David Bowie: Sound and Vision

There was a double-page advert for the Bowie album

Just as punk was imploding, the ad showed him dressed

as a clown, with the tag line, "often copied, never equalled."

And those four words may perfectly sum up the life and work of David

He is actually a very difficult artist to describe.

He was a singer who loved mime, an actor who said he didn't enjoy

the stage, a 70s star who embraced every new piece of technology.

He wrote the most brilliant songs; he sang about love,

He may well have been the greatest solo musician British pop

Perhaps you only need two words to sum him up: rock star.

# We could be Heroes # Just for one day... #

David Bowie released his 25th album on Friday, Blackstar, coinciding

with his 69th birthday. He was a big bang in his own right, his creative

DNA is everywhere.

We could be Heroes... was his 1977 single.

Bowie was the hero, an icon to music fans of every stripe whose influence

seemed to encompass teenage pop lovers and the musical avant-garde

with equal ease. He played his first gig as David Bowie here at what was

London's Marquee Club in 1965. Before that, he'd been known as

Davey Jones but changed his name to avoid confusion with the lead singer

of the Monkees, the first re-Birt in what would become a career

characterised by relentless revolution.

# Ground control to Major Tom # Take your protein pills... #

Four years later in 1969, he produced his breakthrough hit, Space

Oddity, a top-5 single. The songs were a precursor to the alter ego

he'd unleash a few years later. Do you get nervous? I'm shaking,

yes. The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust

and the Spiders from Mars captured the imagination of pop-loving

British teenagers but it broke boundaries, not just because of the

music. I was never confident of my voice you see, as a singer. So I

thought rather than just sing them which would probably bore the pants

off everyone, I would like to portray the songs.

# There's a Starman # Waiting in the sky... #

This 1972 Top of the Pops performance featuring Bowie with his

arms slung around Mick Ronson's shoulders is cited by many as the

moment the '70s exploded bringing into the living rooms a conversation

the country itself wasn't yet ready to have about sexuality, gender and

outside culture. The reason I do things that I do is because I like

startling people. Startling? Yes. Something to do. By the mid '70s,

Bowie reinvented himself once again. He travelled to Berlin in a bid to

escape his drug problems. The trilogy of albums he produced

between 1977 and 1979 would go on to change the face of contemporary

music. At the time, they took many fans by surprise. His sound was

darker and more daring and once more brought the cutting edge into the

mainstream. He collaborated with Brian Eno and

Iggy Pop, was influenced by confident craftwork and was inspired

by disciplines outside music too. Using William Burroughs cut-up

technique to create lyrics. 1980 brought the new wave, but rather

than being swept away, Bowie was going along for the ride. Ashes to

Ashes introduced the new romantic movement to a global audience with a

ground-breaking video ready made for the MTV age.

# Pressure pushing down on me... # The following year, his

collaboration with Queen Under Pressure, would give him his third

number one. His dark side was under control for now. He was slick, soul

influenced and a huge success. Niall Rodgers produced the next album

Let's Dance, a Transatlantic success that surprised Bowie.

# Put on your red shoes # And dance the blues... #

His new sound was at home on huge stages, the success of his serious

moonlight stadium tour was followed a few years later by an iconic

performance at 1985's Live Aid. During the 90s, he experimented with

electronic, Ne-Yo classical and industrial sounds, worked on sound

tracks and continued to perform live, include an appearance at

Glastonbury in 2000. But four years later, after

suffering a heart attack on stage, Bowie withdrew from the public eye.

There were rumours of ill health and occasional collaborations, but other

than that, silence. Then in 2013, came The Next Day. A hit with

critics and fans, it saw Bowie revisiting his musical past and

alter egos. The lyrics acquire add new poignancy and there was a sense

of a man taking stock, making peace with his past.

# Look up here # I'm in heaven... #

The final release, Blackstar, now seems like a parting gift. After the

news of his death broke this morning, fans shared the lyrics to

lead single Lazarus, a transen Dan goodbye apparently written to be

delivered posthumously, as long-time producer Tony Visconti wrote this

morning, his life was no different to his death, a work of London 2012.

