage and relaxed from studio work for the first time in several years. In 2004, a duet of his classic song "Changes" with Butterfly Boucher appeared in Shrek 2
. The soundtrack for the film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
featured David Bowie songs performed in Portuguese by cast member Seu Jorge (who adapted the lyrics to make them relevant to the film's story). Most of the David Bowie songs featured in the film were originally from David Bowie
(debut album), Space Oddity
, Hunky Dory
, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
and Diamond Dogs
. Bowie commented, "Had Seu Jorge not recorded my songs acoustically in Portuguese I would never have heard this new level of beauty which he has imbued them with". [64]
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.
David Bowie finally returned to the stage on 8 September 2005, alongside Arcade Fire, for the US nationally televised event Fashion Rocks, his first gig since the heart attack. Bowie has shown interest in the Montreal band since he was seen at one of their shows in New York City nearly a year earlier. Bowie had requested the band to perform at the show, and together they performed the Arcade Fire's song "Wake Up" from their album Funeral
, as well as Bowie's own "Five Years" and "Life on Mars?". He joined them again on 15 September 2005, singing "Queen Bitch" and "Wake Up" from Central Park's Summerstage as part of the CMJ Music Marathon.
Bowie contributed back-up vocals for TV on the Radio's song "Province" from their album Return to Cookie Mountain
. [65] He made other occasional appearances, as in his commercial with Snoop Dogg for XM Satellite Radio. He appeared on Danish alt-rockers Kashmir's 2005 release, No Balance Palace
, sharing lead vocals with Kashmir singer Kasper Eistrup on the song "The Cynic". The album was produced by Tony Visconti, who also arranged the contact. [66] No Balance Palace
also featured a spoken word performance by Lou Reed, making it the second project involving both Bowie and Reed in two years, since Reed's 2003 The Raven
.
thumb
On 8 February 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 [67], but he made a surprise guest appearance at David Gilmour's 29 May 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 26 December 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. [68]
Bowie contributed backing vocals to two tracks - "Falling Down" and "Fannin' Street" - on Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head
. [69] [70]
On 29 June 2008, Bowie released a new compilation entitled iSELECT
. This CD was a collection of personal favourites compiled by Bowie himself [71] and was available exclusively as a free gift with the British newspaper The Mail On Sunday
. The compilation is notable in that it only contained one major hit single, "Life on Mars?", and concentrated on lesser-known album tracks.
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 Just a Gigolo
(1979), 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 1980s, Bowie continued with film roles and also starred in the Broadway production of The Elephant Man
(1980–81). 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." [72]
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
impressed some critics. 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. [73]
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
). [74] However, it was not released in the United States until 2005. In it he plays the most feared gunslinger in the region. [75]
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". His latest project is a supporting role as Ogilvie in the new film, August
, [76] 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
). [77]
Family and personal relationships
thumb at the premiere of Jones's directorial debut Moon
.
Bowie met his first wife Angela Bowie in 1969. According to Bowie, they were "fucking the same bloke". [78] Angie's sense of fashion and outrage has been credited as a significant influence in Bowie's early career and rise to fame. [79] They married on 19 March 1970 at Bromley Register Office in Beckenham Lane, Kent, England where she permanently took his adopted last name. Their only 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 the Saint James' Church in Florence in 1992. The couple have a daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones (known as Lexi), born 15 August 2000, and live in Manhattan and London.
Sexual orientation
thumb and Bowie in 2009.
Bowie outed himself in an interview with Melody Maker
in January 1972, a move coinciding with the first shots in his campaign for stardom as Ziggy Stardust. In a 1976 interview with Playboy
, Bowie said: "It's true — I am a bisexual. But I can't deny that I've used that fact very well. I suppose it's the best thing that ever happened to me." He distanced himself from that in a 1983 interview with Rolling Stone
, saying his earlier declaration of bisexuality was "the biggest mistake I ever made". [80]
In 1993, he made the claim that he had always been a "closet heterosexual", and that his interest in homosexual and bisexual culture was more a product of the times and situation than his own feelings. Bowie stated, "It wasn't something I was comfortable with at all." [81]
Bowie expressed a different view in a 2002 interview with Blender
; where he was posed with this question: "You once said that saying you were bisexual was 'the biggest mistake I ever made'. Do you still believe that?" His response:
Interesting. [Long pause] I don’t think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners or be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer, and I felt that [bisexuality] became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do. [82]
Politics
In the 1970s Bowie caused controversy for some radical political comments, saying that Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader and that Adolf Hitler was 'the first super-star'. [83] Such comments were a major source of motivation behind the Rock Against Racism group. In more recent years Bowie has gone to great lengths to distance himself from such comments.
In September 2007, he made a contribution of $10,000 to the NAACP [84] for the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund to help with legal bills of six black teenagers arrested and charged with crimes related to their involvement in the assault of a white teenager in Jena. [85]
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)
- The Buddha of Suburbia
(1993)
- Outside
(1995)
- Earthling
(1997)
- 'Hours...'
