Biographic - Sunday January 8, 2017 Comic Strip Licensing and Permissions

Transcript

David Bowie Born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London, on January 8, 1947, he honed his musical skills with stints in a number of bands, performing under the name Davie Jones. When he launched his solo career to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees, he changed his name to David Bowie. He experimented with dance, mime, acting, avant-garde theatre, and novelty songs before "Space Oddity" gave him a top-five hit in the U.K in 1969. His star continued to rise with the albums "The Man Who Sold The World" and "Hunky Dory." he had cultivated an androgynous image... and when that morphed into his Ziggy Stardust space alien persona, Bowie was catapulted to stardom at the forefront of the glam rock movement. He shocked his fans when, at the height of Ziggymania, he retired the character and embarked on a series of image changes. The music was ever-changing too, from "Americans" to his "Station To Station" thin White Duke" period. He had been living in Los Angeles but decamped to Berlin in the late 1970s, diving into electronic music with such acclaimed albums as "Low" and "Heroes" his production skills reinvigorated the careers of both Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. The early 1980s saw him conquer the worlds pop charts thanks to hits such as "Lets Dance" over the next couple of decades, he continued to experiment with musical styles. His acting career saw him star on stage and screen, from "The Elephant Man" on Broadway through such movies as "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" to voicing a character in the TV movie "Spongebob's Atlantis Squarepants" Diagnosed with liver cancer in 2014, he kept the news private and threw himself into his work. He composed the music and lyrics to the off-broadway play "Lazarus" which opened in late 2015. On his 69th birthday, he released the album "Blackstar" and died two days later, the album topped the charts in many territories, as the world mourned the death of one of rock's greatest innovators.

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