David Bowie has died after a battle with cancer, his representative confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
“David
Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous
18 month battle with cancer. While many of you will share in this loss,
we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of
grief,” read a statement posted on the artist’s official social media
accounts.
The
influential singer-songwriter and producer dabbled in glam rock, art
rock, soul, hard rock, dance pop, punk and electronica during his
eclectic 40-plus-year career.
Bowie’s
artistic breakthrough came with 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy
Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, an album that fostered the notion of
rock star as space alien. Fusing British mod with Japanese kabuki
styles and rock with theater, Bowie created the flamboyant, androgynous
alter ego Ziggy Stardust.
Three
years later, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success
with the No. 1 single “Fame” off the top 10 album Young Americans, then
followed with the 1976 avant-garde art rock LP Station to Station, which
made it to No. 3 on the charts and featured top 10 hit “Golden Years.”
Other
memorable songs included 1983’s “Let’s Dance” — his only other No. 1
U.S. hit — “Space Oddity,” “Heroes,” “Changes,” “Under Pressure,” “China
Girl,” “Modern Love,” “Rebel, Rebel,” “All the Young Dudes,” “Panic in
Detroit,” “Fashion,” “Life on Mars,” “Suffragette City” and a 1977
Christmas medley with Bing Crosby.
See More: Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2015
With
his different-colored eyes (the result of a schoolyard fight) and
needlelike frame, Bowie was a natural to segue from music into curious
movie roles, and he starred as an alien seeking help for his dying
planet in Nicolas Roeg’s surreal The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976).
Critics later applauded his three-month Broadway stint as the misshapen
lead in 1980’s The Elephant Man.
Bowie
also starred in Marlene Dietrich’s last film, Just a Gigolo (1978),
portrayed a World War II prisoner of war in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
(1983), and played Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese’s The Last
Temptation of Christ (1988). And in another groundbreaking move, Bowie,
who always embraced technology, became the first rock star to morph into
an Internet Service Provider with the launch in September 1998 of
BowieNet.
Born
David Jones in London on Jan. 8, 1947, Bowie changed his name in 1966
after The Monkees’ Davy Jones achieved stardom. He played saxophone and
started a mime company, and after stints in several bands he signed with
Mercury Records, which in 1969 released his album Man of Words, Man of
Music, which featured “Space Oddity,” a poignant song about an
astronaut, Major Tom, spiraling out of control.
In
an attempt to stir interest in Ziggy Stardust, Bowie revealed in a
January 1972 magazine interview that he was gay — though that might have
been a publicity stunt — dyed his hair orange and began wearing women’s
garb. The album became a sensation.
Wrote
rock critic Robert Christgau: “This is audacious stuff right down to
the stubborn wispiness of its sound, and Bowie’s actorly intonations add
humor and shades of meaning to the words, which are often witty and
rarely precious, offering an unusually candid and detailed vantage on
the rock star’s world.”
Bowie
changed gears in 1975. Becoming obsessed with the dance/funk sounds of
Philadelphia, his self-proclaimed “plastic soul”-infused Young Americans
peaked at No. 9 with the single “Fame,” which he co-wrote with John
Lennon and guitarist Carlos Alomar.
After
the soulful but colder Station to Station, Bowie again confounded
expectations after settling in Germany by recording the atmospheric 1977
album Low, the first of his “Berlin Trilogy” collaborations with
keyboardist Brian Eno.
In
1980, Bowie brought out Scary Monsters, which cast a nod to the Major
Tom character from “Space Oddity” with the sequel “Ashes to Ashes.” He
followed with Tonight in 1984 and Never Let Me Down in 1987 and
collaborations with Queen, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, The Pat Metheny
Group and others. He formed the quartet Tin Machine (his brother Tony
played drums), but the band didn’t garner much critical acclaim or
commercial gain with two albums.
Bowie
returned to a solo career with 1993’s Black Tie White Noise, which saw
him return to work with his Spider From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson, then
recorded 1995’s Outside with Eno and toured with Nine Inch Nails as his
opening act. He returned to the studio in 1996 to record the
techno-influenced Earthling. Two more albums, 1999’s hours … and 2002’s
Heathen, followed.
Bowie
also produced albums for, among others, Lou Reed, The Stooges and Moot
the Hoople, for which he wrote the song “All the Young Dudes.” He earned
a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 2006.
More to come.
end quote from:https://www.yahoo.com/music/legendary-artist-david-bowie-dies-69-064252101.html
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