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".

Career
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.

Discography
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 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 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 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 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

References

Category:1947 births
Category:2016 deaths
Category:Actors from Brixton
Category:Cancer deaths in New York City

Category:Deaths from liver cancer
Category:English movie actors
Category:English rock singers
Category:Webby Award winners
Category:Synth-pop singers
Category:Musicians from Brixton
Category:RCA Records artists