David Bowie

David Bowie was an English rock star known for dramatic musical transformations,
including his character Ziggy Stardust. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 1996.

Who Was David Bowie?

Rock star David Bowie's first hit was the song "Space Oddity" in 1969. The original pop
chameleon, Bowie became a fantastical sci-fi character for his breakout Ziggy
Stardust album. He later co-wrote "Fame" with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon, which
became his first American No. 1 single in 1975. An accomplished actor, Bowie starred
in The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 1996. Shortly after releasing his final album, Bowie died from cancer on January
10, 2016. 

Early Years
Known as a musical chameleon for his ever-changing appearance and sound, David Bowie
was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, South London, England, on January 8, 1947.

Bowie showed an interest in music from an early age and began playing the saxophone at
age 13. He was greatly influenced by his half-brother Terry, who was nine years older and
exposed the young Bowie to the worlds of rock music and beat literature.
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But Terry had his demons, and his mental illness, which forced the family to commit him to
an institution, haunted Bowie for a good deal of his life. Terry committed suicide in 1985, a
tragedy that became the focal point of Bowie's later song, "Jump They Say."

After graduating from Bromley Technical High School at 16, Bowie started working as a
commercial artist. He also continued to play music, hooking up with a number of bands and
leading a group himself called Davy Jones and the Lower Third. Several singles came out
of this period, but nothing that gave the young performer the kind of commercial traction he
needed.

Out of fear of being confused with Davy Jones of The Monkees, David changed his last
name to Bowie, a name that was inspired by the knife developed by the 19th-century
American pioneer Jim Bowie.

Eventually, Bowie went out on his own. But after recording an unsuccessful solo album,
Bowie exited the music world for a temporary period. Like so much of his later life, these
few years proved to be incredibly experimental for the young artist. For several weeks in
1967 he lived at a Buddhist monastery in Scotland. Bowie later started his own mime
troupe called Feathers.

Around this time he also met the American-born Angela Barnett. The two married on
March 20, 1970, and had one son together, whom they nicknamed "Zowie," in 1971, before
divorcing in 1980. He is now known by his birth name, Duncan Jones.

Pop Star
By early 1969, Bowie had returned full time to music. He signed a deal with Mercury
Records and that summer released the single "Space Oddity." Bowie later said the song
came to him after seeing Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: "I went stoned out of
my mind to see the movie and it really freaked me out, especially the trip passage."

The song quickly resonated with the public, sparked in large part by the BBC's use of the
single during its coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The song enjoyed later success
after being released in the United States in 1972, climbing to number 15 on the charts.

Bowie's next album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970), further catapulted him to
stardom. The record offered up a heavier rock sound than anything Bowie had done before
and included the song "All the Madmen," about his institutionalized brother, Terry. His
next work, 1971's Hunky Dory, featured two hits: the title track that was a tribute to Andy
Warhol, the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan; and "Changes," which came to embody
Bowie himself.

Meet Ziggy Stardust

As Bowie's celebrity profile increased, so did his desire to keep fans and critics guessing.
He claimed he was gay and then introduced the pop world to Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's
imagining of a doomed rock star, and his backing group, The Spiders from Mars.

His 1972 album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, made him
a superstar. Dressed in wild costumes that spoke of some kind of wild future, Bowie,
portraying Stardust himself, signaled a new age in rock music, one that seemed to officially
announce the end of the 1960s and the Woodstock era.

More Changes
But just as quickly as Bowie transformed himself into Stardust, he changed again. He
leveraged his celebrity and produced albums for Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. In 1973, he
disbanded the Spiders and shelved his Stardust persona. Bowie continued on in a similar
glam rock style with the album Aladdin Sane (1973), which featured "The Jean Genie" and
"Let's Spend the Night Together," his collaboration with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Around this time he showed his affection for his early days in the English mod scene and
released Pin Ups, an album filled with cover songs originally recorded by a host of popular
bands, including Pretty Things and Pink Floyd.

By the mid 1970s, Bowie had undergone a full-scale makeover. Gone were the outrageous
costumes and garish sets. In two short years, he released the albums David Live (1974)
and Young Americans (1975). The latter album featured backing vocals by a young Luther
Vandross and included the song "Fame," co-written with John Lennon and Carlos Alomar,
which became Bowie’s first American number one single.

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In 1980, Bowie, now living in New York, released Scary Monsters, a much-lauded album
that featured the single "Ashes to Ashes," a sort of updated version of his earlier "Space
Oddity."

