Find out everything
Menu The First In Russia In the World Incidents Stars Economy Biographies Facts Questions Regions Video Library
David Bowie biography, photos find out everything!
Name: David Bowie
Date of birth: January 8, 1947
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn Place of birth: London, United Kingdom
Date of death: January 10, 2016 (69 years old)
Activity: rock musician, actor
Weight: 74 kg
Height: 178 cm
Do you like David Bowie?
Photo: David Bowie
All photos
Biography of David Bowie
David Bowie's Childhood
David Robert Jones was born in Brixton, one of the districts of London, in 1947.
His parents, Margaret Mary Pegey (Barnes) and Hayward Stanton John Jones, formalized their relationship eight months after David was born.
The boy's mother, of Irish descent, worked as a ticket cashier in a movie, and his father was a clerk in the human resources department of a charity organization.
The Joneses lived on Stansfield Road, which divided the two southern districts of the British capital – Brixton and Stockwell.
David Bowie (David Bowie) - British rock singer and songwriter
David studied in the preparatory class at Stockwell School until the age of six.
The teachers described the boy as talented and intelligent, but at the same time a bully and a brawler.
Since 1953, the Joneses have been changing their place of residence – the family moves to Bromley, a suburban area of London.
That's where David goes to elementary school.
At school, the boy studied well, was engaged in the school choir (quite mediocre, according to teachers ' estimates), was a member of the school sports football team and was fond of playing the flute.
From the age of nine, the future musician begins to attend the musical and choreographic circle that appeared at the school, where his teachers called his abilities for interpretation as "vividly artistic, amazing, phenomenal".
Soon, David heard Elvis Presley's musical compositions for the first time – on records brought by his father.
The American musician impressed the boy, and after that he begged his father to buy him a ukulele, and also made a bass himself to participate in skiffle sessions with friends.
At school, David began to master the piano.
David Bowie was born in London
His passion for music had a negative impact on his studies – David Jones could not pass the final exam, which forced him to continue his studies at the Bromley Technical College in 1958.
College
In college, David met Peter Frampton, the son of one of the teachers of the institution.
Owen Frampton, Peter's father, encouraged the study of languages, art and design.
He actively advised his son to continue his musical career with David, whose talent he immediately appreciated.
Peter Frampton and David Jones even started a collaboration, but it turned out to be short lived.
Subsequently, friends from college will begin joint creative activities, but this will happen only after 30 years.
David Bowie- Space Oddity Original Video (1969)
In college, David preferred to study printing and printing.
At the same time, the future musician discovers modern jazz, is fond of the works of John Coltrane and Charles Mingus.
At the age of fifteen, an unpleasant incident occurs in David's life – a conflict arises between him and his best friend of that time, George Underwood, because of a girl.
The conflict escalated into a fight, during which Underwood seriously injured Jones, hitting him in the face with a ring in his left eye during a punch.
David was forced to leave his training for four months and go to the hospital, where doctors performed a number of operations to prevent blindness.
Doctors failed to completely restore the lost vision, and David was left with a lost perception of color in the injured eye for the rest of his life.
David sees everything around with his left eye in brown.
Due to the mydriatic pupil, after the injury, the impression of different eye colors was created.
Despite all the consequences of the fight, the friends did not quarrel and continued to communicate closely and collaborated later on when creating David's albums – George illustrated Jones ' early albums.
David Bowie has mastered playing many instruments
By the time he graduated from college, the musician was able to play the saxophone, guitar, keyboards, electric guitar, harpsichord, harmonica, piano, mellotron, stylophone, ukulele, xylophone, koto, vibraphone, percussion and percussion.
Despite the fact that David is left – handed, he uses an ordinary, right handed guitar.
David Bowie's String of Failures
At the age of fifteen, David gathered his first band – "The Kon rads".
The band mainly played rock and roll at weddings and parties.
The band lasted for a year, after which the ambitious David left the team and joined the band "The King Bees".
Playing as part of this group, Bowie had the audacity and wrote a letter to millionaire John Bloom with an offer to earn another million by signing a contract with the group.
The millionaire did not ignore the offer, handing the letter to Leslie Conn, one of the Beatles ' publishers.
Leslie Conn and signed the first contract with David.
David Bowie was called the "chameleon of rock music"for his frequent change of image
At the same time, Jones ' pseudonym appeared – David Bowie, taken by the musician in order to avoid confusion with Davey Jones from the band "The Monkees".
The origin of the pseudonym is connected with the passion for the work of Mick Jagger.
Having found out that "jagger" translates from the Old English as "knife", David took the pseudonym Bowie (this is the name of a type of hunting knives invented by the tracker Jim Bowie).
