Bowie, David

David Bowie

Singer, songwriter

For the Record…

Compositions

Selected discography

Sources

After playing in obscure groups in England during the 1960s—like George and the Dragons and David Jones and the Lower Third—David Jones took the name David Bowie to avoid being confused with Davey Jones, the rising star of the television-based pop group, The Monkees. His first album to be released in the United States, David Bowie: Man of Words/Man of Music, included the 1969 single “Space Oddity,” which brought him a great deal of favorable attention on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus began the career that Bowie would pursue in many different personas, such as those of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, through many different types of music, from rock to danceable funk. As Jay Cocks put it in Time magazine, “Musically, … Bowie always seems to know what time it is.” In addition to being a rock trendsetter for two decades, Bowie has made successful appearances as an actor on Broadway and in films.

Born in 1947 in Brixton, a deprived section of London, England, Bowie had a difficult childhood. His parents did not marry until after his birth, his brother was eventually confined to a psychiatric hospital, and Bowie’s teenage fighting in his bad neighborhood led to the paralysis of his left eye, the pupil of which is permanently dilated. He has revealed in various interviews, however, that he noticed music from an early age, and that his parents provided him with the recordings of early American rock pioneers such as Fats Domino and Little Richard. Bowie also learned to play the guitar and the saxophone as a child.

But having varied talents and interests, Bowie was undecided as a young man as to which of the arts he wished to specialize in. He studied commercial art at Bromley Technical High School in London, and left before earning a degree in order to work at an advertising agency, but soon quit because he disliked the work he was doing. He also studied with the Lindsay Kemp Mime Troupe for two and a half years, painted, and acted in small stage roles. At one time Bowie even considered entering a Buddhist monastery.

Meanwhile, he continued playing in rock groups until meeting his future wife, Angela Barnet, who convinced a friend at Mercury Records to listen to Bowie’s music. He followed his successful David Bowie: Man of Words-Man of Music with The Man Who Sold the World, which featured him wearing a dress and makeup on the cover. While this garnered the artist controversial attention and foreshadowed the glitter rock personas soon to come from him, Bowie went back to what most reviewers referred to as his 1960s pop style, reminiscent of singers Bob Dylan and Anthony Newley, for his 1971 recording for RCA, Hunky Dory. The well-received album includes the hit single “Changes,” and

For the Record…

Born David Robert Hay ward Jones, January 8, 1947, in London, England; son of Hayward (a publicist) and Margaret Mary (a movie theater usher; maiden name, Burns) Jones; married Angela Barnet, 1970 (divorced, 1980); children: Joey (name originally Zowie).

Worked in advertising and with the Lindsay Kemp Mime Troupe prior to musical career; performed with various bands during the 1960s, including David Jones and the Buzz, David Jones and the Lower Third, The Kon-rads, and George and the Dragons; solo performer since late 1960s. Actor in motion pictures, 1976—, including “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” “Just a Gigolo,” “The Hunger,” “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” “Labyrinth,” and “Absolute Beginners”; also appeared in theatrical production of “The Elephant Man.”

Addresses: Home —Switzerland. Office –c/o 641 Fifth Ave., #22-Q, New York, NY 10022.

was described by John Mendelsohn in Rolling Stone as Bowie’s “most easily accessible, and thus his most enjoyable work.”

But Bowie did not really become a rock superstar until he released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars in 1972. On the album, and in related concert appearances, Bowie took on the persona of Ziggy Stardust, an androgynous, space-alien rock star dressed in an outrageous costume, whose music was filled with great power. Ziggy was a story album, and chronicled the Stardust persona’s adventures on earth, ending with his spiritual demise as portrayed in the final song, “Rock’n’Roll Suicide.” As Cocks explained, “When he first hit the stage as Ziggy, decked out in makeup, dye job and psychedelic costume, the rock world was ready. Too much karma, too much good vibes, too much hippy dippy: audiences wanted decadence with a difference. Bowie was there.”

The singer found himself heralded as the king of glitter rock, a movement in the early 1970s that saw rock performers dressing in gaudy and often sexually ambiguous outfits. At about the same time, despite being married to Angela Barnet and having a son, Bowie told an interviewer that he was bisexual. As the first rock star to come out into the open on this subject, he was the object of a great deal of controversy. Later Bowie told Kurt Loder in Rolling Stone: “The biggest mistake I ever made … was telling that… writer that I was bisexual. Christ, I was so young then. I was experimenting.”Bowie went from Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane, made up with a lightning bolt drawn across his face and a painted-on tear drop; to the Thin White Duke, who slicked his hair back and wore white suits. In this last persona he recorded the 1975 Young Americans album, which included his hit duet with the late ex-Beatle John Lennon, “Fame.” As disco music was peaking in popularity, in “Fame” Bowie turned to a funk beat. But he told a Playboy interviewer: “’Fame’ was an incredible bluff that worked,” because “my rhythm and blues are thoroughly plastic.”

