David Bowie was a British musician and actor who played genres like electronic music and glam rock. By many critics, he was arguably one of the greatest rock artists of all time, if not THE greatest.
The sizeable American magazine company Rolling Stone placed him at 39th place in their 100 Greatest Artists of All Time list.
His sales of records sold more than 100 million records around the planet. He has received many awards, such as platinum certifications in the United Kingdom and five in the United States.
Early Life
It all began when Bowie was born in Brixton, London, U.K, on January 8th, 1947. (Brixton is a district in south London.) He lived in a typical living situation during his childhood in London.
Haywood Janes, his father, worked as an officer at a children's charity, and Margaret Mary, his mother, worked as a waitress at a cinema.
He was considered mentally gifted but defiant and independent-minded when he began learning in an infant school until he was six.
In 1995 though, Bowie's interest in music began to take shape in some form when e began learning at Burn Ash Junior School. In that school, he joined the school choir.
He started to get into music. His vocals in the choir were exceptional. He played well using the fipple flute or the recorder, in other words.
Bowie got even more into music when his father gave him records of famous musicians at the time, like Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, the Teenagers, and more.
He mainly started to like Presley because they had the same birthdays and because Elvis's music fascinated him because of songs like "Hound Dog" (released in 1956), which he liked. At the end of 1957, he learned to use a tea chest bass and a ukulele.
Career
Bowie’s first notable move in the music industry was to create his first band in 1962, the Konrad; he was only fifteen years old by that time.
At first, he wasn’t making money or getting official while performing; though, he only played rock and roll locally at weddings and gatherings of young children with his whole band of around four-eight people.
Bowie was very captivated by a future career in music. A year after he created the Konrads band (1962), he dropped out of school in 1963 to achieve his goal of becoming a star.
Later, he left the Konrads band and joined the King Bees band. That was mainly because his previous crew wasn’t thinking big about musical goals. That wasn’t the last time he switched bands, however. He moved from the king Bees to the Manish Boys, the Lower Third band, the Buzz band, and the Riot Squad.
His beginning song was the single made in 1964, “Liza Jane,” while David was still in the King Bees band. Bowie has several significant albums, “Let’s Dance” in 1983, “Tonight” in 1984, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” in 1972, and many more.
In total, he has around 128 singles he created. His album with the most sales was “Let’s Dance,” with nearly 11 million record sales.
He won six Grammy Awards throughout the decades with his groundbreaking albums. Five of his albums are on the large American magazine company Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums List in 2003. These are only some of his many achievements.
Fun Facts
1. His real name is David Robert Jones, but he changed it because of confusion with Davy Jones of “The Monkees” band. He changed his name to David Bowie. Davy Jones is an entirely different person with a similar name and career.
2. In 1976, he expressed his support for Adolf Hitler and Fascism.
3. David Bowie and Elvis Presley (famous musicians) were born on the 8th of January.
Death
In Manhattan, New York City, David Bowie died from his 18-month battle with liver cancer. Two days after he turned 69 years old, he dropped Blackstar, a solo album. He died on January 10th, 2016.
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