David Bowie RIP

[DracoM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8

Blimey! How knowingly prescient is that!!

[Radio64]

Can't get over it. Listened to new album Blackstar coming into work, before I'd heard the news.

Now all I need is silence.


My first memory: listening to 'Life On Mars?' down a Dial-a-disc telephone line in a telephone box in a remote rural part of England. Must have been 1973.

[Tapiola]

No words. Just this.

[pastoralguy]

John, a very good friend of mine, taught at Gordonstoun School during the period when Duncan, Bowie's son was a pupil there. It's well documented that Duncan didn't have the easiest time at the school and my friend was very involved in his academic and pastoral care, giving him a lot of support and guidance.

During his last term, David Bowie came to visit his son and, recognising the work John had put into his son's development, gave him a very generous cheque in aid of Duncan's 'house'. He then said to John 'is there anything I can do for YOU personally?' So, my friend John, in his small boarding house sitting room, with only a guitar, did a duet of 'Space Oddity' with the man himself with only half a dozen boys and his cat as an audience!

[eighthobstruction]

No words. Just this.

....yes, his very best imo.....

[teamsaint]

Among his other talents was a great ability to use and recycle styles , and make them sound completely his own. Born, I think, of the kind of talent which enables a person to turn their hand to anything, in the way that I always felt Queen could,( although I wasn't a fan) and Shostakovich also.

Scary Monsters, (the song) for instance, saw him employing a kind of post punk styling, which in less capable hands might have sounded a bit like riding on coat tails, but actually just sounded utterly vibrant and current. The same of course is true of Lets Dance, although having Nile Rogers on board might just have helped !

Oddly, I feel Bowie was almost too influential. I certainly reached a point in listening to British rock music (sometime in the last 20 years)where I felt that I just couldn't take a fourth ( or whatever)generation of Bowie copyists.
But what a compliment that is.

oh, and a Lovely story from PG.

[muzzer]

I can pay him no higher compliment than to say that nothing else in popular culture, whatever that is, has moved or continues to move me as much as my favourite of his work. He worked out pretty early on what was going on and never stopped grappling with the big issues of the defining art form of his time whilst redefining it, at least partly in his own image. His legacy will be no less than that of many of the great composers so rightly revered on this board, of that I have no doubt. Now it's time to get that dust out of my eye. Again.

[french frank]

Could I remind again that tribute threads should be treated as tributes.

[Beef Oven!]

John, a very good friend of mine, taught at Gordonstoun School during the period when Duncan, Bowie's son was a pupil there. It's well documented that Duncan didn't have the easiest time at the school and my friend was very involved in his academic and pastoral care, giving him a lot of support and guidance.

During his last term, David Bowie came to visit his son and, recognising the work John had put into his son's development, gave him a very generous cheque in aid of Duncan's 'house'. He then said to John 'is there anything I can do for YOU personally?' So, my friend John, in his small boarding house sitting room, with only a guitar, did a duet of 'Space Oddity' with the man himself with only half a dozen boys and his cat as an audience!

[HighlandDougie]

John, a very good friend of mine, taught at Gordonstoun School during the period when Duncan, Bowie's son was a pupil there. It's well documented that Duncan didn't have the easiest time at the school and my friend was very involved in his academic and pastoral care, giving him a lot of support and guidance.

During his last term, David Bowie came to visit his son and, recognising the work John had put into his son's development, gave him a very generous cheque in aid of Duncan's 'house'. He then said to John 'is there anything I can do for YOU personally?' So, my friend John, in his small boarding house sitting room, with only a guitar, did a duet of 'Space Oddity' with the man himself with only half a dozen boys and his cat as an audience!

What a great story! I hope that the cat appreciated the performance (and John must also be proud that Duncan has turned out to be a not inconsiderable filmmaker).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- a lovely story, indeed.

[Ian Thumwood]

I'd like to throw my hat in the ring with this discussion. I am not a big fan of pop music but have been intrigued by some of Bowie's music (even if I much prefer Lester to David. ) It is not difficult to appreciate why he was so revered even in an age when so many pop acts seem to be consider "important" or "ground breaking."

Listening to the tributes on the radio I felt that no one has some up with any real sort of musical analysis and the compliments all seem to deal with his cultural importance. However, whilst I am not oversold by the claims that he was some kind of avant garde genius, the harmonic language he worked within seems almost unthinkable nowadays. I can understand how it is a simple step to come to the conclusion that his concept was totally original. I would love to know just how much the writing of the arrangements of the charts was down to him or his collaborators - in some respects in almost matches the same ambiance of the Miles Davis recordings of 1980's. One tune which has always intrigued in "Let's dance." I heard Niles Rodgers perform this live with Chic several years ago and it made me appreciate that Rodgers is a writer who knows his craft inside out. Most of his band were jazz musicians and, from a musical perspective, Rodgers is the business. The combination with Bowie is a brilliant arrangement in my opinion. I'm not too convinced that musically Bowie was quite the equal of Pierre Boulez and Paul Bely who have both passed away in the last week, but I think credit was due for actually thinking a bit more about the music. I would also have to add that the arrangement of "Life on mars" is also very impressive although I have no idea if the orchestration was Bowie's or someone else's.

[Frances_iom]

pop music is 99% cultural mainstreaming or group think adroitly comercialising teenage angst - facilitated by electronics that allowed the relaively unskilled to make a loud noise - maybe 1% at most deserves some life post that week's top ten

[teamsaint]

all the more reason to value the truly creative, then.

( Finding the musical pearls has always required at least a bit of effort, in any field. ).

[zola]

I would also have to add that the arrangement of "Life on mars" is also very impressive although I have no idea if the orchestration was Bowie's or someone else's.

The arrangements in that period were by Mick Ronson but like Miles you could say that Bowie knew how to pick his sidemen.