David Bowie: Superstar from suburbia who changed the face of rock music

Icon: David Bowie's career spanned six decades
Jo Hale/Getty Images
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

David Bowie became one of the most successful recording artists of all time, selling 140 million albums worldwide in a career that spanned six decades, in which he repeatedly reinvented himself and changed the face of music.

He was born in Brixton in 1947 on January 8 - Elvis Presley’s birthday - to mother Peggy, a waitress, and father John, a publicist for the Dr Barnardo’s charity.

In a lifetime of ever fluctuating identities, the first was David Robert Jones, a boy from grey post-war south London.

When he was six his parents moved to Bromley, where their youngest son showed his first glimmerings of musical talent singing in the choir and playing recorder at Burnt Ash junior school before starting to learn the saxophone.

David Bowie - in pictures

1/21

Bowie’s father and older half-brother Terry, who suffered from severe mental illness for much of his life, introduced the young Bowie to music from American artists such as Fats Domino and Elvis Presley.

After failing his 11-plus Bowie joined Bromley Technical High School where the art department was run by Owen Frampton, father of guitarist and long time collaborator Peter.

In 1962 Bowie was badly injured at school when a friend, George Underwood, punched him in the left eye in a dispute over a girl, leaving it permanently dilated.

Before leaving school with one O-level - in art - Bowie formed his first band, the Konrads. He would be a member of 10 bands over the course of his career.

His debut single, Liza Jane, came in June 1964 and was credited to Davie Jones with the King-Bees. It sank without trace, as did a series of subsequent releases.

He changed his name in 1965 to avoid confusion with the Monkees lead singer Davy Jones, choosing Bowie after the inventor of the fighting knife, Jim Bowie.

The first single under his new name, The Laughing Gnome, also flopped and was followed by debut album David Bowie, which also failed to chart.

Following these setbacks Bowie withdrew from music for two years, a time when he experimented with influences such as Buddhism, spending several weeks at a Tibetan monastery in Scotland.

In July 1969 his breakthrough single Space Oddity was released five days before the launch of the Apollo 11 moon mission and was used in the BBC’s coverage of the landings.

That year Bowie also met his first wife Angela Barnett and they were married in March 1970.

Their son Zowie Bowie - now known as Duncan Jones - was born the following year.

Bowie’s next album, The Man Who Sold The World, propelled Bowie to global stardom. It was regarded by critics as the first of 13 consecutive classic releases.

In 1972 Bowie’s profile was raised even further when he launched his musical alter-ego Ziggy Stardust at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth, south-west London.

A dizzying sequence of dramatic changes in personae and musical style — including the Thin White Duke — followed through the Seventies, when he became addicted to drugs.

At the same time Bowie began earning a reputation as an impressive actor with the lead role as an alien from a dying planet in The Man Who Fell To Earth in 1976.

In 1980 he took the title role in a Broadway production of The Elephant Man, a part he played 157 times. He continued to act for much of the rest of his career.

In 1976 Bowie moved to Switzerland and later Berlin to clean up and revive his career. He worked with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, and released a trilogy of hugely influential albums.

The Eighties saw a peak of commercial success with the Let’s Dance album as well as his Dancing In The Street duet with Mick Jagger at Live Aid in 1985.

In 1990, a decade after his divorce from Angie, he met his second wife, the Somali-born supermodel Iman, and they married in 1992.

His musical career was languishing by this time but his personal wealth was secured when he issued $55 million of “Bowie bonds” backed by the rights from his back catalogue in 1997.

In 2004 Bowie had a major health scare when he suffered a heart attack while on stage in Germany, although he made a full recovery.

His status as one of Britain’s greatest cultural icons was secured in 2013 when the Victoria & Albert museum displayed more than 300 items connected with his life at the retrospective exhibition “David Bowie Is...”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT