David Bowie: biography, personal life, creativity

David Bowie (pictured below in the article) is a British singer, songwriter and actor, known for his dramatic musical reincarnations, including the image of Ziggy Stardust. In the Hall of Fame rock'n'roll was elected in 1996.

David Bowie: A Short Biography

Called the musical chameleon because of its constantly changing appearance and sound, future rock star David Bowie was born in London on January 08, 477. The real name of the British singer is David Robert Jones. He showed interest in music from an early age and started playing saxophone at the age of 13. David was greatly influenced by his stepbrother, Terry, who was nine years older and involved him in the worlds of rock music and beat writers. But Terry was not well. He suffered a mental illness, because of which his family was forced to put him in a psychiatric hospital. This haunted David all his life. Terry committed suicide in 1985. The tragedy was the basis of the song of Bowie Jump They Say.

Having graduated from the technical school of Bromley at the age of 16, David began to work as an artist. He continued to play with a number of bands and organized his own called Davy Jones and the Lower Third. Then several singles appeared, but none of them gave the commercial impulse so necessary to the young performer.

Carier start

For fear of being confused with Davy Jones of the Mankis group, the novice artist changed his surname - he was inspired by a knife named after the American folk hero of the 19th century, Jim Bowie.

In the end, David began to speak alone. But after an unsuccessful solo album, he temporarily left the music world. As often happened in his later life, these years turned out to be experimental for a young artist. For several weeks in 1967, he lived in a Buddhist monastery in Scotland. Later, Bowie organized his own pantomime troupe called Feathers.

Pop star

By early 1969, Bowie returned to music again. He signed a contract with the record company Mercury Records and in the summer the single "Space Strangeness" was released. Later, Bowie admitted that the song came to him after watching Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey". The composition quickly responded to the public, largely due to the fact that the BBC Corporation used it during the lighting of the landing on the moon of Apollo 11. The track also enjoyed success after leaving the US in 1972, rising to 15th place in the charts.

Bowie's next album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970), further brought him closer to fame. The recording was more heavy rock sounding than the previous songs, and included the song "All the Madmen" dedicated to his brother Terry. The next work of Khanka Dori (1971) included two hits: the title track, which was dedicated to Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol and Velvet Underground, and "Change," which became the embodiment of David himself.

Ziggy Stardust

With the rise of the celebrity status, Bowie's desire to keep fans and critics constantly in perplexity. In an interview with Melody Maker in January 1972, he claimed that he was gay and then introduced the imaginary rock star Ziggy Stardust and his accompanying band Spiders from Mars into the pop world. The 1972 album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars" made him a superstar. Dressed in a suit from some wild future, the British singer marked a new era in rock music, which seemed to officially announce the late 1960s and the Woodstock era.

Was David Bowie gay? The singer's biography is full of contradictory facts. In September 1976, in an interview with the Playboy magazine, he stated that he was bisexual. According to the statement of his first wife, Bowie had a connection with Mick Jagger. However, in 1983, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he said that he was always heterosexual.

More changes

David Bowie, whose biography is marked by a frequent change of images, also quickly changed the image of Stardust. The singer took advantage of his popularity and produced the collections of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. In 1973, he dispersed the "Spiders from Mars" and put Ziggy on the shelf. David Bowie musical works in the style of glam-rock collected in the collection Alladin Sane (1973). The release included the compositions "Jeanne Jean" and "Let's spend the night together", which resulted from his collaboration with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Around the same time, he showed his passion for English fashion and released Pin Ups, an album of cover versions for songs from popular bands, including Pink Floyd and Pretty Things.

The Conquest of America

By the mid-1970s, Bowie subjected himself to a full-scale alteration. Outrageous costumes and bright scenery are gone. In just two years he released the albums Diamond Dogs (1974) and "Young Americans" (1975). The first of them came out on top in the UK with hits Rebel Rebel and Diamond Dogs, and the fifth - in the US. A promo tour of North America lasted from June to December 1974. The high-budget production was accompanied by theater special effects, but was overshadowed by the mental disorders David Bowie suffered. The documentary Cracked Actor, filmed by Alan Entob, captured a pale and exhausted singer, who suffered from severe drug addiction. In the album "Young Americans", the back vocalist was young Luther Vandross, and the song "Glory", written together with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon, was Bowie's first American single, which ranked number one in the charts.

After moving to Los Angeles, David Bowie recorded the song Station to Station, which made the plastic soul of the collection "Young Americans" more avant-garde, the track became a hit. Soon Bowie decided that the city was too boring for him, and returned to England. After arriving in London, he welcomed the crowds of fans with a Nazi hand-throwing, which was a manifestation of the growing separation from the reality of the drug-dependent singer. The incident caused a huge scandal, and Bowie left the country to settle in Berlin, where he lived and worked with Brian Eno.

