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David was voted as the biggest music star of the 20th century, beating Mick Jagger and Noel Gallagher, by readers of The Sun newspaper. Learn 50 facts about Bowie.
1. David Robert Jones was born in Brixton on January 8, 1947.
2. At age thirteen, inspired by the jazz of the London West End, he picked up the saxophone and called up Ronnie Ross for lessons.
3. Early bands he played with - The Kon-Rads, The King Bees, the Mannish Boys and the Lower Third -provided him with an introduction into the showy world of pop and mod, and by 1966 he was David Bowie, with long hair and aspirations of stardom rustling about his head.
4. Kenneth Pitt signed on as his manager, and his career began with a handful of mostly forgotten singles but a head full of ideas.
5. It was not until 1969 that the splash onto the charts would begin, with the legendary Space Oddity (which peaked at No. 5 in the UK).
6. Amidst his musical wanderings in the late 60s, he experimented with mixed media, cinema, mime, Tibetan Buddhism, acting and love.
7. The album, originally titled David Bowie then subsequently Man of Words, Man of Music, pays homage to all the influences of the London artistic scene. It shows the early song-writing talent that was yet to yield some of rock-n-roll's finest work, even if it would take the rest of the world a few years to catch up with him.
8. In May 1971 of the same year, Duncan Zowie Haywood Bowie was born to David and his then wife Angela.
9. The fact that David had also co-produced the terrifying and vastly influential Raw Power by Iggy and The Stooges that year, only added to his growing reputation as an artist to be taken most seriously.
10. Bowie later went on to produce further Iggy albums - The Idiot and Lust for Life and co-wrote China Girl from Let's Dance with the Detroit demon. He also produced Mott the Hoople (All The Young Dudes, for which he wrote the hit title track).
11. The US "Ziggy" tour began in September, with sold-out shows full of theatrically inspired Japanese costumes, snarling guitars courtesy of Mick Ronson, and a bold, daring approach to performance that propelled the audience into a rock-n-roll fervor. He abruptly put his own creation to rest on June 3, 1973 with the pronouncement: "Of all the shows on the tour, this one will stay with us the longest because not only is this the last show of the tour, but it is the last show we will ever do." This surprised everyone in the house - not least the members of his band.
12. Pin-Ups was the last time that Bowie would record an album with Mick Ronson on guitar and Ken Scott at the production helm.
13. In the summer of 1974, he undertook his greatest US tour yet, with an enormous set and choreographed tableaus. The double album David Live was recorded in Philadelphia's Tower Theatre, and serves as a souvenir of this tour.
14. Young Americans released in 1975. A collaboration with John Lennon on Fame came out of an impromptu session at Electric Ladyland in New York and was a last-minute addition to the LP. It resulted in Bowie's first ever No. 1 single in the US.
15. The album also featured another David discovery soon to be better known as R&B singer Luther Vandross. He contributed backing vocals alongside the other legendary young American musicians such as Willie Weeks, Andy Newmark, David Sanborn and Mike Garson.
16. Not long after the album came out, he moved to Los Angeles and starred in the cult classic Nic Roeg science fiction film The Man Who Fell To Earth.
17. The White Light tour followed, this time with an electronic-driven line-up, played out with Brecht- inspired theatricality.
18. Low and "Heroes" were recorded with collaborators Brian Eno, Tony Visconti and he adopted new approaches to the songwriting process. In an interview for French radio, Bowie said, "Berlin has the strange ability to make you write only the important things. Anything else you don't mention... and in the end you produce Low."
19. Recorded in France, Lodger was released in May 1979, and by the end of the year he was again in the studio. Rehearsals also began for his Broadway debut, in the part of the The Elephant Man, which opened in September 1980 to rave reviews.
20. In the same month, Scary Monsters was released and Bowie also recorded Under Pressure in 1981 in Switzerland and the song appeared on Queen's album Hot Space the following year. The song reached No. 1 in the UK.
21. After this period, he dropped out of the public eye, while remaining involved with various film projects.
22. 1982 saw him playing the male lead in The Hunger, the role of Celliers in the captivating World War 2 drama Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, alongside Tom Conti and Ryuichi Sakamoto ...writing the theme song for the movie Cat People.
23. Officially signed to EMI in 1983, the album Let's Dance followed along with the world-encompassing Serious Moonlight tour. Bowie had brilliantly reinvented himself once again. This time as the ultimate rock star, just in time to be at the forefront of stadium rock and a new era of mass media fuelled mega stardom.
24. Selling at least 7 million copies, Let's Dance became the most commercially successful album of his career and massively influenced a whole host of artists, including Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Boy George.
