David Bowie

**David Robert Jones** OAL (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally by his stage name **David Bowie**, was an English rock music musician and actor.

## Early life

David Robert Jones was born on 8 January 1947 in 40 Stansfield Road, Brixton, London.He grew up in Bromley, Kent. He played the saxophone. He was a singer in London blues bands. He used the alias _David Bowie_ because _David Jones_ sounded too much like Davy Jones (of The Monkees). He took the name _Bowie_ from Jim Bowie, who invented the Bowie knife.

Bowie became known to the public with the 1969 song "Space Oddity". This single was released when man first landed on the moon. The song's title is based on the movie _2001: A Space Odyssey_ by Stanley Kubrick. In 1970, Bowie won an Ivor Novello Award for "Space Oddity".

### Ziggy Stardust

Bowie's album _The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars_ was released in 1972. It is one of his best-known albums. As a result of his performance, Bowie became a leader of glam rock.

Ziggy Stardust became Bowie's second personality (alter ego). For a press conference, he would show up as Ziggy. Bowie let Ziggy Stardust come to an end during a live concert in the Hammersmith Odeon theatre on 3 July 1973. In 1983, this show was released as movie and soundtrack (_Ziggy Stardust – The Motion Picture_). Bowie also produced Lou Reed's "Transformer". He released "Aladdin Sane" (his first number one album in the United Kingdom).

### Los Angeles and Berlin

In 1974, after releasing the album "Diamond Dogs", Bowie settled in Los Angeles. He experimented with drugs, especially cocaine. In 1975, "Fame" (from the _Young Americans_ album) a song co-written with John Lennon, was number 1 on the United States charts. Bowie played an alien in the movie _The Man Who Fell To Earth_. A new second personality was _The Thin White Duke_. This was introduced on the _Station to Station_ album in 1976. The song "Golden Years" scored high in the pop charts. In 2003, the album was ranked number 323 on _Rolling Stone_ magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

After releasing _Station to Station_, Bowie moved to Berlin. He was interested in German music. He wanted to end his drug abuse. In Berlin, he started to work with producer Tony Visconti and with Brian Eno, the "king of oblique strategies". Bowie was a producer for Iggy Pop too. The _Berlin Trilogy Albums_ are _Low_ (1977), _Heroes_ (1977) and _Lodger_ (1979), although only _Heroes_ was recorded entirely in Berlin.

### 1980s

Bowie left Berlin in 1980. In 1980 he recorded and released the album _Scary Monsters And Super Creeps_, featuring the United Kingdom number 1 single "Ashes To Ashes". In 1981, he had a big hit with "Under Pressure", together with Queen: it peaked at number 1 on United Kingdom charts. In 1983, Bowie released _Let's Dance_, his biggest selling album. The title track peaked at number 1 in the United Kingdom and the United States Of America.

In 1984, Bowie won a Brit Award as Best Male Artist. In 1985, he won a Grammy Award for Best Video (Short Form). Yet in 1985, David Bowie and Mick Jagger released the charity single "Dancing In The Street". In 1986, Bowie released the hit-single "Absolute Beginners".

### Tin Machine

In 1989, Bowie formed the band Tin Machine. This was his first real band since the 1970s. With this band, Bowie recorded three albums: _Tin Machine_ (1989), _Tin Machine II_ (1991) and the live album _Oy Vey, Baby_ (1992).

### 1990s–2010s

By the 1990s, Bowie had become more interested in soul, jazz and hip hop. This was first noticed on the album _Black Tie, White Noise_.

Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 17 January 1996.

In 2013, after a ten years hiatus, Bowie released his twenty-fifth album, _The Next Day_. In 2014, he was nominated for Best Rock Album at the Grammy Awards  and won a Brit Award for Best Male Artist.

His last album, _Blackstar_, was released on 8 January 2016. That was his 69th birthday and two days before his death. After Bowie's death, _Blackstar_ reached number one in the United Kingdom and in the United States: it was the only Bowie album to peak at number one in the United States. In 2017 "Blackstar" won 5 Grammy Awards. "Blackstar" also won a Brit Award for the Best Album and David Bowie also won a Brit Award for Best Male Artist.

