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DAVID
BOWIE'S EARLY YEARS
David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London, on
the 8th of January, 1947.
Influenced by all kinds of music, especially jazz, young David's first favoured instrument is the saxophone. Jazz legend Ronnie Ross helps him master the instrument by his mid-teens. David's brother Terry is a big influence on him, turning him onto jazz and Beat literature.
David's strikingly unique appearance was, the legend goes, due to a school fight with his friend George Underwood over a girl, which left him with his distinctive blue eye/grey eye combination. Though he's lucky to retain his sight, David bears no grudges, and George was later to design the 'Hunky Dory' album cover.
David's musical career begins in earnest in 1963, when he joins The King Bees. He is also to be in a number of other bands in the '60s, such as The Konrads, The Manish Boys, George And The Dragons, and, most famously, The Lower Third.
David's first big claim to fame was his appearance on a British TV show, aged 17, in 1964, when he was defending his, and other young males, choice of growing 'girlie' long hair. An amusing, and very dated slice of British television, as various middle aged men lined up to slag off the youngsters for being, in their eyes, 'effeminate'.
In the same year, David Jones released his first record under the official band name of Davy Jones And The King Bees - the single, 'Liza Jane'. It failed to make a big impression on the buying public. A little later, Jones was said to be sleeping in an ambulance, outside London's famous The Marquee, where he was performing regularly with The Lower Third. Poverty rather than choice being the reason. At this venue, David and The Lower Third supported The High Numbers, later to become The Who.
In 1966, The Monkees brought about the name we now know as David Bowie (named after the Davy Crockett hunting knife). With the success of The Monkees, and their own Davy Jones, there now wasn't room for two. Bowie's band then became The Buzz, and not long afterwards he went solo.
Bowie joined the trendy British label, Deram, in 1966 - made famous by The Moody Blues. Bowie's songwriting capabilities were there for all to see even then, with some really bare and quirky arrangements. 'Rubber Band' was a very strange and interesting first single on this label, with some comical brass, though the B-side, 'The London Boys', with its dark lyrics relating to drugs, peer pressure, and teenage angst, and a particular melancholy vocal, being the better track. David was not really looking at the commercial angle with these two numbers!
Bowie recorded quite a few luscious tracks at this time also, including 'Sell Me A Coat', 'When I Live My Dream', 'There Is A Happy Land', and 'Karma Man'. The most famous song of this period was 'The Laughing Gnome', originally recorded in 1967. This song was to make number 6, in the UK, in 1973. It contained cringe-making wordplay, but was funny nonetheless, and it was nice to see the oft-maligned seriousness of Bowie being turned on its head. Other tracks from this time included a not very commercial track alluding to child abuse - 'Little Bombardier', the wistful 'Let Me Sleep Beside You', and a song rich with witty, clever lyrics, 'She's Got Medals'. In fact, the lyrics of Bowie's early material were markedly different to the mainstream pop and rock of the time. The British actor/singer, Anthony Newley, was having a big influence on the young Bowie, with slight Newley impersonations creeping into some of his early work. Bowie was also getting more and more interested in mime, filmmaking, and Buddhism as the decade neared its end.
Meeting the mime artist, Lindsay Kemp, really triggered Bowie's interest in this medium, and it was at a mime class in 1968 that David fell in love for the first time, when he met the exotically-named Hermione Farthingale. They were to be seen dancing together on the BBC 2 costume drama, 'The Pistol Shot'. The relationship lasted a year, and, when it ended, Bowie was cut up enough to describe how he felt as "like a disease". In this year, Bowie supported Marc Bolan's new band, T-Rex, at The Royal Festival Hall, London. Also this year, the young singer/songwriter was asked to write some lyrics for a French tune. They were never used, but Paul Anka's were - and the song was to be made immortal by Frank Sinatra as 'My Way'.
Success was to come, however, in 1969 - probably the most dramatic year of David's whole life. David had to try and cope with the sudden death of his father in this year, and had to sort out his dad's estate at the tender age of 22. This was also the year Bowie first met Angela, to be better known later as Angie. The young Bowie was to see this as the year he 'made it', career-wise. He had a small role in the film, 'The Virgin Soldiers', and 1969 was the year of his musical breakthrough. 'Space Oddity' reached number 5 in the UK charts - the week man first walked on the moon. The '70s were to become a more successful decade...
- Paul Rance.
