David Bowie

David Bowie bio

David Bowie's career spans some 40 years, now, and has covered pop music, theatre & acting. He is an innovator, a risk-taker, and, like the Beatles, a brave interpreter of future trends but of all my heroes as a kid, it's David Bowie who remains my real enigma, in that...I can no longer grasp what it was that made his music so so captivating.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not deriding the man's achievements, they're immense...but I'm aware that Time has robbed me of the stardust that made him so very special through most of the 1970s.

It certainly wasn't the whole "I'm bisexual thing", I mean, I'm as hetero as an aircraft carrier's worth of sailors on a weekend pass in Manila! The whole girlie-glitter fashion thing didn't really phase me either, (interestingly enough, I always found the painted nails a bit gross), I just thought it was funny.

It certainly wasn't the lyrics, Bowie's "cut-up" style of random phrases thrown together, which then define their own meaning is a hit or miss affair, mostly missing, for me.

No, I think the sensible breakdown of Bowie would be:

• his sense of drama
• his unpredictability
• his innate ability to make himself "sound" as if he knew what he was talking about &
• the capacity to soak up influences from his environment

But beyond that, I consider Bowie's greatest skill was to take the the passion of his main collaborators...and transform them into something completely his own:

Ziggy Stardust          Guitarist Mick Ronson's honest English rock'n'roll
Aladdin Sane             Keyboard player Mike Garson's weird jazzy frills
Young Americans      Luther Van Dross understanding of vocal funk 
Station To Station     Cocaine
Low                          Brian Eno's synthesizer music
Heroes                      Robert Fripp's manic guitar
Let's Dance               Nile Rodger's funk & Stevie Ray Vaughn's blues guitar

I guess I see Bowie as:

• primarily a musician, a pretty good one and a fine tune writer
• an erratic, though sometimes excellent lyricist
• a brilliant arranger and
• an even better tactician

During the 1970s, David Bowie was shifting gear so fast, doing wild 180s, following his career was better than Grand Prix racing. The rock world (and teenage me) watched transfixed, just glad to have witnessed this master at work.

While certainly not a definitive retrospective, this is my take on one of Rock Music's greatest stars, David Bowie:  

Portrait Of A Young Man Looking For A Niche

The Early Years   

Grim stories, Love songs, Kids' songs, Existential worries...Bowie was experimenting with form and content. 

Space Oddity  

Not a singer-songwriter of confessionals...but one of strange stories. Space Oddity the single, was a hit...but the album bombed until re-release in 1972.

The Man Who Sold The World  

Did Bowie invent heavy metal? Producer Visconti says Bowie was hardly at the sessions, preferring to play with new wife Angie, so someone took the brave decision to move in that direction...but the album bombed again. 

Hunky Dory  

With a new contract (at RCA), Bowie offered a song to ex-Hermans Hermit, Peter Noone, Oh You Pretty Things, which became an unexpected Top 20 hit. Bowie then started work on Hunky Dory, a grab-bag of commercial and uncommercial treats.

When Bowie casually mentioned during an interview that he was bisexual, his low-profile tour sold out and the music press openly started touting him as "the next big thing".

Bowie At The Beeb is a remastered collection of LIVE performances during the years 1969-1972, the last being to promote the Ziggy Stardust album. 

The Glam Years:

Ziggy Stardust   

In hindsight, Ziggy Stardust was a strong but not spectacular, rather vague but well-loved Rock'n'Roll concept album: Extra-terrestial rocker saves...and is then consumed, by his earthly fans.

However, Ziggy gained Bowie massive exposure in the UK and started to break Bowie in the USA. Bowie's photographer, Mick Rock, covers the Ziggy tour extensively in his book, Moonage Daydream...

"...Moonage Daydream is the perfect book for any fan of David Bowie and Mick Rock or any fan of rock and the rock n' roll supergods..." Susan Fensten

"...this is a fabulous book for Ziggy-lovers. David is simply stunning in his satin, tat, mascara and rouge, and you'd be a fool to pass by such beauty..." Fraggle

Aladdin Sane  

When the Ziggy show toured the USA, Bowie wrote of his impressions and the results were frequently really interesting, though the album was rush-released and marred by some filler. However, Guitarist Mick Ronson and new keyboard player Mike Garson shone in particular and the Bowie publicity machine kicks into top gear, breaking Bowie big-time in the USA...

Grainy, blurry and held over for thirty years, the Ziggy Stardust LIVE DVD is documentary film-maker D.A. Pennebaker's capturing of the last show by the Ziggy Stardust / Aladdin Sane Spiders from Mars line-up.

"...This is it, folks. This is the stuff that made a million kids totter on the edge of depravity. Traditional values were shaken AND stirred as the "Leper Messiah" took the stage and sang his songs of darkness and dispair..." Darlene Stephenson

David Bowie is merely one of the artists featured in photographer Mick Rock's Glam! An Eyewitness account...but for a visual record, you can't get much better and there's a foreword by The Thin White Duke, himself.

