David Bowie

The artist who is known to most as the innovative and musically influencal David Bowie was 
born as David Robert Jones on Jan 8, 1947 in Brixton. He learned to play the saxophone at 
age thirteen under the tutalige of jazz master, Ronnie Ross. After a failed career attempt as a 
commercial artist, he joins the King Bees in and playing witch such other bands as the Kon-Rads,
the Manish Boys, and the Lower Third provide him with an introduction to the flamboyant world of
pop and the then current emerging mod scene. He renamed himself David Bowie in 1966 to avoid 
confusion with the Monkee's singer of the same name to begin his career as a solo singer/
songwriter. Three years later, he released the greatly sucessful Space Oddity, who's title track
became the young singer's first major hit, and made it on the British top ten.

Despite the sucess of the song, it wasn't until the release of Hunky Dory Bowie began to achieve
any kind of fame within the United States. Soon after, in 1972, was the release of the monumental
album, "the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars", a loose concept album 
telling the tale of Ziggy Stardust, the androgynous alien rock star who comes to earth. The 
release of "Diamond Dogs" and "Young Americans" further cemented David Bowie's musical career 
within the US, England and worldwide. 

David Bowie also recieved quite a bit of attention not only for his groundbreaking musical
contributions, but also his sexual orientation. His confession of homosexual (or simply 
bi-sexuality) to Melody Maker made him one of the first admittedly gay rock stars and also made 
him a very controversial figure. The admittion (which he eventually recanted) was considered 
no more than a very shrewd career move, by many critics.

Bowie, the ever changing musical chamelian then took his art in a new direction, producing
more experimental and avent-garde records with the collaborative help of Brian Eno. The fruits of
this collaboration became the now famous trilogy, "Low", "Heroes", and "Lodger". These records 
eventually became among Bowie's most influential, as precursors to modern techo-rock and the 
birth of what is now heralded as luminary ambient soundscapes. Despite the fact that these
records are now seen as the inspiration and imputus for different musical movements, these didn't
have the mass appeal or commercial appeal of his earlier and more traditional works.

After the dissappointing sales of the Eno/Bowie trilogy and the equally commercially unsuccessful,
"Scary Monsters", Bowie teamed up with Nile Rogers for the massively successful "Let's Dance" 
album released in 1983. Although this marked the return of Bowie as a popular music force, but
although his most commercially successful, is not recognized by many (including myself) as having
the same lasting influence that his earlier work did. Dave Bowie is still recording at this time
having moved in a more techno direction that's more akin to his groundbreaking work done with 
Brian Eno, although, he's never been able to recapture the musical force he had during the 70s,
his albums, along with some of the artist he produced during that period (most notably Iggy Pop
and Lou Reed) remain as relevant and vital as they did when they were released.