(1999)
- Heathen
(2002)
- Reality
(2003)
Filmography
Awards
Bowie has previously declined the British honour Commander of the British Empire in 2000, and a knighthood in 2003. [86]
See also
- 100 Greatest Britons
- Bowie Bonds
- Best selling music artists - World's top selling music artists chart.
- 1979 in music
- List of bisexual people
- List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
- List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart
- List of David Bowie tours
- List of number-one hits (United States)
- List of Number 1 Dance Hits (United States)
- List of people who have declined a British honour
- 1989 in music
- Low Symphony and Heroes Symphony
Notes
- How to say: Bowie
- http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,662144,00.html
- David Bowie by Stephen Thomas Erlewine; URL accessed 21 March 2007
- Earthling.
- Review/Rock; For Bowie, One More Change of Pace
- Jesse Jarnow, "David Bowie," in Scott Schnider, ed., ''Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever'' (2008), "Openly bisexual and vociferously intellectual, David Bowie in the late 1970s was the very definition of charisma", Greenwood Publishing Group, pg. 482.
- Mark Paytress, ''Bolan: The Rise and Fall of a 20th Century Superstar'' (2002), "America responded favourably to Bowie's intellectual take on pop," Omnibus Press, pg. 218.
- David Bowie, Young Americans
- Carr & Murray (1981): pp.68-74
- David Bowie profile
- The Immortals: The First Fifty
- David Bowie Biography (1947-)
- bowiewonderworld
- http://www.teenagewildlife.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/torrie/fom.cgi?_recurse=1&file=9
- Buckley (2000): p.14
- Buckley (2000): p.27
- Alias David Bowie
- Buckley (2000): p.24
- David Bowie Album Covers
- Peter Doggett (2007). "Teenage Wildlife", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': pp.8-9
- Buckley (2000): p.33
- Carr & Murray (1981): p. 117
- Pegg (2004): pp. 197-201
- Buckley (2000): p.74
- The Three Tuns pub and the Beckenham Arts Lab: ''BowieWonderworld.com'' website. Retrieved on 22 September 2007.
- "Memory of a Free Festival", hosted by the Beckenham Arts Lab: ''BowieWonderworld.com'' website. Retrieved on 22 September 2007.
- Wolff, Carlo (2006). ''Cleveland Rock and Roll Memories''. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-886228-99-3
- David Bowie and Iggy Pop Meet At Max's Kansas City
- Buckley (2000): p.156
- Pegg (2004): pp. 281–83
- Buckley (2000): pp.182-189
- Carr & Murray (1981): pp.52-56
- Carr & Murray (1981): p.7
- Carr & Murray (1981): p.116
- Biography of David Bowie
- DVD, Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons, disc 1
- Buckley (2000): pp. 289–291.
- The Controversial Homecoming
- Carr & Murray (1981): p. 11.
- Kris Needs (2007). "The Passenger", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': p.65
- Pegg (2000): pp.90-92
- Bowie Golden Years: Marc
- In pictures: Marc Bolan
- DVD, Bing Crosby, ''A Bing Crosby Christmas'', Questar qd3175, ISBN 1-56855-683-7
- Bing and Bowie: An Odd Story of Holiday Harmony
- The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits
- Dave Thompson (2007). "Bowie and Bing", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': p.64
- Buckley (2000): p. 300
- Carr & Murray (1981): pp. 102–07
- Carr & Murray (1981): pp. 108–14
- Pegg (2000): p.29
- ''Rock Movers & Shakers'', Dafydd Rees & Luke Crampton, Billboard Books, 1991
- James McNair (2007). "Tumble & Twirl", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': p. 101
- Andy Fyfe (2007). "Too Dizzy", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': pp. 88–91
- Buckley (2000): pp. 494–95,623
- Buckley (2000): pp.623-624
- Buckley (2000): pp.512-513
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction
- Buckley (2000): pp. 533–34
- ''The Complete David Bowie'', Nicholas Pegg, 2006 Reynolds & Hearn Ltd
- Illustrated db Discography
- BBC News
- BBC News
- Forbes
- Pitchfork Media
- David Bowie — Station til station
- http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/16865/
- 2007 NYC Show As Bowie Curates first High Line Festival
- Rolling Stone: How Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie got together
- Bowie Lends Vocals to Scarlett Johansson Album
- The Mail On Sunday, 29 June 2008 edition
- ''The Complete David Bowie'' by Nicholas Pegg (2004, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd) p.561.
- Batman Movie Online: Behind the Scenes
- Appearance in ''Il Mio West'', Italian film, 1998: IMDB.com website.
- ''Gunslinger's Revenge'', 2005 US release of ''Il Mio West'': review at the ''Reel Film'' website.
- Film review, ''August (2008)'', to be released: ComingSoon.net website. Retrieved on 24 January 2008.
- Previous work with Rip Torn, ''The Man Who Fell to Earth'': castlist from the IMDB.com website. Retrieved on 7 March 2008.