Pin Ups   

Though Pin Ups was seen as a cash-grab by many, a quick album with no great artistic merit...it was actually a wonderful capturing of the London LIVE "scene" of The Swinging Sixties with covers of songs by The Who, The Kinks etc.

The Cocaine Years:

Diamond Dogs   

Hoping to write a musical of the George Orwell novel 1984, Bowie dumped his backing band, The Spiders From Mars (with Mick Ronson) and instead went it alone with session men. When he was refused permission to create the musical by Orwell's estate, he slid sideways and created Diamond Dogs...one of his bizarre post-apocalypse scenarios.  

Booked for a week in Philadelphia, Bowie recorded the shows for the resultant David LIVE album. The music showed distinct Puerto Rican influence...and Bowie seemed to be strung out on coke, captured in the  Cracked Actor documentary.

Young Americans   

During the week in Philadelphia, Bowie used the remaining hours to lay down most of the tracks for his new album, Young Americans. The music shifted towards a bleak interpretation of Philly soul and produced Fame, a #1 hit single (actually recorded several months later in New York with the help of John Lennon)

Station To Station   

Taking way too much cocaine, unsettled by dabblings in witchcraft and having finished starring in his first movie, The Man Who Fell To Earth (see Bowie Movies), Station To Station...was, Bowie says, in hindsight, a cry for Home...not the U.K. in particular...but Europe. 

The Berlin Years

Low  

By the end of the Station To Station tour, Bowie was strung out and rested in the tense anonymity of Berlin eith friend and fellow drug fiend, Iggy Pop. They started to record two albums simultaneously, Iggy's The Idiot and Bowie's Low with ex-Roxy Music member, Brian Eno guesting on the sessions. 

Bowie's results, in particular, were sensational with one side of the album bleak tune-lets of sparse, clipped lyrics and the other side, grand, instrumental, synthesizer-based music. Critics loved the album but the general public seemed confused.

Heroes  

Almost a year later, Bowie released Heroes, created on the same principles as Low...but more accessible. In fact, the title track became a still well-loved hit single. 

Bowie took Heroes on tour in a band that included guitarist Adrian Belew and keyboard player Roger Powell from Utopia, recording the LIVE album, Stage.

The Actor:

Scary Monsters 

Bowie puts Major Tom out of his misery and tries to close the doors of the past.

Let's Dance 

Signalling a new start, Bowie makes a much more "up" commercial album with four hit singles:

• Let's Dance
• China Girl (written with Iggy Pop)
• Modern Love &
• Putting Out The Fire (from the movie Cat People)

If there was ever a feelgood David Bowie album, Let's Dance was it. There were some cool videos and the unusual pairing of producer Nile Roger's funk with Blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn produced a really interesting hybrid.

Unfortunately, I don't presently feel I can add anything of value in a review, it is what it is. His Serious Moonlight world tour produced this DVD which pretty much sells the new happy-go-lucky Bowie.

Tonight 

While not one of David Bowie's more memorable albums, Tonight still had some highlights, including the mini-movie for the single Blue Jean.

Never Let Me Down 

Judged by many critics and fans as Bowie's lowest ebb, Never Let Me Down biggest claim to fame was that one track, Too Dizzy, was so reviled by its maker that it's no longer on the CD. (Even funnier, I thought it was one of the best tracks on the album!).

Personally, I don't think it's more even than his previous album, Tonight, though it certainly doesn't have the highs. Never Let Me Down makes a grand self-important noise which I still play it occasionally and it's probably, after Let's Dance, his most commercial album.

Bowie toured the world to promote the album with the Glass Spider tour, which I caught in Sydney. This DVD is culled from his two concerts here and you'll see...

"...Bowie abseiling from the top of a 60 foot spider at the beginning of the show and later being strangled by ropes amongst other things..."  Neoninfusion

The band includes Peter Frampton on lead guitar, Carlos Alomar on rhythm guitar and five dancers. There is a bonus CD included, which is a LIVE album from the same tour, in Montreal, Canada, with a slightly different songlist.

Bowie has resurfaced in the mid 1990s and has released a number of successful albums gaining a new generation of fans. However, I've bailed (space) ship. For those who wish to relive those times, I recommend the superb DVD, David Bowie's Greatest Hits with videos dating from almost the beginning of his career...

Audio fans can get the remastered CD...

Movies:

• The Man Who Fell To Earth
• Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
• The Hunger
• Labyrinth

Bowie also narrated Prokofiev's Peter & The Wolf, a young person's guide to the instruments of the orchestra with Eugene Ormandy conducting The Philadelphia Orchestra...

For more info, see:

• wikipedia David Bowie