Leslie Conn took up the promotion of a young musician, initially unsuccessful in commercial terms.
By that time, Bowie had left The King Bees.
David's next band was "Manish Boys", with which the musician released a single, which also did not receive recognition.
Bowie changed the band again, joining the "Lower Third".
The single recorded with them became equally unsold and Conn's contract with Bowie was terminated.
The single released with the band "Buzz" was also unsuccessful.
This was followed by the debut album and the sixth single, which traditionally did not hit the charts.
David Bowie has sold more than 136 million of his records
After that, Bowie gave up trying to record for two years and began studying pantomime and circus art, having met mime Lindsay Kemp.
Lindsay also brought David together with his first serious love, Hermione Farthingale, with whom Bowie collaborated on creating poetic minuets, and later Hermione and David played in the same band, but not for long.
For about a year, the couple lived together in an apartment in London, after which Bowie and Farthingale broke up.
David Bowie's first success
Bowie's first success came seven years after the start of his career.
The single "Space Oddity", released simultaneously with the landing on the Moon of the first astronauts, entered the top 5 in the UK.
The song from the single was used as a background music for reports about the astronauts landing on the Moon and about the Apollo 13 flights in 1969-1970.
Soon David's self titled album was released, which was a success both in Europe and in the USA.
Almost simultaneously, the third album was released – "The Man Who Sold the World", in which Bowie moves from acoustic compositions to heavy rock and heavy metal.
Subsequently, critics called the album "the beginning of the era of glam rock".
David Bowie assembled his first band at the age of 15
Later, Bowie goes to New York, where he meets the band "The Velvet Underground", whose unusual style inspired David to create the rock band"Hype".
In February 1972, Bowie gave his first big concert, performing under his new, but never took root, pseudonym Ziggy Stardust.
The concert made a real sensation and became the impulse that brought Bowie fame.
Inspired by the success of the performance, David went on a large - scale tour of the country, during which Bowie laid the foundations of his concert artistic style creative unusual costumes, the legendary fire mallet.
David Bowie was able to surprise
Later, Bowie went on a tour of the United States, starting with a performance at the famous Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio, where the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is now located.
Bowie's albums, meanwhile, fall into the top five, and then into the top three of the English charts.
Bowie's next record, "Aladdin Sane", appeared in rotation in April 1973, became the number one album in Britain.
The following albums of the musician consistently entered the top ten in the English and American charts.
David Bowie's Drug Addiction
By 1974, David Bowie had become addicted to drugs.
It is with the use of drugs, to which Bowie became addicted in the United States, that many associate the peculiarity of the aimless rhythm and the emotionally detached sound of the new album of the star.
Several overdoses within a short period of time clouded David's consciousness by his own admission.
The musician began to rapidly lose weight and perceive the surrounding reality more and more poorly.
David Bowie - Where Are We Now?
In 1976, Bowie, despite all the problems with his health and consciousness, went on the next tour, which was successful commercially, but scandalous politically.
During the tour, David Bowie made several shocking statements in support of fascism and Adolf Hitler, was detained by customs for transporting fascist paraphernalia, in London Bowie greeted the crowd with a gesture close to a Nazi greeting.
David Bowie in the USSR, 1973
Subsequently, Bowie apologized for his fascist statements and other incidents, explaining that he was not in his right mind after several unsuccessful doses of heavy drugs.
As a result, drug addiction, along with an interest in German music, led to a move to West Berlin, where David Bowie rented an apartment with his friend, Iggy Pop, who was also being treated for drug addiction.
During the three years of his life in Berlin, Bowie not only recorded three of his albums, but also produced Iggy, helping him with the recording of the first two solo albums, and also joined Iggy's band during its tour of Europe and the United States in 1977 as a keyboardist and backing vocalist.
Three of his own albums recorded in Berlin were called the "Berlin trilogy" and became one of the best Bowie albums, not to mention the constant hit in the top 5 of the British and top 20 of the American charts.
In support of the" trilogy " in 1978, Bowie and a group of musicians went on a world tour, which included visits to Australia and New Zealand.
Next year, the musician records the album "David Bowie Narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf", which is based on the work of Sergei Prokofiev"Peter and the Wolf".
David Bowie - Life On Mars?
David Bowie is a megastar
Since 1980, David has stopped using drugs, and also divorced his wife Angela, thereby ending the era of creativity, called by critics the era of the "Emaciated White Duke".
The next album, recorded under the impression of life in Berlin, has clear hard rock notes.
Recorded in 1981 together with Freddie Mercury and the band "Queen", the song" Under Pressure " becomes the third release of the musician to reach the top of the British hit parade.