- Bowie, by Christopher Sandford
- Buckley (2000): pp. 92–93
- Buckley (2000): p. 401
- The Ziggy Stardust Companion
- Dear Superstar: David Bowie
- http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3805879,00.html
- Title Unavailable
- Donation to the Jena Six: article at the ''MonstersAndCritics.com'' website. Retrieved on 6 December 2007.
- Sixty things about David Bowie
References
- How to say: Bowie
- http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,662144,00.html
- David Bowie by Stephen Thomas Erlewine; URL accessed 21 March 2007
- Earthling.
- Review/Rock; For Bowie, One More Change of Pace
- Jesse Jarnow, "David Bowie," in Scott Schnider, ed., ''Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever'' (2008), "Openly bisexual and vociferously intellectual, David Bowie in the late 1970s was the very definition of charisma", Greenwood Publishing Group, pg. 482.
- Mark Paytress, ''Bolan: The Rise and Fall of a 20th Century Superstar'' (2002), "America responded favourably to Bowie's intellectual take on pop," Omnibus Press, pg. 218.
- David Bowie, Young Americans
- Carr & Murray (1981): pp.68-74
- David Bowie profile
- The Immortals: The First Fifty
- David Bowie Biography (1947-)
- bowiewonderworld
- http://www.teenagewildlife.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/torrie/fom.cgi?_recurse=1&file=9
- Buckley (2000): p.14
- Buckley (2000): p.27
- Alias David Bowie
- Buckley (2000): p.24
- David Bowie Album Covers
- Peter Doggett (2007). "Teenage Wildlife", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': pp.8-9
- Buckley (2000): p.33
- Carr & Murray (1981): p. 117
- Pegg (2004): pp. 197-201
- Buckley (2000): p.74
- The Three Tuns pub and the Beckenham Arts Lab: ''BowieWonderworld.com'' website. Retrieved on 22 September 2007.
- "Memory of a Free Festival", hosted by the Beckenham Arts Lab: ''BowieWonderworld.com'' website. Retrieved on 22 September 2007.
- Wolff, Carlo (2006). ''Cleveland Rock and Roll Memories''. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-886228-99-3
- David Bowie and Iggy Pop Meet At Max's Kansas City
- Buckley (2000): p.156
- Pegg (2004): pp. 281–83
- Buckley (2000): pp.182-189
- Carr & Murray (1981): pp.52-56
- Carr & Murray (1981): p.7
- Carr & Murray (1981): p.116
- Biography of David Bowie
- DVD, Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons, disc 1
- Buckley (2000): pp. 289–291.
- The Controversial Homecoming
- Carr & Murray (1981): p. 11.
- Kris Needs (2007). "The Passenger", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': p.65
- Pegg (2000): pp.90-92
- Bowie Golden Years: Marc
- In pictures: Marc Bolan
- DVD, Bing Crosby, ''A Bing Crosby Christmas'', Questar qd3175, ISBN 1-56855-683-7
- Bing and Bowie: An Odd Story of Holiday Harmony
- The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits
- Dave Thompson (2007). "Bowie and Bing", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': p.64
- Buckley (2000): p. 300
- Carr & Murray (1981): pp. 102–07
- Carr & Murray (1981): pp. 108–14
- Pegg (2000): p.29
- ''Rock Movers & Shakers'', Dafydd Rees & Luke Crampton, Billboard Books, 1991
- James McNair (2007). "Tumble & Twirl", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': p. 101
- Andy Fyfe (2007). "Too Dizzy", ''MOJO 60 Years of Bowie'': pp. 88–91
- Buckley (2000): pp. 494–95,623
- Buckley (2000): pp.623-624
- Buckley (2000): pp.512-513
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction
- Buckley (2000): pp. 533–34
- ''The Complete David Bowie'', Nicholas Pegg, 2006 Reynolds & Hearn Ltd
- Illustrated db Discography
- BBC News
- BBC News
- Forbes
- Pitchfork Media
- David Bowie — Station til station
- http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/16865/
- 2007 NYC Show As Bowie Curates first High Line Festival
- Rolling Stone: How Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie got together
- Bowie Lends Vocals to Scarlett Johansson Album
- The Mail On Sunday, 29 June 2008 edition
- ''The Complete David Bowie'' by Nicholas Pegg (2004, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd) p.561.
- Batman Movie Online: Behind the Scenes
- Appearance in ''Il Mio West'', Italian film, 1998: IMDB.com website.
- ''Gunslinger's Revenge'', 2005 US release of ''Il Mio West'': review at the ''Reel Film'' website.
- Film review, ''August (2008)'', to be released: ComingSoon.net website. Retrieved on 24 January 2008.
- Previous work with Rip Torn, ''The Man Who Fell to Earth'': castlist from the IMDB.com website. Retrieved on 7 March 2008.
- Bowie, by Christopher Sandford
- Buckley (2000): pp. 92–93
- Buckley (2000): p. 401
- The Ziggy Stardust Companion
- Dear Superstar: David Bowie
- http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3805879,00.html
- Title Unavailable
- Donation to the Jena Six: article at the ''MonstersAndCritics.com'' website. Retrieved on 6 December 2007.
- Sixty things about David Bowie