David Bowie Websites
Bassman's David Bowie Page
Bowie Art
BowieLive.com
BowieNet
David Bowie - Columbia
Records site
David Bowie fanclub: Velvet
Goldmine (Italian site)
David Bowie (German site)
David Bowie - Heroes
Davd Bowie: Moonage Daydream
(Italian site)
David Bowie - Teenage
Wildlife
David Bowie - Wonderworld Fan
Site
Little Wonder - A David Bowie
Website
Stardust - The David Bowie
Fanlisting
The Ziggy Stardust Companion
- A David Bowie Website
David
Bowie Resources
David Bowie - Rockmine
Archives
David Bowie Tabs
The David Bowie Press Archive
David
Bowie Newsgroups
alt.fan.david-bowie
|
David Bowie Books - dozens of David related books
David
Bowie CD Albums available from Amazon.co.uk
Aladdin Sane
All Saints
Black Tie White Noise
Bowie at the Beeb
Changesbowie
Club Bowie - Rare And Unreleased
12" Mixes
David Live
Diamond Dogs
Early On
Earthling
Heathen
Hours
Hunky Dory
Labyrinth
Let's Dance
Lodger
Low
Amazon.co.uk Review
The first part of a loosely affiliated trilogy (Heroes and
Lodger were to follow), Low is in part a synthesis
of 1970's disco, funk and New Wave as well as a brave foray in to
wordless electronic ambience. The opening salvo of songs and
up-tempo instrumentals contains the single "Sound and
Vision", which shudders under the archness of Bowie deadpan
vocals. Elsewhere, Bowie inhabits the brilliantly starchy
European funk of "Breaking Glass" and "Always
Crashing in the Same Car". That Bowie found a like mind in
the eternally innovative Brian Eno is no surprise; the success of
the four instrumental pieces that close Low can be
attributed in no small way to the production contributions of the
ex- Roxy Music keyboard player turned ambient pioneer. Bowie and
Eno's experiments in a Berlin recording studio would have a
massive influence on the music of subsequent decades. For this
reason alone, Low is an essential David Bowie album. --James
Littlewood
Never Let Me Down
1966
Outside
Pin Ups
Reality
Scary Monsters
Amazon.co.uk Review
The last of David Bowie's long run of classic albums is best
remembered for its superb electropop-ish hit singles "Ashes
To Ashes" and "Fashion". But while these may be
representative of the record's quality, they're very different in
sound to the rest of the album. Scary Monsters is fiercely
and unforgivingly a rock album, reflecting strongly the
influences of both British and American post-punk artists,
particularly Television's Tom Verlaine, one of whose songs,
"Kingdom Come", appears here. The uncompromising Robert
Fripp plays a significant role, which he accurately described as
"spraying burning guitar all over" the songs. Scary
Monsters is Bowie's most abrasive and ferocious piece of
work, and its power to needle and astonish has remained undimmed
over the years. --David Bennun
Space Oddity
Space Oddity/Hunky Dory/The Man Who
Sold the World (Box Set)
Station to Station
The Best of Bowie
The Best of David Bowie (1969-1974)
The Best of David Bowie (1974-1979)
The Deram Anthology (1966-1968)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
and the Spiders from Mars
Amazon.co.uk Review
Of all David Bowie's many distinctive personae, none have done
more to lodge this most ingenious of British artists in the
world's consciousness than his 1972 amalgam of the alien visitor
and Christ-like rock star: Ziggy Stardust. Cheap glamour,
spacemen and ambiguous sexuality surface throughout the loosely
conceptualised collection that is The Rise and Fall of Ziggy
Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. If its premise sounds
faintly ludicrous, then inspired and dramatic songs such as
"Starman" and "Five Years" dispel all doubts
about Bowie's genius, and the theatrically tragic "Rock 'n'
Roll Suicide" brings the album and it's fictional
protagonist to a close. As a cultural and musical signpost, Ziggy
Stardust points simultaneously backwards to early rock & roll
and forward to the simpler, tougher inclinations of late-1970s
punk and New Wave rock. As one of the defining rock albums of the
20th century, its influence is immeasurable. --James
Littlewood
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
and the Spiders from Mars - LIVE
The Singles Collection
Tin Machine
Tonight
Young Americans
David Bowie CD Albums available from Amazon.com
David Bowie at America's CD Universe
Paul Rance at booksmusicfilmsTV.com nominates some of his iTunes fave artists and their iTunes Albums
In a Channel 4 programme in the UK it was revealed that DB was the 10th biggest selling artist in the British singles charts of the past 50 years, selling 9,392,410 records. Top three were 1. Cliff Richard, 2. Beatles, 3. Elvis.
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