Bowie, David
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David Bowie David Bowie
David Bowie during the tour in support of the album Heathen (2002).
Basic information
Full name
David Robert Jones
Date of birth
January 8, 1947(1947-01-08)
Place of birth
Brixton, Lambeth, London, England
Date of death
January 10, 2016(2016-01-10) (69 years old)
Place of death
Manhattan, New York, New York, United States of America
Years of activity
1964 — 2016
A country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
Professions
vocalist composer artist actor producer songwriter
Singing voice
Baritone [1]
Tools
guitar saxophone keyboards
Genres
art rock glam rock experimental rock pop rock psychedelic pop alternative rock soul new wave ambient electronic music avant garde jazz
Aliases
David Bowie
Teams
Tin Machine The Spiders from Mars
Cooperation
Tony Visconti Mick Jagger Mick Ronson Iggy Pop Lou Reed John Lennon Carlos Alomar Elvis Presley Brian Eno Queen Tina Turner Reeves Gabrels Pet Shop Boys Trent Reznor Placebo
Labels
RCA (1972—1985) EMI Virgin Records ISO Columbia Records
Awards
davidbowie.com
Audio, photo, video on Wikimedia Commons
David Bowie [boboʊ. i][2] (real name David Robert Jones;
January 8, 1947, Brixton, Lambeth, London, England[3] - January 10, 2016, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States of America[4]) was a British rock singer and songwriter, as well as a producer, sound engineer, artist and actor.
For fifty years he has been engaged in musical creativity and often changed his image, so he is called the "chameleon of rock music".
At the same time, Bowie managed to maintain his own recognizable style, successfully combining it with current musical trends.
Bowie is considered an innovator, in particular, thanks to his works of the 1970s.
He influenced many musicians[5], was known for his characteristic voice[6] and the intellectual depth of the works he created[7][8].
Having released the David Bowie album and several singles in the first years of his activity, David Bowie nevertheless became known to the general public only in the autumn of 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five in the British hit parade.
After three years of experimentation, he reappeared in public in 1972 during the heyday of glam rock, creating a bright androgynous image of a character named Ziggy Stardust.
His hit single "Starman" from the famous album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars entered the top ten of the UK charts.
During the relatively short period of using the image of Ziggy Stardust, Bowie often used musical innovations and unusual visual productions.
In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major success in America with the number one single "Fame", co written with John Lennon, and the hit album Young Americans, whose style the singer described as" plastic soul".
The sound of the album represents a radical shift in Bowie's musical style, which initially alienated many British fans of the singer[9].
Then he met the expectations of his label and American fans by releasing the minimalist album Low (1977) — the first of three discs of the so called "Berlin Bowie Trilogy", recorded together with Brian Eno over the next two years.
All three albums entered the top five of the UK charts and for a long time received extremely positive reviews from critics.
After an unstable commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie reappeared at number one in the UK charts in 1980 with the single "Ashes to Ashes" and the album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).
In 1981, he and the band Queen recorded "Under Pressure" — another single that reached the top of the UK chart.
Bowie's new peak of commercial success came in 1983, when the album Let's Dance was released, which included such hits as" Let's Dance"," China Girl "and"Modern Love".
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continues to experiment with musical genres, including playing in the styles of white soul, industrial, AOR and jungle.
His latest studio album was Blackstar, released on January 8, 2016.
In 2000, the weekly New Musical Express conducted a survey among musicians of various styles and trends.
There was only one question: "Which musician had the greatest influence on your own creativity?"
According to the results of the survey, David Bowie was recognized as the most influential musician of the century[10].
Bowie has achieved recognition, including as a film actor; among his most famous roles are the alien Thomas Jerome Newton in " The Man Who Fell to Earth "(awarded the American Saturn Film Award), the vampire John in" Hunger", the goblin king Jareth (English)Russian.
in the "Labyrinth".
In 2002, Bowie was ranked 29th in the BBC's "100 Greatest Britons" poll.
Throughout his career, he has sold more than 136 million records, thereby becoming one of the ten most successful artists in the history of popular music in the UK.
Six of his albums are included in the list of "the 500 greatest albums of all time" according to Rolling Stone magazine (the first three of them were released in a row in the period from 1972 to 1973, the remaining three - in 1976-1977).
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him on the 39th place in the list of "100 greatest rock music artists of all time"[11] and on the 23rd place in the list of"100 greatest vocalists of all time" [12].
On January 8, 2016, Bowie turned 69 years old[13], but two days later the musician died from liver cancer, which he had been fighting for the past year and a half[14][15].
The singer died in the circle of his family.
Content
1 Biography
1.1 1947-1962: early years
1.2 1962-1968: from Kon rads to Riot Squad
1.3 1969-1973: from psychedelic Folk to glam rock
1.3.1 «Space Oddity»
1.3.2 The Image of Ziggy Stardust
1.4 1974-1976: soul, R&B and the image of a Haggard White Duke
1.5 1976-1979: the Berlin Era
1.6 1980-1989: from superstar to megastar
1.7 1989—1991: Tin Machine
1.8 1992-1999: electronics and the image of Nathan Adler
1.9 1999-2012: Neoclassicist Bowie
1.10 2012-2016: recent years
1.11 Death
2 Career in cinema
3 Family and personal life
3.1 Sexual orientation
4 Musical roots
5 Legacy
6 David Bowie in Russia
7 Public activities
8 Public opinion
9 Bowie's music in the movies
10 Awards and nominations
11 Discography
12 Notes
13 Literature
14 Links
Biography
1947-1962: early years
David Bowie with acoustic guitar, during the first leg of the Ziggy Stardust Tour
David Bowie (birth name — David Robert Jones) was born in the London borough of Brixton.
His parents married in September 1947, shortly after his birth. [16][17]
David's mother, Margaret Mary Peggy (née Barnes), has Irish roots[18].