Extraordinary images in that video. Why do you think we have seen such a

reaction today? Well, I mean a few reasons, obviously it's

proportionate to his influence, you know, a huge reaction just mirroring

the massive influence that David Bowie had. We went on air on 6 music

this morning from 10 and for three hours we just received message after

message, hundreds and hundreds from listeners. It was similar for you at

Radio Two. What was interesting to me was that these were people who

love all different kinds of music and that came up frequently. Bowie,

whether you were into electronic music, dance music, classical music,

avan gart music, you were just a pop fan, there was an access point for

you, he was also an artist that influenced generation after

generation. For many of my listeners today we had several people talking

about the way that he's tied up with their family memories. Obviously

that just makes it incredibly personal, it's a personal loss to

music fans because David Bowie changed the way that we saw the

world and do you know what, even if you are not a big music fan, he's

one of those artists that has become part of British culture. There's a

certain point where an artist is so kind of ingrained in who we are as a

country and obviously now we talk about soft power and what Britain

actually is, he's Mart of our national identity -- part. He's a

huge loss. The second thing is just shock. Nobody knew this was coming.

There's been this really moving poignant reflective mood on the last

two albums, certainly. But nobody expected this today.

Thank you, Lauren Laverne We began by talking about the music,

but David Bowie was also Whether it was his album covers,

or sessions with photographers, the way he dressed on stage or just

when he was out and about, the image of David Bowie

was always cutting edge. He was an artist for the eye

as well as the ear. And he became a fashion icon,

as our Arts Correspondent Rebecca . His sound took him to the top of

the charts but his look helped make David Bowie a star.

# The make-up on his face... # From the mod style of his teens,

through the glam rock of Ziggy Stardust, to the tailoring of the

then White Duke, David Bowie understand the importance of fashion

as a means of self-expression. A 17-year-old David Jones has just

founded the Society for The prevention of cruelty to long-haired

men... This was after all the man who when interviewed by the BBC back

in 1964 was already challenging conformity. For the last two years

we've had comments like darling and, can I carry your hand bag thrown at

us. It has to stop now. The photographer, Terry O'Neill, worked

with him regularly. When it came to photographing him, he always

provided the clothes. I mean, I always trusted him because he'd

always have his look planned and what he wanted to look like, so I

went along with it. I didn't always agree wit but I always went along

with it. How did you come to photograph Elizabeth Taylor and

David Bowie? When I was in LA, Liz Taylor rang me up and said, I would

love to meet David Bowie, bring him down to the house. So I did.

Unfortunatelies he was four hours late and so she was on the verge of

walking out and of course she never gave him the part in the picture,

but later on they became really, really good friends. It was

impossible not to have a friendship with David Bowie once you met him.

At times, he reflected total masculinity, but other times he

looked very feminine, you know, and very, that was part of his appeal.

He was loved by men and women. I mean, everyone, I can't think of a

person in my life I've met who doesn't like him. Ever.

The retrospective exhibition at the V A museum in 2013 documented

David Bowie's influence on fashion, design and sexuality. With his

flamboyant make-up, clothes and hair styles, he rejected conventional

masculinity. David Bowie made it cool to be different. I wanted to

turn people on to new things and new perspectives he once said. "I'm not

content just writing songs. ". Because Bowie operated

under so many guises, he is a very hard

artist to pin down. He was the Ziggy Stardust,

then The Thin White Duke, then the bleach-blonde '80s pop

star of Let's Dance. He had lighter pop years,

and serious Berlin years, So for us, Sean Keaveny, who does

the Breakfast Show on BBC 6 Music, From the album Aladdin Sane,

he's chosen Jean Genie. # A small Jean Genie

snuck off to the city # Strung out on lasers

and slash-back blazers # Ate all your razors

while pulling the waiters # Talking 'bout Monroe

and walking on Snow White A staggering piece of footage from

1973, a live Top of the Pops performance from Ziggy Stardust and

the Spiders from Mars and Bowie and you can tell it's live. You can

listen to Mick Ronson's guitar sound and the way it sounds, like a van

full of police dogs. Unbelievably violent. Like the Stooges, MC 5

meets the Beatles. That was the mixture that got David where he got

to very, very quickly in 1972-73, with this kind of music.