25. In 1988 brought the biggest surprise of all. Another sharp left turn: he had formed a new band, Tin Machine, with the Sales Brothers (Hunt and Tony, sons of Soupy) and a hot guitar find from Boston, Reeves Gabrels.
26. Meanwhile, Bowie set out on Sound and Vision with his first full-fledged greatest hits tour, recruiting long-time collaborator Adrian Belew to play lead guitar. In an innovative move, fans were allowed to pick the songs via phone poll. An album of the same name accompanied the tour on Rykodisc.
27. 1993 brought the long-awaited return to solo projects Black Tie White Noise and one of rock's first CD-ROMs entitled Jump.
28. 1996 was an extraordinarily active year even by David's own feverish standards, switching styles and moods effortlessly, embarking on a confrontational tour around the US with Nine Inch Nails and performing acoustically with Neil Young and Pearl Jam at the Bridge Benefit Concert in San Francisco.
29. As always Bowie was at the cutting the edge with the first ever download of a song distributed through the internet in 1996, Telling Lies. 350 thousand young Americans downloaded a copy.
30. He has been cited as a guiding star by The Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, among others.
31. He even reached into American film: the movie Basquiat, co-starring Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper, saw him playing the character he immortalized in his 1972 song Andy Warhol. The film's director was pre-eminent American painter, Julian Schnabel.
32. In January 1997, he celebrated his fiftieth birthday with an all-star performance at New York's Madison Square Garden. He was joined on stage by old friends Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, Robert Smith, Billy Corgan, Foo Fighters and Frank Black, all of whom played and sang with David to make it one of his most memorable shows.
33. 1998 saw the launch of BowieNet (www.davidbowie.com). BowieNet is the world's first artist-created Internet service provider.
34. 1999 was as busy a year as ever for Bowie. With his continuing work on his now highly acclaimed BowieNet website (a nominee for the 1999 WIRED Award for Best Entertainment Site of the Year), David has found time to work on a film Exhuming Mr. Rice, in which he plays the title role.
35. The year also saw the launch of the David Bowie Radio Network on the Rolling Stone Radio website.
36. David received an honorary doctorate in music from Berklee College of Music, Boston.
37. He also received the Legion d'honneur Award in France.
38. At the annual BRIT Awards ceremony, David joined the band for a performance of the Marc Bolan classic Twentieth Century Boy.
39. July saw David voted as the biggest music star of the 20th century, beating Mick Jagger and Noel Gallagher, by readers of The Sun newspaper.
40. David was voted the sixth Greatest Star of The Century by Q Magazine and its readers. In this poll David was the third highest-ranking star who is still alive.
41. There is never a "quiet" time in the life of David Bowie and during this period, David was bestowed the honor of being voted the most influential artist of all time by the UK's tastemaker tome the NME.
42. In addition, another life changing event took place, the birth of David and Iman's first child Alexandria Zahra Jones. Bowie took this time to savor fatherhood but also used the time to write a series of new songs which would form the basis for a new album.
43. David was in New York on September 11th, and in the aftermath David showed support for his adopted city by performing a short but emotional set at The Concert for New York City at Madison Square Garden. He opened the show with a raw rendition of the Simon and Garfunkel classic America and followed with an uplifting and barnstorming rendition of his own "Heroes".
44. The release of Heathen was accompanied by a series of concerts across Europe and the USA most notably David's curatorship of the prestigious two week long British Meltdown arts festival involving acts as diverse as The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Suede, comedian Harry Hill, Coldplay, Television and The Dandy Warhols. David performed Low in its entirety alongside Heathen as part of the festival.
45. In 2006 he joined Pink Floyd legend Dave Gilmour on two of Floyd's best-known songs - Arnold Layne and Comfortably Numb at the Royal Albert Hall.
46. 2006 also saw Bowie return to acting with the Chris Nolan-directed The Prestige (#1 at the box office).
47. In May 2007, Bowie was the curator of the highly successful 10-day High Line arts and music festival in New York.
48. In June 2007, he was honored at the 11th Annual Webby Awards (known as the "Oscars of the Internet") with the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for pushing the boundaries between art and technology.
49. Later in 2007, Bowie starred as himself in an acclaimed episode of Extras, Ricky Gervais' series on HBO.
50. Further excitement accompanied the announcement in 2012, that the David Bowie Archive had given unprecedented access to the prestigious Victoria and Albert museum for an exhibition to be curated solely by the V&A. It is the first time a museum has been given access to the David Bowie Archive.
Source: davidbowie.com