She worked as an usher in a movie theater, and his father, Hayward Stanton John Jones — worked in the human resources department of the Barnardo's charitable foundation[19].
The family lived on Stansfield Road, located between the southern districts of London — Brixton and Stockwell.
One of the neighbors recalled: "It is impossible to imagine a worse place and time for childhood than London in the 1940s."
Until Bowie was six years old, he attended Stockwell Preparatory School, where he gained a reputation as a gifted and purposeful child, as well as a naughty brawler[20][21].
In 1953, the Bowie family moved to the nearby suburb of Bromley.
There, David entered the Burnt Ash Junior School, located on Rangefield Road (now this school is known as Burnt Ash Primary School).
In 1957-1958, he was on the school's football team.
David's vocal abilities in the school choir were rated as "satisfactory", his flute playing is better than average[22].
At the age of nine, he began attending the newly opened music and choreography classes, where he showed amazing creative abilities: teachers called his interpretations "vividly artistic", and his coordination "amazing" for a child[22].
In the same year, his interest in music received an additional incentive.
My father brought home a collection of American records by Frankie Limon and The Teenagers, The Platters, Fats Domino and Little Richard[23].
Bowie would later say of "Tutti Frutti": "I heard God"[24].
He was very impressed by Elvis Presley: "I saw my cousin dancing to...
"Hound Dog".
I had never seen anything before that made her stand up and shook her so much.
The power of this music made a really unforgettable impression on me.
I started buying records right after this incident"[25].
By the end of the following year, Bowie had acquired a ukulele and a homemade bass and began participating in skiffle sessions with friends.
At the same time, David became interested in playing the piano.
His stage performances were in the style of Presley and Chuck Berry, whom he revered.
Members of the local scout movement Wolf Cub describe them as " fascinating... like something from another planet."
Meanwhile, Bowie failed the national final exam, after which he went to study at Bromley Technical High School, now known as Ravenswood School For Boys.
26].
Bowie's biographer Christopher Sandford describes this unusual technical school as follows:
Despite its status, by the time David came to study (1958), the institution was rich in secret rituals, like any [English] public school.
There were faculties named after the statesmen of the eighteenth century — Pitt and Wilberforce.
Special attention was paid to languages, sciences and design.
The university atmosphere under Owen Frampton's tutelage was amazing.
According to David's memoirs, Frampton had a great influence at school due to the strength of his character, not his intellect.
His college colleagues had neither.
They willingly sent their most gifted students to the field of art, where the mores were very liberal.
Frampton actively encouraged his own son Peter to pursue a musical career with David.
However, the initial collaboration between David Bowie and Peter Frampton was very short.
Their full fledged joint activity began only thirty years later (during the Glass Spider Tour)[26].
The original text (English)
Despite its status it was, by the time David arrived in 1958, as rich in arcane ritual as any [English] public school.
There were houses, named after eighteenth century statesmen like Pitt and Wilberforce.
There was a uniform, and an elaborate system of rewards and punishments.
There was also an accent on languages, science and particularly design, where a collegiate atmosphere flourished under the tutorship of Owen Frampton.
In David's account, Frampton led through force of personality, not intellect; his colleagues at Bromley Tech were famous for neither, and yielded the school's most gifted pupils to the arts, a regime so liberal that Frampton actively encouraged his own son, Peter, to pursue a musical career with David, a partnership briefly intact thirty years later.
The Bowie Knife, by which David Bowie took his pseudonym
Bowie studied art, music and design, including typographic layout and printing.
His brother Terry introduced David to modern jazz, under his influence Bowie became interested in such musicians as Charles Mingus and John Coltrane.
At the age of 8-9, David first heard Little Richard, and he lit up with the dream of becoming a saxophonist.
This prompted him to buy his first saxophone — "selmer" - made of pink plastic.
For the sake of such a purchase, David had to carry orders for the butcher shop.
And in 1961, his mother gave him a white plastic alto saxophone for Christmas; soon he began taking lessons from local musicians 28].
At the age of 15, Bowie and his friend George Underwood had a fight over a girl: Underwood, who was wearing a ring on his finger, hit Bowie in the left eye, which caused the latter to leave school for four months so that doctors, who feared that he would lose his sight, could perform a number of operations and prevent blindness[29][30].
While David was in the hospital, his brother Terry brought him books, thereby introducing him to Kerouac and Orwell.
Doctors were unable to fully restore his vision, as a result of the injury, Bowie had a defective perception of the depth of the visual field.
Bowie stated that although he can see with his injured eye, the perception of color is lost (a brown background is constantly present).
The pupil of the injured eye became mydriatic, which gave the impression of a different eye color in David[30].
Despite the fight, Underwood and Bowie remained good friends, Underwood created illustrations for Bowie's early albums.
31].
As a child, Bowie learned to play the saxophone and guitar; later he became a multi instrumentalist (electric guitar, twelve string guitar, keyboards, piano, harpsichord, harmonica, synthesizer, mellotron, stylophone, xylophone, vibraphone, koto, drums and percussion)[32][33].
David Bowie is left handed, but he plays guitar like a right handed person.
1962-1968: from Kon rads to Riot Squad
David Bowie on glam rock
The fact is that this movement itself lasted only 18 months.
From beginning to end.
Then we all moved on — Roxy Music and me.
Of course, there were those who jumped into the last car, all sorts of Gary Glitter and others like them.
After all, they were terrible.
We didnot like them.
We were big snobs in this regard.
There were three of us: T. Rex, Roxy and me.
All.
That's the whole school of glam rock.
It's not even a movement.
[34].
Interview with Filter magazine (No. 6 / 2003 )
Moving from a plastic saxophone to real instruments in 1962, Bowie at the age of 15 organized his first band, The Kon rads, which played rock and roll with a guitar base at local parties and weddings.
The line up consisted of four to eight participants, and Underwood was among them.
A year later, he left Bromley Technical High School and informed his parents of his intention to become a pop star.
The mother quickly found her son a job as an electrician's assistant.
Disappointed with the limited ambitions of his bandmates, David left The Kon rads and moved to another team — The King Bees, after which he wrote a letter to the newly made millionaire John Bloom, who made a fortune selling washing machines, suggesting that he "do for us what Brian Epstein did for the Beatles, and ... earn another million."
Bloom did not respond to the offer, but passed it on to Leslie Conn, the partner of Dick James. (who published Beatles songs with Epstein)
, which led to the conclusion of David Bowie's first contract with the manager.
36].
In the early 1960s, Bowie performed under his own name or under the pseudonym "Davy Jones", which had two spellings — Davy and Davie, which created confusion with Davy Jones from The Monkees.
To avoid this, in 1966 he took the pseudonym Bowie in honor of the hero of the Texas Revolution: being a big fan of Mick Jagger, he learned that "jagger" means "knife" in Old English, so David took a similar pseudonym (Bowie knife is a type of hunting knives named after Jim Bowie)[37].
The birthday of "David Bowie" is considered to be January 14, 1966.
It was on this day that he first appears under this name with the band The Lower Third on the cover of the album "Canot Help Thinking About Me".
Conn quickly began promoting Bowie.
The singer's debut single "Liza Jane" was released under the title Davie Jones and the King Bees and was not a commercial success.
Dissatisfied with The King Bees and their repertoire based on compositions by Howlin ' Wolf and Willie Dixon, Bowie left the band less than a month later to join the Manish Boys, another blues band that performed folk and soul compositions.
"I dreamed of being their Mick Jagger," the musician recalled.
36].
The next single "I Pity the Fool" was released by the record company Parlophone.
The Manish Boys and Davy Jones were listed as performers.
The song was no more successful than "Liza Jane".
Soon Bowie changed the band again, becoming part of the blues trio Lower Third, who were under the strong musical influence of The Who.
Their recorded "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" sold no better than Bowie's previous singles (it was released under the title David Bowie (and The Lower Third), on Pye Records), marking the end of the contract with Conn.
Having stated that he was leaving show business "to study pantomime at Sadler's Wells Theater," Bowie nevertheless remained in the Lower Third.
His new manager Ralph Horton, who later played an important role in the musician's transition to solo work, soon witnessed Bowie's transition to another band, Buzz, with which he released his fifth unsuccessful single "Do Anything You Say".
While with Buzz, he also joined the band Riot Squad; the recordings they created, which included a Bowie composition and material from The Velvet Underground, were not released.
Ken Pitt, who was brought in by Horton, took over as Bowie's manager.
At the beginning of his career, he went through the blues and "Elvis style music", working with many British pop styles.
Bowie released his first album in 1967 on the Deram Records label, simply calling it David Bowie.
It was a mix of pop music, psychedelia and music hall.
Around the same time, he released a new single "The Laughing Gnome", in which he used accelerated vocals of the Chipmunk style.
(the effect of "chipmunk vocals").
None of these releases managed to hit the charts, after which Bowie did not record for two years.
His material from the Deram Records label, from the album and various singles will subsequently be released on numerous compilations.
Bowie's fascination with everything unusual was stimulated by a man named Lindsay Kemp, a dancer and mime, whom the young musician met: "He lived on his emotions and had the most wonderful influence.
His daily life was the most theatrical performance that I have ever seen.
For me, he was the living embodiment of bohemian life.
I joined the circus" 39].
Kemp, in turn, recalled: "In fact, I did not teach him to be a mime artist, but rather to be himself beyond the ordinary…
I helped him to free the angel and the demon that make up his essence"[39].
Studying dramatic arts under Kemp's guidance — from the theatrical avant — garde to pantomime and commedia dell'arte Bowie immersed himself in creating characters, images and characters presented to the world later.
In 1967, Bowie sold his first songs to another musician named Oscar (an early version of the pseudonym of actor and musician Paul Nichols).
Bowie wrote the Oscar winning third single "Over The Wall We Go", which made fun of life in a British prison[40].
Another Bowie composition, "Silly Boy Blue", was released by Billy Fury the following year[41].
After Kemp brought Bowie together with Hermione Farthingale to compose a poetic minuet, the couple began dating and soon began living together in an apartment in London.
Hermione, who played acoustic guitar, formed a band with Bowie and bassist John Hutchinson, between September 1968 and early 1969, when Bowie and Farthingale broke up, the trio gave several concerts, the style of which combined folk, beat, poetry and pantomime.
At the end of 1968, another manager of Bowie, Kenneth Pitt, produced a half hour promo film called "Love You till Tuesday" with the participation of Bowie, who performed several songs, but it remained unreleased until 1984.
As Bowie himself admitted later, he " wanted to become famous, but did not know how to do it, and throughout the 1960s he tried everything he could in theater, fine arts and music."
Undoubtedly, the creative style of Bowie of that period was influenced by Syd Barrett, the frontman of Pink Floyd, who left the band at that time due to drug problems.
"Probably, Syd Barrett instilled this idea in David (innovation in rock music), who not only picked up the musical current, but understood what happened to Sid, why he left Pink Floyd, how he slowly went crazy and went into the background; undoubtedly, Sid was very inspiring to him," Tony Visconti said.
"There was something out of this world about Sid, and this attracted me very much.
He looked like Peter Pan, " the musician himself said.
David Bowie made innovation an art form[43].
1969-1973: from psychedelic folk to glam rock
«Space Oddity»
David Bowie on human morality
It is very difficult to be a destroyer of morality in a world where there is no morality left[44].
Interview with Esquire magazine
For the first time, fame smiled on David in 1969 — with the release of his single "Space Oddity" ("A strange case in space"), written a year earlier, but recorded and released simultaneously with the first landing of astronauts on the Moon[45].