# The Jean Genie loves chimney stacks

# He's outrageous, he screams and he bawls (Jean Genie)

It's ambiguous, up for grabs and they just don't know they are

getting off with each other. It looks possible to me. I love the

ambiguity of this particular clip. Just take a look at the man. This is

1973, a colossal culture shock for everybody, this, the shock of the

new, that's what we are seeing here. A wonderful thing to see. Shirtless,

total confidence. Brilliant. It's kind of a play on Jean Genie, a

revolutionary French novelist and playwright who used to talk in a

fort right manner about homosexuality, so there's that

running through it. But Jean Genie is supposed to be relevant to Iggy

Pop as well. It's one of the greatest rock'n'roll performances of

all-time. There has been a global reaction to

the death. Bowie spent his last years and days in New York. You can

see now the scene outside his apartment in the Soho area of

Manhattan. You can see the flowers there and well-wishers who have

arrived. Radio stations are playing Bowie records and the city very much

Bowie's home now and for some years. And where he spent his final days as

well. USA, the place where he forged that plastic soul when he did his

album Young Americans in 1975. That's the scene in New York.

Now to the LA and Mike Garson joins us.

Did you have a sense of his creative power, Mike? It was the highlight of

my life. Every time I toured with him and on every album I played

because he was the best producer I have ever worked with because he

didn't micromanage, he had a vision, he would gently say it, and the

music flowed out of my fingers on to the piano and into the recording

studio. I mean, it was magical working with him on every single

album we did and every tour we did, which had to be 10 or 15, plus these

18 albums over the years. I had a blessing to really get to create

with him and co-create with him over his long stretch of time, from 2000

- well, 1972 to 2005 when we finished our last tour. It was a

very long period you spent with him. Was there any particular album where

he almost brought you into that creative process and you saw it

happening? It happened on the outside album because he brought in

Brian Eno, myself, Carlos, and he wanted to sit and improvise in

Montreux at the studio that Queen used to record in and he wanted us

to improvise for, like, two weeks, four hours a day, and then he would

cut that all up and made a beautiful album from that. We were all

co-composers of the music, Stirling Campbell was playing drums. He was

trying to make sure he never stayed in his comfort zone, and he made a

point to say that he had some slower times in the '80s and he felt he had

been compromised and he wanted to get back to his roots, so we called

all his favoured musicians, and I was flattered to be one of them.

Thank you very much, Mike Garson, in Los Angeles. One of his biographers

said Bowie's influence had altered more lives than any comparable

figure. But his origins were modest, in

Brixton, in South London. And in his early years he sang with

a very London twang in his voice. He became such a huge

global star that he's not, perhaps, immediately

identified with any postcode. And in Brixton let's

see what's happening. Lucy Manning? They have come in

their hundreds to remember the Brixton boy. What a better way to do

it than to sing and to listen to Bowie songs. For those of us who

have Bowie posters on our walls, who had the excitement of seeing him

live in concert, who knew his songs as soon as they came on the radio

from the first few bars, it is why his death is so significant. If you

were born in the '50s, the '60s, the '70s, the '80s, and possibly later,

his appeal stretched across the generations. The man who created The

Thin White Duke and Aladdin Sane, he has gone, but the songs - well, just

play them loud. I spent the day reminiscing with some Bowie fans.

# Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly,

When Ziggy played guitar Viviene Gyte was in the audience

When I was 15, 16, and he started on the Ziggy Stardust tour,

And I spent the rest of that year, and the following year -

I think I managed to get to about 20, 22 dates

I'd left school, got three jobs so I could save up to go.

All my old concert tickets with his autograph from David Bowie there.

Everything that David Bowie said, I used to want to take on board,

Even when he shaved his eyebrows, I shaved my eyebrows off

I've actually lived a bit of the lyrics.

I've lived in Ibiza and grew up near the Norfolk Broads.

# See the mice in their million hordes.

The Man Who Fell To Earth was actually very underrated.

I had been crying since 7.00 this morning.

Something died in me today the same time as David Bowie.

Growing up in dull, leafy suburban Sussex,

he gave me inspiration there was a big bad world to go

and see out there and it inspired me to be different,

We all decided in the playground that the question to ask was how did

What did he think of Bowie lookalikes?

He was very erudite and he was very charming and said that he was glad

that he could inspire people to be different.