At the same time, David starred in a cameo role in the film "We are the children from the Zoo Station" produced in Germany, which tells the story of the life of a thirteen year old German girl with drug addiction, who earns drugs by prostitution and soon dies.
During the same years, Bowie participated in several theater productions and wrote music for films.
David Bowie became a drug addict in 1980
All Bowie's albums and singles released in the eighties instantly occupied leading positions in the charts, turning Bowie from a superstar into a megastar.
Bowie also continued his theatrical and film career, actively toured the world and participated in charity concerts and promotions, instantly increasing donations by several dozen times.
Among the most notable roles in the cinema of that time, it is worth noting the role of Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's film "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988).
In the early nineties, Bowie organized a permanent band "Tin Machine", with which he released two albums and went on several world tours, and also met his future second wife, Iman.
The acquaintance took place at a party dedicated to the birthday of their common hairdresser.
Soon, David and Iman began dating and eventually formed their relationship in 1992.
Experiments of the nineties
Since the early nineties, David has been experimenting with new images and genres of music, such as white soul, industrial, AOR and jungle, mixed with the influence of heavy metal, jazz and hip hop.
During these years, Bowie finally secured the status of a" chameleon of rock music", constantly changing the image, musical genres and directions, the theme of songs, but nevertheless preserving his individual, easily recognizable musical style.
David Bowie's Stage Costumes
One of the most interesting, conceptual and at the same time ambitious albums of these years can be called "1.Outside", released in 1995, in which the influence of industrial is intertwined with other directions of electronic music.
The album was recorded together with Brian Eno, a recognized guru of this direction.
In 1996, David Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In the same year, as part of a world tour, David visited Iceland, Japan and Russia for the first time.
Neoclassicism
Since 1998, Bowie has been writing soundtracks for animated films and computer games, and is also working on recording a new studio album.
The album, called "Heathen" (Pagan), was released in 2002 and became Bowie's last grand success in the British and world charts.
The artist's last studio album at the moment was released in 2003 and was called "Reality".
During the tour, Bowie felt painful sensations in the chest area.
The doctors ' diagnosis was an acutely blocked artery, as a result of which the tour was interrupted, and Bowie went to the hospital in Hamburg, where he was operated on.
David Bowie released a new album in 2013
In early 2004, the musician was discharged from the hospital.
The previously planned and postponed tour was postponed indefinitely due to the poor health of the star.
The musician returned to the stage only in 2005, performing at a concert with the band "Arcade Fire".
In 2006, Bowie was awarded a Grammy Award for his great contribution to the development of music.
In August 2011, the musician announced his retirement, but in January 2013, David released a new single "Where Are We Now?" and announced plans to release a new album with the working title "The Next Day", the lyrics for which, according to Bowie, he wrote under the impression of the history of modern Russia.
The album was released on March 11, 2013 and took the leading positions in the charts of forty countries around the world, and also became Bowie's fourth record to reach the top of the British hit parade.
Personal life of David Bowie
David met his first wife, Angela Barnett, in the late 60s at a party with mutual friends.
Angela's love for shocking and the ability to look stylish influenced the stage image of David Bowie.
In 1970, the couple formed a relationship, and a year later they had a son - Duncan Zoe Heywood Jones.
After ten years of marriage, the couple separated.
David Bowie and his second wife Iman
In 1992, David Bowie married model Iman Abdulmajid, in 2000 they had a daughter, Alexandria Zahra.
The Death of David Bowie
David Bowie - one of the iconic musicians of the XX century died on January 10, 2016 in the circle of people close to him.
The cause of death was cancer, which he had been fighting for the last 18 months of his life.
Despite the terrible illness, David Bowie continued to engage in creative work.
Shortly before his death, on January 8, 2016, the musician's last album was released.
A little earlier, David Bowie presented a video for the song Lazarus.
The latest clip of David Bowie Lazarus
The first "
Celebrities "
Foreign performers
If you find an error in the text, select it and press Ctrl+Enter
David Bowie the latest news of 2016
The media called the burial place of David Bowie
Bowie fans turned on Kanye West
Alan Rickman has died
Bowie fans canot accept his death
David Bowie has died
David Bowie has released a new album
David Bowie on instagram: @davidbowiesmoking
04:10, 10-02-16
04:36, 09-02-16
03:12, 07-02-16
03:17, 06-02-16
Foreign performers
Ciara
Rita Ora
Roger Waters
Pierre Edel
Relevant
Find Out Everything
In Russia In the World Of Technology Sports Economy
Stars Auto Personalities Press Releases Facts
About the company
Editorial Office Add Biography Add News
18+
Up