The ballad, which puns on the title of Stanley Kubrick's cult science fiction film "A Space Odyssey of 2001" (English 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968; odyssey a journey, oddity strangeness) and tells the story of Major Tom an astronaut "lost in space" - was seen, as in Kubrick's film, an allegory of a drug trip[46].
The single hit the top five hits in the UK.
Bowie added the finishing touches to the song while living with Mary Finnigan as her lodger.
At the same time, Finnigan, Bowie, Kristina Ostrom and Barry Jackson headed the Folk Club art project, which organized Sunday performances in the Three Barrels pub on Beckenham High Street in South London[47].
The initiative quickly gained popularity: in August 1969, the project, which by this time had changed its name to the Beckenham Arts Lab, organized a free music festival in a local park (later immortalized by Bowie in his song "Memory of a Free Festival"[48]).
In 1969-1970, "Space Oddity" was used in BBC reports about the Apollo 11 crew landing on the Moon and the Apollo 13 flight, as well as in a television advertisement for a stylophone in which Bowie played this instrument[49].
The eponymous longplay was released in November 1969 and was originally titled David Bowie, which caused some confusion, since Bowie's first album was already sold under this name in the UK.
In the United States, the album was originally released under the name Man of Words, Man of Music — in order to eliminate this confusion[50].
In 1972, the album was re released by RCA Records as Space Oddity; this name has been preserved to this day[51].
The image of Ziggy Stardust
Bowie as Ziggy Stardust (left) and Mick Ronson (right)
In 1970, Bowie released his third album, The Man Who Sold the World; the acoustic sound of the previous albums was replaced by heavy rock, with the support of Mick Ronson, who was his main partner until 1973.
52].
Most of the album is reminiscent of British heavy metal of that period, but the album had some unusual musical moves, such as the use of Latin American sounds and rhythms in the title song.
Critics were outraged by the cover of the music disc, on which Bowie is depicted dressed in a woman's dress; this early example of the use of androgyny, as well as the weighting of the sound, later gave rise to some music critics to consider this particular work of Bowie "the beginning of the era of glam rock".
In the US, the album was originally released with a hand drawn cover, on which Bowie himself was not present 55].
The singer's next album, Hunky Dory, released in 1971, referred to the period of "unearthly" Bowie during the "Space Oddity", except in the funny composition "Kooks", addressed to Zoe's son, born on May 30 of the same year[56].
The rest of the album explored more serious themes, in songs such as " Oh!
You Pretty Things" (originally the song was released as a single performed by Peter Noone (English)Russian. from the band Herman's Hermits, in which Bowie played piano, the song reached number twelve in the UK charts), the semi autobiographical "Bewlay Brothers" and "Quicksand", written under the influence of Buddhism.
In the lyrics, the young songwriter / composer also paid tribute to his idols in the songs "Song for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol" and "Queen Bitch", which Bowie somewhat mysteriously notes on the CD cover, indicating as a stylization of The Velvet Underground.
Like the single "Changes", the Hunky Dory album was not a huge success, but it laid the foundations for the transition made in eighteen months in 1972-1973, which will soon lead Bowie to the first ranks of stars and bring him four albums and eight singles that hit the top ten of the UK charts.
In 1971, Bowie went to New York and met a group that suggested a new direction in his creative development.
"The Velvet Underground band became very important for me, I felt an unusual expression in it, unlike others, Underground, in my opinion, had the most amazing sound, a mixture of rock and avant garde in a kind of tough combination," the singer said.
Following the example of The Velvet Underground, Bowie immediately created a rock band in the new decade, unlike the others, which he called Hype.
In addition to Bowie, the line up included Johnson and Woodmansey on guitar and drums, respectively, as well as Tony Visconti on bass.
According to biographer Nicholas Pegg (English)Russian. (author of the book "Complete David Bowie")
, " Hype was more rock oriented than what he did before.
Both the songs and the performance itself (the show) were clearly influenced by the band The Velvet Underground.
Especially one of the songs of the band — "Waiting for the Man"".
43].
But even a number in the spirit of Velvet did not save Bowie and his band that evening.
"We played a concert at the Roundhouse, in London, and decided: we need to somehow stand out — let's not be on stage in ordinary shirts, jeans, with long hair, as everyone does," Visconti recalled.
All participants put on innovative, shocking costumes.
"They didnot even shush us, it was the most unfortunate evening in our lives, because we were proud of ourselves, and no one even looked at the stage, so it was all for nothing.
But as far as I remember, it was a wonderful show, the theater started for me (laughs), " Bowie continued.
"I think it was a significant evening for David, according to my theory, that's when it all started, Hype definitely became the predecessor of The Spiders from Mars," Tony Visconti noted[43].
Bowie continued to further explore his androgynous image on the concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which was released in June 1972.
Thanks to this work, according to biographer David Buckley, the musician "challenged the basic canons of rock music of those days" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture"[57].
The main theme of the record is the approaching armageddon, the album is made up of thoughtful compositions about a humanoid cosmic rock messiah destroyed by the fanaticism of his adherents.
David Bowie insists on journalists not to call him a past pseudonym, constantly reminding them that he is Ziggy Stardust.
The sound of the album combined elements of hard rock from the album The Man Who Sold the World with melodic experimental rock from Hunky Dory and fast developing glam rock, led by Marc Bolan and the band T. Rex.
Many songs from the album became rock classics, including "Ziggy Stardust", "Moonage Daydream", "Rock & Roll Suicide", "Starman" and "Suffragette City".
On February 10, 1972, the first British Bowie concert in the role of Ziggy Stardust took place at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth.
The performance made a splash and was the very impulse that catapulted the singer to fame.
On the wave of success, David made a large scale tour of the UK.
Over the next six months, he created, as David Buckley wrote, a "Bowie cult" that was "unique — his influence lasted longer and was more creative than perhaps any other force in pop fandom"[58].
During the tour, he performed in creative outfits designed by Kansai Yamamoto (English)Russian, with his famous fiery red mallet.