# Oh don't lean on me man, cause you can't afford the ticket

# 'Cause you ain't got time to check it

As Bowie played Suffragette City at Hammersmith Odeon,

fan Graham Brown caught what he threw into the crowd.

This maraca landed at my feet in July 1973,

It became a very important possession to me.

So a constant soundtrack to my life, it's a cliche, but it's true.

In 1976 Bowie moved to Berlin, then divided between East and West

It was a city filled with Cold War tension and,

as an artist, he evidently fed off that.

He stayed for three years and brought out three albums that

in places still sound hugely experimental.

Among the tracks was Heroes, perhaps the standout song

The city influenced his songs years after he left.

When he released The Next Day in 2013, the lead single,

Where Are We Now, was seen by many as a reminiscence

# Where are we now, where are we now?

# The moment you know, you know, you know. #

Christian Fraser is outside David Bowie's former Berlin home

What a city in terms of Bowie's backstory, Christian? Yes, very

important to David Bowie, this city, Jeremy. Across the road, that is the

building where he shared an apartment with Iggy Pop. The feeling

that he had for Berlin is reciprocated by the hundreds of

people who have come here today, to lay their flowers, tributes and

messages. In the Bar 70, which stands there now beneath the

apartment, they are playing the entire back catalogue of Bowie

today, which is drifting out on to the streets. There is a message

among those flowers which says, "Thank you, David, you changed our

lives forever." That is ironic. David Bowie probably came here in

1976 to change himself. Gone was Ziggy Stardust, he had come here to

find the man who he was. It was a different city to LA and the glamour

he left behind, much more dark, and it was a city where you could get

lost but also find yourself, too. Out of that trilogy, the Berlin

Trilogy, came Heroes. Fans will know a song which was about two lovers

that stole a kiss at the Wall. When he came back in 1987, to play in

front of 70,000, it was almost a split concert with hundreds pressed

up against the Wall on the Eastern side. That was why there was this

tweet today from the Foreign Ministry, "Goodbye, David Bowie, you

are among heroes." With me now is Lauren Laverne

and the BBC's arts editor, He is hard to pin down and agree on?

He is. I suppose the classic post-modernist artist, he had a

superficial persona which he changed time and time again so he couldn't

be nailed down. There was a constant theme. He had something to say, and

something important to say. Like any great artist, he was able to reflect

the world back to us and not only make sense of it for us, but to

guide us. That is why we are all so deeply sad about his passing today.

We have lost a crucial guide in our life. To make some sense of this

crazy world that we live in... Yet he touched people so personally,

that's been clear today. Putting those two views together is quite

difficult? For me, they fit together. When we went on air this

morning, that was what I said, when somebody dies, what is desperately

sad is that you lose a world. You lose the way that they see the

world. There's a kind of lovely symmetry between those thoughts. We

lose his perspective and also there is something about that generation,

you know. He is this leading light of the generation who taught us what

it is to be an adult now, how to be a grown-up in the modern world,

which involves not growing up. We don't want him to go. David, you

need to tell us what to do! You can't go. That is one of the things

that is so terribly and personally devastating about it. He is not

allowed to go, he is this figure which is so present in our lives,

and even though he withdrew himself over the last decade, after heart

issues, he still felt very big in our lives. When he came back with

the album The Next Day and Lazarus, these are powerful pieces of art. I

described him as the Picasso of pop, and that is what he was. Forget

about him being a pop singer, he elevates above that, so a great

artist, here was a man who did something quite extraordinary for us

as humanity. He showed us what it was like to be alive. He was brave,

to wear a woman's dress on an album cover in the early '70s, that was

extraordinary? You see that Top of the Pops moment which now we watch

with David Bowie with his arms around Mick Ronson's shoulder and we

take that for granted. That is part of the job of pop music, to have

that conversation first, to bring those issues into the mainstream

before we are ready. That conversation always takes place.

Thank you both so much. We could talk for several more hours

- we probably will. We have covered some of the key moments of David

Bowie's life, an impossible task. And the emotion and loss many people

will be feeling today. We will leave you now with some of the images from

an extraordinary life. # There's a starman

waiting in the sky # He'd like to come and meet us

but he thinks he'd blow our mind # There's a starman

waiting in the sky # 'Cause he knows

it's all worthwhile.