During the mid-1970s Bowie staggered under the weight of drug abuse problems. He confided to Loder that he sustained “incredible losses of memory. Whole chunks of my life. I can’t remember, for instance, any—any —of 1975.” He eventually went to Berlin to recover. While he fought to overcome the excesses of his former lifestyle, he still put out albums, including Heroes, Lodger, and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). Bowie’s music from this period is noted for its emphasis on electronic sounds.

In 1980 he divorced Angela, retaining custody of his son, named Zowie in Bowie’s glitter days but now called Joey. After signing a deal for five albums with EMI America, Bowie produced 1983’s Let’s Dance. The single of the same name, a danceable tune with a heavy, booming beat, became his biggest seller ever. As he told Loder, Bowie had changed his outlook on life and was now interested in producing positive music. He also broke into the field of music videos, and saw them as a chance to expose people to social issues—hence the video for “Let’s Dance” protests the treatment of Australia’s aboriginal people. Bowie explained to Loder: “I know this is very cliche, but I feel that now that I’m thirty-six years old, and I’ve got a certain position, I want to start utilizing that position to the benefit of my … brotherhood and sisterhood…. I think you can’t keep on being an artist without actually saying anything more than … ‘this is an interesting way of looking at things.’”

In 1976, Bowie made his film debut in “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” the story of a man who comes to Earth in a spaceship looking for water to take back to his own planet, which suffers from drought. He received high praise for his acting ability; Richard Eder in the New York Times lauded Bowie’s performance as “extraordinary.” In 1983 Bowie had a highly praised supporting role as a British prisoner in a Japanese war camp in the film, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. The film’s director, Nagisa Oshima, according to Loder, picked Bowie after seeing him perform on Broadway in “The Elephant Man” because he projected “an inner spirit that is indestructible.” Bowie’s other films include “Just a Gigolo,” “The Hunger,” “Labyrinth,” and the musical “Absolute Beginners.”

As of 1987, Bowie still professed a desire to make positive music, but told Loder in another Rolling Stone interview that his album, Never Let Me Down, “sounds so much more … as though the continuity hasn’t been broken from Scary Monsters. It’s almost as though Let’s Dance [was] in the way there.” He also expressed interest in making his own films, and claimed that he and fellow rock superstar friend Mick Jagger were attempting to write a screenplay.

Compositions

Composer of numerous songs, including “All the Young Dudes,” “Changes,” “Fame,” “Golden Years,” “Move On,” “Space Oddity,” “Starman,” “Stay,” “Suffragette City,” “TVC 15,” and “Young Americans.”

Selected discography

David Bowie: Man of Words/Man of Music (includes “Space Oddity”), Mercury, 1969, later reissued as Space Oddity, RCA, 1984.

The Man Who Sold the World (includes “She Shook Me Cold” and “Savior Machine”), Mercury, 1971.

Hunky Dory RCA, 1971.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (includes “Ziggy Stardust,” “Starman,” “Moonage Daydream,” “Five Years,” and “Rock’n’Roll Suicide”), RCA, 1972.

Aladdin Sane, RCA, 1973.

Pin Ups, RCA, 1973.

Diamond Dogs, RCA, 1974.

Young Americans RCA, 1975.

Low, RCA, 1977.

Heroes, RCA, 1977.

Lodger, RCA, 1979.

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), RCA, 1980.

Let’s Dance (includes “Let’s Dance” and “China Girl”), EMI America, 1983.

Tonight, EMI America, 1984.

Never Let Me Down, EMI America, 1977.

Sources

Books

Cann, Kevin, David Bowie: A Chronology, Simon & Schuster, 1984.

Edwards, Henry, and Tony Zanetta, Stardust: The David Bowie Story, McGraw-Hill, 1986.

Tremelett, George, The David Bowie Story, Warner Books, 1975.

Periodicals

Newsweek, July 18, 1983.

New York Times, May 20, 1976.

Playboy, September, 1976.

Rolling Stone, January 6, 1972; October 4, 1979; May 12, 1983; October 25, 1984; April 23, 1987.

Time, July 18, 1983.

—Elizabeth Thomas