During the tour, Bowie was accompanied by a group of three musicians called The Spiders from Mars: Mick Ronson (guitar), Trevor Bolder (bass) and Woody Woodmansey (drums).
This was the first tour in which Bowie visited the United States, his first performance took place on September 22, 1972 at the Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio (which houses the famous Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)[59].
The album reached number five in the UK chart, and the single "Starman" rose to the tenth position of the chart.
The success of these releases made Bowie a star, and soon the album Hunky Dory, released six months earlier, surpassed the result of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, hitting the top three of the UK charts.
At the same time, the non album single "John, I'm Only Dancing" (not released in the US until 1979) reached number twelve in the UK, and the single "All The Young Dudes", which he wrote and produced for the band Mott the Hoople, reached number three in the UK (for the group becoming the most popular single in its history and the only one to hit the American top 40).
At first, Bowie offered the Mott the Hoople members the song "Suffragette City", but the band did not like it.
Then he composed a new song in a short time.
According to eyewitnesses, he simply sat cross legged on the floor opposite the lead singer of the band and began writing a song.
This song became the anthem of glam rock.
At the same time, David Bowie believes that it is interpreted incorrectly.
In fact, this is a dark apocalyptic song.
The "news" that the singer calls to tell is the same news that is meant in the song "Five Years" from the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars: humanity has only five years left to live.
"This is not a youth anthem, as people think, but exactly the opposite," Bowie said.
The song was performed by several dozen musicians, including such famous ones as Bruce Dickinson, Ozzy Osbourne, Ringo Starr, Massive Attack and Judas Priest[60].
At the same time, Bowie began promoting and producing his rock and roll idols, two of whom he met at the popular New York nightclub Max's Kansas City.
Together with Ronson, he produced the album Transformer, which provided Lou Reed, in the recent past — the vocalist of the Velvet Underground, with his first solo success.
Then Iggy Pop with the band The Stooges, with the support of Bowie and MainMan Productions, recorded their third album Raw Power.
Bowie was not present at the recording of the album, but he was engaged in mixing it Bowie also performed backing vocals on the albums Transformer by Lou Reed and The Idiot by Iggy Pop.
"The most relevant rock composer of our time is Lou Reed," Bowie later said in an interview with William Burroughs — " not because of what he does, but because of the direction he has chosen.
Half of the modern bands wouldnot exist if Lou Reed hadnot taken up the guitar"[63].
Bowie performs "Rebel Rebel", 1974
The Spiders from Mars got together again to record the maestro's next work, Aladdin Sane, released in April 1973.
It was Bowie's first album to reach number one in the UK.
"Ziggy goes to America" [64], - this is how the author himself characterized the work; all new songs were written by him on the road — on ships, buses or trains during the first stage of his tour of the United States in support of the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
On the album cover (which Buckley called "the most amazing of all rock covers"), Bowie was depicted with a Ziggy hairstyle and red, black, blue lightning bolts on his face.
The album included the songs "Jean Genie" and "Drive In Saturday", which became hits in the UK, as well as a cover version of The Rolling Stones song"Let's Spend the Night Together".
During the recording of Aladdin Sane, keyboardist Mike Garson joined Bowie's team, and his solo on the song of the same name was perceived by critics as one of the main highlights of the album.
65][66].
Bowie's later shows in the image of Ziggy Stardust, which performed songs from the albums Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane (as well as several earlier compositions, in particular, "Changes" and "The Width of a Circle"), were ultra theatrical: some stage moments — such as Bowie undressing to a sumo wrestler's loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar shocked the audience [67].
At the end of the tour, Bowie gave a press conference in the image of Ziggy, followed by a visit to the Hammersmith Odeon in London.
On July 3, 1973, he gave his character a dramatic and spectacular "retirement", declaring: "Of all the shows of this tour, this show is special and will stay with us the longest, because it is not only the last show of the tour, it is the last show that we will ever do."
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.»)
.  A recording of this show, directed by Donn Alan Pennebaker (English), has been preserved.
— Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and in 1983 a live CD called Ziggy Stardust was also released: The Motion Picture, after many years of going around as an audio bootleg.
After this final performance, The Spiders from Mars were disbanded.
Pin Ups, a collection of cover versions of Bowie's favorite songs from the 1960s, released in October 1973, included the song "Sorrow", which reached number three in the UK chart.
Pin Ups became the number one in the charts and the most commercially successful album in Britain in 1973.
By this time, Bowie had already distanced himself from the image of Ziggy Stardust, but the early albums had become extremely popular by this time: The Man Who Sold the World was re released in 1972 along with Bowie's second album Space Oddity.
The song "Life on Mars?" from the album Hunky Dory was released as a single in 1973 and reached number 3 in the UK charts.
In the same year, the re recorded 1967 single "The Laughing Gnome" reached number six in the UK chart.
1974-1976: soul, R&B and the image of a Haggard White Duke
David Bowie during the "Diamond Dogs" tour in 1974
In 1974, the next ambitious album was released — Diamond Dogs, with a conceptual introduction, which was read by Bowie himself, as well as a song suite in several parts ("Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise)").
Diamond Dogs is the result of combining two different ideas: a musical about the inhabitants of a post apocalyptic city and a series of musical compositions written under the influence of George Orwell's novel "1984".
Bowie planned to make a movie "Diamond Dogs", but this idea could not be realized.
He also intended to write a musical based on the novel "1984", but lost interest in this project due to serious problems that arose with obtaining permission to adapt the novel.
As a result, David still used the written material, making it a conceptual part of the new album.
"Diamond Dogs" demonstrated the shift of Bowie's musical style towards the soul and funk genres, a vivid example of which is the composition "1984".
The album includes such hits as" Rebel Rebel "(5th place in the UK charts) and" Diamond Dogs " (21st place).
The album itself reached the top of the UK chart, making Bowie the best selling artist in the UK for 2 years in a row.
In the US, Bowie achieved his first major commercial success, as the album reached the fifth position on the chart.