## Personal life

Bowie married Mary Angela Barnett in 1970 to 1980. They have one son together, Duncan Jones (born 1971). Bowie married Somali-American supermodel Iman in 1992 until his death. Their daughter, Alexandria Jones, was born in 2000. He also has a stepdaughter, Zulekha Haywood (born 1978) from his wife's previous marriage, American basketball player, Spencer Haywood.

## Illness and death

In June 2014, Bowie was diagnosed a liver cancer. He died in Manhattan, New York City, on 10 January 2016 two days after his 69th birthday. His remains were later cremated on 14 January in a private ceremony in New York.

### Studio albums

|Year|Album details||
| --- | --- | --- |
|1967|_David Bowie_ * Release date: August 11, 1967 * Label: Deram Records||
|1969|_David Bowie_ * Release date: November 14, 1969 * Label: Philips Records||
|1970|_The Man Who Sold the World_ * Release date: November 4. 1970 * Label: Mercury Records||
|1971|_Hunky Dory_ * Release date: December 4, 1971 * Label: RCA Records||
|rowspan="2"|1972|_The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars_ * Release date: June 6, 1972 * Label: RCA Records|
|_Space Oddity_ * Release date: November 10, 1972 * Label: RCA Records|||
|rowspan="2"|1973|_Aladdin Sane_ * Release date: April 19, 1973 * Label: RCA Records|
|_Pin Ups_ * Release date: October 19, 1973 * Label: RCA Records|||
|1974|_Diamond Dogs_ * Release date: May 24, 1974 * Label: RCA Records||
|1975|_Young Americans_ * Release date: March 8, 1975 * Label: RCA Records||
|1976|_Station to Station_ * Release date: January 23, 1976 * Label: RCA Records||
|rowspan="2"|1977|_Low_ * Release date: January 14, 1977 * Label: RCA Records|
|_"Heroes"_ * Release date: October 14, 1977 * Label: RCA Records|||
|1978|_David Bowie Narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf_ * Release date: May 2, 1978 * Label: RCA Red Seal Records||
|1979|_Lodger_ * Release date: May 25, 1979 * Label: RCA Records||
|1980|_Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)_ * Release date: September 12, 1980 * Label: RCA Records||
|1983|_Let's Dance_ * Release date: April 14, 1983 * Label: EMI America Records||
|1984|_Tonight_ * Release date: September 24, 1984 * Label: EMI America Records||
|1987|_Never Let Me Down_ * Release date: April 21, 1987 * Label: EMI America Records||
|1992|_David Bowie Narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf_ * Release date: February 11, 1992 * Label: RCA Victor||
|rowspan="2"|1993|_Black Tie White Noise_ * Release date: April 5, 1993 * Label: Arista Records|
|_The Buddha of Suburbia_ * Release date: November 8, 1993 * Label: Arista Records|||
|1995|_Outside_ * Release date: September 26, 1995 * Label: Virgin Records||
|1997|_Earthling_ * Release date: February 11, 1997 * Label: Virgin Records||
|1999|_Hours_ * Release date: October 5, 1999 * Label: Virgin Records||
|2002|_Heathen_ * Release date: June 11, 2002 * Label: Columbia Records||
|2003|_Reality_ * Release date: September 16, 2003 * Label: Columbia Records||
|2007|_The Buddha of Suburbia_ * Release date: October 2, 2007 * Label: Virgin Records||
|2013|_The Next Day_ * Release date: March 12, 2013 * Label: Columbia Records||
|2016|_Blackstar_ * Release date: January 8, 2016 * Label: Columbia Records||
|2018|_Never Let Me Down 2018_ * Release date: October 12, 2018 * Label: Parlophone||
|2021|_Toy_ * Release date: November 26, 2021 * Label: Parlophone||

## Infobox (musical artist)

- **embed**: yes


## Infobox (person)

- **name**: David Bowie
- **honorific suffix**: Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, OAL
- **image**: David-Bowie Chicago 2002-08-08 photoby Adam-Bielawski-cropped.jpg
- **alt**: Bowie smiling
- **caption**: David Bowie in August 2002
- **birth name**: David Robert Jones
- **birth place**: London, England
- **death place**: New York City, US
- **years active**: 1962–2016
- **children**: 2, including Duncan Jones
- **awards**: List of awards and nominations received by David Bowie, Full list