David Bowie died five years ago this Sunday, January 10th, 2016, just two days after his 69th birthday (January 8th) and the release of his latest album, Blackstar. He succumbed to liver cancer.
One of the most important figures in music history, Bowie was born David Robert Jones on January 8th, 1947 in South London. He rose to prominence in 1969 with the British hit “Space Oddity,” having adopted the surname Bowie to avoid confusion with Monkees singer Davy Jones, and went on to have a successful, influential and lengthy career.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, he was survived by his wife, model-turned-businesswoman Iman, their daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones, and his son, Duncan Jones.
David Bowie on creating new music.
“It’s so hybrid what I do that it’s very hard to start to retain which is idiosyncratically me and which is borrowings and stylings that I’ve been influenced by other artists or other genres of music. But what I think try and do is, by using a series of different techniques in the studio, try and capture what I feel the present day sounds like. That’s sort of a loose ambition that I have surrounding any album that I make.”
David Bowie on his influence on other artists.
“Listen I’m very happy to have been an influence on anybody frankly. It’s very cool, it’s very exciting and terribly…I don’t know it’s fulfilling. It’s nice to have contributed in some kind of way. It’s nice to hear some kind of ideas and things that you’ve put out as seeds I suppose and it’s nice to hear them coming back a different way with a new young band or some musical influence sort of like that. It’s rewarding.”