Immediately after the release of the album, Bowie began a large scale Diamond Dogs Tour in North America, which lasted from June to December 1974.
The tour had a high stage budget, the choreography was choreographed by Tony Basil, the concerts contained a lot of bright theatrical special effects.
During the concerts, Bowie stopped adhering to the tradition of encore.
During the show in Los Angeles, Bowie's concert was attended by Michael Jackson.
Later, he spoke about the strange movements of the musician, referring to the moonwalk [69][70].
Initially, this dance appeared in Bowie's pantomime plays of the 1960s[71].
The tour was directed by Alan Yentob.
for the documentary "Cracked Actor".
The tape, as it seemed to many, confirmed rumors about the singer's abuse of cocaine.
The film showed a broken and exhausted Bowie, nervously sniffing powder in the back seat of a limousine.
David claimed that this scene was the most unpleasant for him (English: "there's a fly in my milk — - a fly in the ointment in a barrel of honey).
He also complained that the resulting live album David Live should be called "David Bowie is alive and well only in theory" - perhaps the musician was referring to his feverish and confused psychological state of that time.
Nevertheless, after the release of the album, David established himself in the status of a superstar.
The album reached number two in the UK charts and number eight in the US.
A cover version of "Knock On Wood"was released in support of the album.
The single became a hit and reached the 10th position in the UK charts.
At the end of the first part of the tour, Bowie stopped using a large number of complex effects.
After a summer break in Philadelphia, made to record new material, the tour resumed.
However, Diamond Dogs no longer seemed relevant.
Bowie canceled seven concerts and slightly modified the composition of the band.
He returned to the stage again in October, continuing the tour under the name Philly Dogs.
Many fans of Ziggy Stardust did not see the obvious cliches of soul and funk in Bowie's last work, considering "David's new sound" an unexpected and amazing step.
Album Young Americans, 1975 was a research Bowie "the Philadelphia soul (English).Russian."
— although he ironically described the sound as "plastic soul" (eng. plastic soul).
The album contained his first hit number one in the US, "Fame", co written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon, who also sang backing vocals on the song.
The song was based on a riff that Alomar composed, playing a cover version of the classic doo wop melody "Foot Stompin", which Bowie's band included in the set list during performances in Philadelphia.
One of the backing vocalists on the album was a young Luther Vandross, who also co wrote and wrote some of the material for Young Americans.
The song "Win" it contained a hypnotic guitar riff, later taken by Beck Hansen for the base of the track "Debra" from his album Midnite Vultures (English).industry.
Despite the confident recognition of Bowie in the fineness of his "plastic soul", he rightly deserve the honor of being one of the few white musicians invited to "Soul Train" is a popular program about the soul.
Another performance of the singer on American television in the "Dick Cavett Show" of the ABC channel (December 5, 1974)seemed to confirm rumors about Bowie's abuse of cocaine at this time, the musician behaved extremely paranoid[72].
Young Americans strengthened Bowie's fame in the United States: although he took only the 9th place in the charts (as opposed to the fifth line of the Diamond Dogs album), this album remained in them twice as long.
The album reached number two in the UK charts, while the re released old single "Space Oddity" became Bowie's first number one hit in the UK, only a few months after the single "Fame" reached the same in the US.
At this time, David performs with Cher on her second television program, The Cher Show, in which they perform a medley of their own songs and popular hits, as well as a version of his song "Fame".
David Bowie and Cher at her show, 1975
The album Station to Station (1976) showed a darker side of his soul persona (image), called" The Emaciated White Duke " (Eng.
Thin White Duke).
Visually, the image was an expanded version of Thomas Jerome Newton the character played by Bowie in the science fiction film "The Man Who Fell to Earth", he also noted Frank Sinatra as a model for his new identity[73].
Station to Station is a transitional album, a prototype of kraut rock and synthesizer music in his next works and a further development of the funk and soul music of Young Americans.
By this time, Bowie had become heavily addicted to drugs, in particular cocaine, many critics attributed the off target rhythm and emotional detachment of the recording to the influence of drugs, to which Bowie was claimed to have become addicted in America.
Bowie refused to give up a television satellite reserved for an international presentation preceding the release of Station to Station to the Spanish government, which wanted to conduct a live broadcast on the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
His mind, by his own admission, was clouded by cocaine: he had several overdoses during the year.
In addition, Bowie has weakened physically, having lost a lot of weight.
Bowie as the Emaciated White Duke, Toronto, 1976
However, there was another big tour, the Isolar 1976 Tour, which included a very modified list of compositions, in which new songs came to the fore, such as the dramatic and long "Station to Station", the ballad "Wild Is the Wind", "Word on a Wing", "Stay" and the frightening "TVC 15".
The main group of musicians that united around this album and tour (rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis) will remain a stable line up of Bowie throughout the 1970s.
The tour was very successful, but during the tour the singer was mired in a series of political scandals and discussions.
The media quoted Bowie's scandalous comments, which he said in Stockholm: "The UK could benefit from a fascist leader."
He was detained by customs in Eastern Europe for transporting Nazi paraphernalia[74].
Speaking in the image of an Emaciated White Duke, he made statements in interviews with Playboy, New Musical Express and the Swedish press, in which he expressed support for fascism and perceived Adolf Hitler with admiration.
Bowie said the following: "The UK is ready for a fascist leader…
I think England could benefit from a fascist leader.
After all, fascism is actually nationalism…
I believe very strongly in fascism: people have always worked more effectively under authoritarian leaders" (eng. "
Britain is ready for a fascist leader…
I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader.
After all, fascism is really nationalism…
I believe very strongly in fascism, people have always responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership»).
He also said the following: "Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars" and "We need the front of the extreme right to rise up and shake everything off its feet, put everything in order" (eng.
"Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars" and "You've got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up")[75][76].
