David Bowie
by
Jolene Williams
Introduction
When he was born, no one knew he would become such an iconic and unique person in Rock ‘n’ Roll history. He was different than most of the musicians at the time. He was extremely talented in a positive way. He never failed to amaze people from when he started his career to when he passed away. Early Years He was born in Brixton, South London, England, on January 8, 1947. His original name was David Robert Jones. He was showing interest in music from an early age and started playing the saxophone at age 13. His older brother, Terry, showed him new music and beat literature. His brother had mental illness, and the family sent him into an institution. It haunted David for most of his life.
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He later went and started his own mime troupe called Feathers. He met Angela Barnett, they ended up getting married on March 20, 1970. They had one son nicknamed “Zowie” in 1971, before divorcing in 1980. His birth name is Duncan Jones. In early 1969, he returned to music full time. He signed a deal with Mercury Records and he released “Space Oddity”. BBC radio played the song during their cover of the Apollo 11 moon landing. He rose to fame after his album “The Man Who Sold The World” in 1970. In it was a song “All The Madmen” about his brother Terry. A little after that, he claimed he was gay and changed his stage name to “Ziggy Stardust”. His backing group were “The Spiders From Mars”. He dressed in wild costumes and was portraying himself as Ziggy Stardust. He produced albums for Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. He made the album “Aladdin Sane” in 1973. It had the songs “The Jean Genie” and “Let’s Spend The Night Together” which were also collaborations with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Around the time he released the album “Pin Ups” which was an album filled with cover songs of popular bands, like Pink Floyd or Pretty Things. In the middle of the 1970’s, he stopped wearing the weird costumes. He released albums “David Live” in 1974 and “Young Americans” in 1975. It included the song “Fame: which was co-written with John Lennon. It became his first American number one single. In 1980, he moved to American and lived