In Berlin, David came to himself, began to draw and study art. He got carried away with German electronic music, and Ino helped record their first joint album Low. Released in 1977, the release became a terrific blend of electronic music, pop and avant-garde. Although the collection received mixed reviews, it turned out to be one of the most influential albums of the late 70's, as did the next Heroes, released in the same year. In 1977, Bowie not only recorded two solo compilations, but also produced the recording of Iggy Pop's tracks "The Idiot" and "The Thirst for Life" and anonymously toured as his keyboard player. In the same year, David resumed his acting career, starring in the film Just Gigolo with Marlene Dietrich and Kim Novak. On the stage, he returned in 1978, starting an international tour, the record of which was released as a double album Stage.

In 1980, David Bowie, whose biography was again associated with New York, released a collection of Scary Monsters. The release received positive feedback and included the single "Ashes to Ashes", a kind of new version of the early composition "Space Strangeness." The release was accompanied by a number of innovative videos (Fashion, DJ, Ashes to Ashes), which became the basis of early MTV.

Three years later Bowie recorded the album "Let's Dance" (1983), in which there were many hits, such as "Modern Love" and "Chinese Woman", and a virtuoso guitar playing by Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Work in the cinema

Of course, music is not the only thing that David Bowie was fond of. Biography of the singer is noted by his participation in many feature films. The love of cinema helped him to get the lead in the 1976 film "The Man Who Fell to Earth." In 1980, Bowie performed on Broadway in the play "Man Elephant", and his performance was positively evaluated by critics. In 1986, he starred in the role of the king of goblins Jareth in the adventure fantasy "Labyrinth" directed by Jim Henson and producer George Lucas. The actor performed with the young Jennifer Connelly and the dolls in the picture, which became a classic of the 1980s. Just a Gigolo (1978), Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Hunger (1983), Linguini Incident (1991) - paintings in which the main role was performed by David Bowie. The films in which he played episodic roles - "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988) and Zoolander (2001). In addition, the British singer participated in several television series, as well as documentary films about his career.

On the decline in popularity

Over the next decade, David Bowie tried to combine films and music, which had a negative impact on his popularity. The music career of the artist went into decline. His third-party project with musicians Rive Gabrels and Tony and Hunt Sayles, known as Tin Machine, gave two albums of the same name in 1989 and 1991, which proved to be a flop. The advertised collection of the year 1993 Black The White Noise, which David Bowie called a wedding gift for his new wife, supermodel Iman Abdulmajid, also struggled with the attention of music lovers.

Ironically, David's most popular creation of this period was bonds secured by royalties from his works until 1990. Bowie issued securities in 1997 and earned $ 55 million from their sale. The rights to songs were returned to him when the bonds expired in 2007.

Last years

In 2004, Bowie, speaking on stage in Germany, suffered a heart attack. He completely recovered and again began working with the band Arcade Fire and American actress Scarlett Johansson on her album Anywhere І Lay Mu Head (2008) - a compilation of cover versions of compositions by Tom Waits.

David Bowie was awarded the Grammy Award in 2006 . It did not make itself felt for several years until the release of the 2013 album, which the next day soared to second place on the Billboard charts. The following year, Bowie released a collection of the best songs "Nothing has changed," which featured a new song "Sue." In 2015, he participated in the production of the rock musical "Lazarus" with Michael Hall in the title role, which refreshed the image of his hero from the movie "The Man Who Fell to Earth."

His last album "Blackstar" Bowie released 08.01.16, when he turned 69 years old. A critic from The New York Times noted that this is "a strange, daring and, ultimately, useful work with a mood created by a bitter awareness of mortality". Only a few days later the world learned that the album was recorded under difficult conditions.

Death and posthumous rewards

The icon of pop died on 10.01.16, two days after his own 69 birthday. The post on his Facebook page said that the singer quietly passed away with his family after a year and a half of fighting cancer. Without a husband and father, the wife of David Bowie Iman, his son Duncan Jones, the daughter of Alexandria and the adopted daughter of Zuleh Haywood, remained. The musician's legacy consisted of 26 albums released. His producer and friend Tony Visconti wrote on Facebook that "Blackstar" became a "farewell gift."

The death of David Bowie impressed his friends and fans. Iggy Pop wrote in "Twitter" that friendship with him was a light in his life. He had never met such a brilliant person. The Rolling Stones remembered him as a "beautiful and kind person" who was "truly original." And even those who did not know him personally, felt the influence of his work. Kanye West wrote in "Twitter": "David Bowie was one of my most important sources of inspiration." According to Madonna, this great artist changed her life.

In February 2017, Bowie's last work won in the categories "Grammy" in the nominations "Best Design", "Best Engineering", "Best Rock Performance", "Best Alternative Rock Album" and "Best Rock Composition."

David Bowie: biography. A family

In the late 1960s, the British singer met the American top model Angela Barnett. Their wedding took place on March 19, 1970, and on May 30, 1971 the couple had a son. In 1980 they divorced. The son of Bowie is now known by his real name Duncan Jones.

On April 24, 1992, in Lausanne, David married the American-Somali model Iman. The wedding took place on June 6 in Florence. In August 2000, the couple had a daughter Alexandria Zahra Jones. The couple lived in New York and London, and owned apartments in Sydney.

July 10, 2016, exactly 6 months after the death of David Bowie, he had a grandson, whose father was Duncan.