Three years later Bowie recorded Let's Dance (1983), an album that contained a bevy of
hits such as the title track, "Modern Love" and "China Girl," and featured the guitar work
of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Of course, Bowie's interests didn't just reside with music. His love of film helped land him
the title role in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). In 1980, Bowie starred on Broadway
in The Elephant Man, and was critically acclaimed for his performance. In 1986, he starred
as Jareth, the Goblin King, in the fantasy-adventure film Labyrinth, directed by Jim
Henson and produced by George Lucas.  Bowie performed opposite teenage Jennifer
Connolly and a cast of puppets in the movie, which became a 1980s cult classic. 

Over the next decade, Bowie bounced back and forth between acting and music, with the
latter especially suffering. Outside of a couple of modest hits, Bowie's musical career
languished. His side project with musicians Reeve Gabrels and Tony and Hunt Sales,
known as Tin Machine, released two albums, Tin Machine (1989) and Tin Machine
II (1991), which both proved to be flops. His much-hyped album Black Tie White
Noise (1993), which Bowie described as a wedding gift to his new wife, supermodel Iman,
also struggled to resonate with record buyers.

Oddly enough, the most popular Bowie creation of that period was Bowie Bonds, financial
securities the artist himself backed with royalties from his pre-1990 work. Bowie issued the
bonds in 1997 and earned $55 million from the sale. The rights to his back catalog were
returned to him when the bonds matured in 2007.

Later Years
In 2004, Bowie received a major health scare when he suffered a heart attack while on
stage in Germany. He made a full recovery and went on to work with bands such as Arcade
Fire and with the actress Scarlett Johansson on her album Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008),
a collection of Tom Waits covers.

Bowie, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, was a 2006
recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He kept a low profile for several
years until the release of his 2013 album The Next Day, which skyrocketed to number 2 on
the Billboard charts. The following year, Bowie released a greatest hits collection, Nothing
Has Changed, which featured the new song "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)." In 2015, he
collaborated on Lazarus, an Off-Broadway rock musical starring Michael C. Hall, which
revisited his character from The Man Who Fell to Earth. 

Bowie released Blackstar, his final album, on January 8, 2016, his 69th birthday. New York
Times critic Jon Pareles noted that it was a "strange, daring and ultimately rewarding" work
"with a mood darkened by bitter awareness of mortality." Only a few days later, the world
would learn that the record had been made under difficult circumstances. 

Death and Legacy

The music icon died on January 10, 2016, two days after his 69th birthday. A post on his
Facebook page read: “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a
courageous 18 month battle with cancer."

He was survived by his wife Iman, his son Duncan Jones and daughter Alexandria, and his
step-daughter Zulekha Haywood. Bowie also left behind an impressive musical legacy,
which included 26 albums. His producer and friend Tony Visconti wrote on Facebook that
his last record, Blackstar, was "his parting gift."

Friends and fans were heartbroken at his passing. Iggy Pop wrote on Twitter that "David's
friendship was the light of my life. I never met such a brilliant person." The Rolling Stones
remembered him on Twitter as "a wonderful and kind man" and "a true original." And even
those who didn't know personally felt the impact of his work. Kanye West tweeted, "David
Bowie was one of my most important inspirations." Madonna posted "This great Artist
changed my life!" 

In February 2017, Bowie was recognized for the success of his final album, as he was
named the winner in the Best Alternative Rock Album, Best Engineered Album (Non-
Classical), Best Recording Package, Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song
categories at the Grammy Awards.

In late 2017, HBO unveiled a trailer for the documentary David Bowie: The Last Five
Years, which explores the period in which the artist released his final two albums and
brought his stage musical to life. Airing January 8, 2018, on what would have been his 71st
birthday, the documentary features never-before-seen footage of Bowie and conversations
with the musicians, producers and music video directors who worked with him on his final
tour.

In the spring of 2018, Spotify's "David Bowie Subway Takeover" was unveiled in New
York City's interconnected Broadway-Lafayette and Bleecker Street stations. An extension
of the "David Bowie Is" exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, the subway displays included
splashy photos, fan artwork and quotes from the musician, with each major piece
containing a Spotify code for audio accompaniment.

That summer, it was announced that the earliest known studio recording of Bowie, from
1963, would go on sale at auction. Then still known by his birth name of David Jones and a
member of a band called The Konrads, Bowie sang lead vocals on a song titled "I Never
Dreamed" as part of an audition for Decca Records. The demo, never released, was
discovered in the house of the group's former drummer and manager.