On May 2, 1976, the so called "Incident at Victoria Station" occurred in London, when Bowie, driving up in a Mercedes convertible, greeted the crowd with a gesture regarded by some as a Nazi greeting.
This gesture was filmed, and his photo was published in the New Musical Express.
Bowie himself strongly denied such accusations and claimed that the photographer simply filmed his hand in motion[77][78], and later blamed his addictions and the image of the Emaciated White Duke for his problems of this period [78]: "I was out of my mind, completely crazy.
The main thing I focused on was mythology... all this stuff about Hitler and the far right…
I discovered King Arthur... " [79].
According to the memoirs of the playwright Alan Franks (a Alan Franks), who later wrote for the Times newspaper, "he was really 'abnormal'.
David had several very unsuccessful experiences with heavy drugs"[80].
1976-1979: the Berlin Era
Apartments in Schoeneberg, where Bowie lived in the period from 1976 to 1978
Bowie's interest in the emerging German music scene, as well as his addiction to drugs, prompted him to move to West Berlin to "clean up" and breathe new life into his career.
While renting an apartment in Schoeneberg with his friend Iggy Pop, Bowie creates three more classic albums (on all three he collaborates with Tony Visconti) and helps Iggy with his career.
With Bowie as a co writer and musician, Iggy Pop recorded his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life.
Bowie joined Iggy Pop's touring band in the spring, just playing keyboards and performing backing vocals.
The band performed in the UK, Europe and the USA from March to April 1977[81].
Bowie went to Neunkirchen, near Bonn, to meet with the famous German producer Connie Planck.
Station to Station, with its uneven sound, became a kind of precursor to Low, the first of three albums that became known as the"Berlin Trilogy".
Created partly under the influence of kraut rock bands such as Kraftwerk and Neu!
and marking the transition from a narrative style to more abstract forms, Low became a hit and reached number 3 in the UK, and the song "Sound and Vision", released as a single, was used as the theme music on the BBC radio station.
The album was recorded in 1976 and released in early 1977.
The next album "Heroes" was largely in tune with Low, but was more understandable to a wide audience.
The mood of this album corresponds to the spirit of the time of the "Cold War", the symbol of which was the Berlin Wall, which served as a source of inspiration for Bowie.
The song of the same name, which tells about two lovers who secretly meet near the Berlin Wall, is one of the most re sung Bowie songs (it was performed by Blondie, Oasis, Apocalyptica, Billy Preston, Peter Gabriel, Bon Jovi and dozens of other artists, it also sounded in the movie "Godzilla" and in the movie "Moulin Rouge!", it was included in a medley for Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor).[82]
The text appeared after Bowie saw from the studio window that producer Tony Visconti was hugging one of his backing vocalists.
This story became known only in the 2000s, because at the time of working on the song, Visconti was married, and Bowie did not tell the public about his love affairs[83].
In 1977, Bowie also appeared on the Marc music show hosted by his friend and colleague, glam rock pioneer Marc Bolan of T. Rex.
He turned out to be the last guest of the show, and Bolan died in a car accident shortly after.
Bowie was one of the many superstars who attended his funeral[84].
Bowie performs in Oslo, June 5, 1978
On Christmas Day 1977, Bowie joined Bing Crosby, of whom he was an ardent fan, at the ATV television studio in England to record "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy", a new version of the song" Little Drummer Boy " with new lyrics. [85]
The resulting Christmas themed music video was actually recorded during the height of the summer heat with a broken air conditioner.
The two singers had originally met on Crosby's Christmas TV show two years earlier (on the recommendation of Crosby's children — he himself had not heard of Bowie before) and performed the song.
A month after the recording was completed, Crosby died[86].
Five years later, the song would be shown around the world and become a Christmas hit, reaching the third position in the UK charts on Christmas Day 1982[87].
Bowie later jokingly noted that he was afraid to be a guest artist, because "everyone I came to gives an oak tree" (Eng. everyone I was going on with was kicking it), alluding to Bolan and Crosby[88].
In 1978, David Bowie and his band went on an extensive world tour (among other countries, Bowie visited Australia and New Zealand for the first time), in which they presented music from the albums Low and "Heroes".
A live album with the tour's material was released under the name Stage in the same year.
Songs from the albums Low and "Heroes" were later transformed into symphonies by the minimalist composer Philip Glass.
At the concerts of the tour, David Bowie often performed a cover version of the song "Alabama Song", written by Bertolt Brecht, of whom Bowie is a fan.
He then recorded it in the studio and released it as a single along with an acoustic version of "Space Oddity".
The single reached number 23 in the UK charts in December 1979.
In the future, Bowie repeatedly performed "Alabama Song" at concerts.
In 1978, Bowie also recorded the album David Bowie Narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, based on the work of Sergei Prokofiev "Peter and the Wolf".
Lodger (1979) became the final part of the so called "Berlin Trilogy", or "Triptych", as the artist himself calls it[89], and unlike the previous two records did not contain instrumental compositions.
"Boys Keep Swinging", "DJ" and "Look Back in Anger"were released as singles.
The style was a mixture of new wave and ethnic music, for example, in "African Night Flight" and "Yassassin".
Many songs were composed by the Bowie — Eno tandem in an unconventional manner: when creating "Boys Keep Swinging", the musicians exchanged their instruments, and "Move On" contains chords of Bowie's early song "All The Young Dudes", played in reverse order; the song "Red Money" was based on the track "Sister Midnight", composed in a duet with Iggy Pop, from his album The Idiot[90].
This was Bowie's last album in collaboration with Brian Eno until 1.
Outside 1995.
1980-1989: from superstar to megastar
Bowie in the image of a Haggard White Duke, performance at the O'Keefe center
In the 1980s, Bowie's style retrogressed, the musician began to experiment less, preferring to combine his own know how (unlike experiments with a new sound on previous albums, Bowie returned to the "origins" of his work), combining the experience gained during the recording of the "Berlin Trilogy", and at the same time expanding the musical style of the three previous records.
At the same time, he was successful in the charts[91].
The album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) contained the #1 hit "Ashes to Ashes", which demonstrated the structural work of Chuck Hammer.
on a guitar synthesizer and again brought to the fore the old Bowie character Major Tom from the song "Space Oddity".
The composition "Ashes to Ashes" actually brought "new romantics"out of the underground.
Bowie specially visited the London club "Blitz", where this movement was born, to invite several of his regular visitors (including Steve Strange from the band Visage) to shoot the video.
The music video "Ashes to Ashes" has become one of the most innovative video clips of all time[92].
The hit single "Ashes to Ashes" became #1 in the UK charts.
Although "Scary Monsters" uses Bowie's experience of the "Berlin Era" period, this album, according to critics, was much more frank both musically and lyrically.
It reflects the author's impressions of continental Europe in general and Germany in particular.
In 1980, Bowie divorced his wife Angela, and also stopped using drugs.
The era of the" Haggard White Duke " was over.
His views on the creation of music have also undergone radical changes.
The new album had a distinct hard rock bias, largely due to the participation of guest guitarists who recorded their parts for it: Robert Fripp (King Crimson), Pete Townshend (The Who), Chuck Hammer[91].
The music videos for the singles from the album, "Ashes to Ashes" and "Fashion", were repeatedly recognized as the best video clips of the 1980s according to various surveys.
Starting on September 24, 1980, Bowie performed on Broadway for three months in the role of J. Merrick (The Elephant Man (English)Russian) [93].
During this period, his friend and colleague John Lennon was killed by several shots of the crazy fanatic Mark Chapman.
This event made an extremely difficult impression on Bowie: he not only lost a close friend, but also realized that he himself was close to death.
Chapman was present at the play "The Elephant Man", photographed Bowie at the door to the stage and shortly after shot John Lennon.
The killer told the police that if he had not managed to kill Lennon, he would have returned to the theater and shot David Bowie.
Chapman was found with a program of the play "The Elephant Man", on which the name "David Bowie" was thickly circled in black ink[94].
"Serious Moonlight Tour", 1983
In 1981, the band Queen released the song" Under Pressure", composed and performed with David Bowie.
The song was a huge success and became Bowie's third single to become number one in the UK charts.
In the same year, Bowie played a cameo role in the German film "We are the Children from Zoo Station", a real story from the life of a 13 year old girl in Berlin who falls into heroin addiction and ends up in prostitution and the disintegration of her personality.
Bowie is credited with a "special collaboration" in the credits, and his music features prominently in the film.
The soundtrack was released in 1981 and contained a version of" Heroes", sung partly in German, which was previously included in the German edition of the album of the same name.
The following year, Bowie took part in a theatrical production, playing the main role in the new English adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play "Baal" on the BBC.
A five track EP with songs and the title of the piece, called David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal, recorded at the Hansa Studio by the Wall in Berlin, was released in September 1981 and became Bowie's last work for the RCA Records label, since he switched from it to the EMI America label in 1983.
In April 1982, Bowie recorded the song "Cat People (Putting Out Fire) "with Giorgio Moroder for the film" Cat People", directed by Paul Schroeder.
Later, Quentin Tarantino said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine: "David Bowie wrote a brilliant song for Cat People, and Paul Schroeder let it play on the credits!
I realized during the years of working in the film distribution that it was necessary to build an episode around it for at least 20 minutes" (later he included this song in his film "Inglourious Bastards")[95][96].
In 1983, Bowie made a splash by releasing his first truly commercial blockbuster Let's Dance, a smooth dance album produced together with Nile Rodgers (eng.)Russian.
from the Chic group.
The title song reached number one in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Sales of Let's Dance became massive and reached 14 million copies.
The album took the second place among the" bestsellers " of 1983, second only to the record Thriller, Michael Jackson.
In addition to the title song, the album also contained the hit singles "Modern Love" and "China Girl", for the latter a provocative video clip was shot.
"China Girl" was a remake of a song that Bowie composed a few years ago with Iggy Pop in Berlin, who recorded it on his album The Idiot.
In an interview with Kurt Loder (English)Russian.
Bowie said that he contributes to helping musicians he admires, and the motivation for making a record of the song "China Girl" was to provide financial assistance to his friend Iggy Pop, who received royalties as a co writer.
Let's Dance is also notable for being a cornerstone in the career of Texas guitar virtuoso Stevie Ray Vaughn, who played on the album and was supposed to support Bowie on the subsequent Serious Moonlight Tour.
Vaughn, however, did not take part in the tour after various disputes with Bowie.
The guitarist was replaced by a veteran of Bowie's tours, Earl Slick.
Frank and George Simms from The Simms Brothers Band (English)Russian.
they participated in the tour as backing vocalists.
Bowie's next album was originally planned to be a live album recorded during the Serious Moonlight Tour, but instead the EMI label demanded to make another studio album.
As a result, the 1984 album Tonight was also dance oriented, like its predecessor, featuring collaborations with Tina Turner and Iggy Pop, as well as various cover versions, including the song " God Only Knows "by The Beach Boys.
The album also featured the transatlantic hit "Blue Jean", which became #6 in the UK, and the video for this single — a 21 — minute short film" Jazzin' for Blue Jean " - reflected Bowie's long standing interest in combining music with dramatic art.
This video will bring Bowie his first Grammy, for Best Short Music Video.
The album also contained the song "Loving The Alien", a remix of which was a success in 1985.
The album includes dance versions of re recorded tracks: "Neighborhood Threat "and" Tonight", these were old Bowie songs written together with Iggy Pop in Berlin, which originally appeared on Pop's album Lust for Life.
The album Tonight reached #1 in the UK charts.
Performance during the "Glass Spider Tour", 1987
In 1985, Bowie performed some of his super hits at Wembley Stadium for Live Aid (accompanied by Thomas Dolby on keyboards), an international philanthropist
