(This is long and personal. It’s something I needed to write.)
It all started with a song.
That’s typically how most people discover their favorite
artists. The one song they hear on the radio, a friend’s sound system, or MTV
(back in the day). Ironically, my love of David Bowie’s music started with a
Queen song.
You know the one. “Under Pressure.” I literally have no
memory of David Bowie before 1983. I am an only child and discovered all my pop
and rock music on my own. KISS was an easy find because, in 1977-1979, they
were everywhere. Plus, I found them because of how they looked. They were right
up my comic book loving, Star Wars loving alley. Bowie was the surprise. I
discovered Bowie because of his voice.
I had Queen’s Greatest Hits, the original one with the black
cover. There, buried as the last track on side one of the cassette, was Under
Pressure. It was a duet with a guy named David Bowie. I knew Freddie Mercury’s
voice so Bowie’s was that low, baritone one with the melodic voice. I loved it
enough to realize I wanted to know more things this Bowie guy did.
Summer 1983 saw me back in Tyler, Texas, visiting my
grandparents. Hanging out at a friend’s house, somehow I connected that the
Bowie guy in Under Pressure was the same guy who sang that song “Let’s Dance.”
I saw the video, heard that voice, saw the singer, and I wanted more. I bought
the cassette version of Let’s Dance and that was all she wrote.
Next thing I knew, I was hunting for more Bowie music. That
wasn’t difficult. He had a lot of albums. But where to start? RCA, Bowie’s
1970s label, caught on the Let’s Dance craze by issuing a compilation, Golden
Years, with a 1983-era image of Bowie. That, along with ChangesTwoBowie, were
my first steps into the older material. And boy was it spectacular. In looking
at the tracklist of those two LPs today, I realize that I heard “Aladdin Sane”
and it’s wonderful piano solo early on in my discovery of David Bowie. And
“Starman,” “Wild is the Wind,” “Fashion,” and “Ashes to Ashes.” I didn’t have
MTV at home, so Bowie was all vocals for me early on. And, boy, did he have a
voice!
I missed the Serious Moonlight tour stop in Houston, but the
local radio station did a broadcast of the Vancouver show. It would later be
released on VHS. I taped that show off the radio and that became my first
instance of an artist who *changed* his songs in concert. Up until then, KISS
was my only reference point, and the differences between studio cuts and live
performances for them were small. I listened to the cassette copy of that show
for years. I still have it. Interestingly, the words “Serious Moonlight,” written
in red ink, have long since faded away while “David Bowie,” in blue ink, still
remain readable. Poignant, huh?
The years 1984 to 1987 were an interesting time to be a new
Bowie fan. I discovered the older stuff in greater depth while hanging on every
new thing he created. The Tonight LP had “Loving the Alien,” a tune that still
captivates me. The Labyrinth soundtrack had the still-excellent “Underground,”
the goofiness of “Magic Dance,” and the ethereal “As the World Falls Down.”
There was the duet with Mick Jagger with “Dancing in the Streets” and, if you
were around my group of friends back in high school, you got to see my friend,
Chris, and I reenact the video. I was Bowie. The title cut of the movie
“Absolute Beginners” is in my top 5 favorite Bowie songs of all time. I love
the sweeping grandeur of the tune and was so excited to hear it live in 1987.
Speaking of 1987, that was a huge year. The new LP, Never
Let Me Down was going to have a tour associated with it. I drove back to
Houston from attending college in Austin to see it. Looking back on the Glass
Spider tour now, it was pretty excessive and even now I’m not quite sure the
meaning of some of the things were trying to do. Don’t care. Didn’t then,
either. It was a spectacle. The sheer thrill at seeing the giant spider over
the stage before the lights went dark only stoked the imagination. During the
spooky spoken opening of the song “Glass Spider,” Bowie was lowered in a chair
to the stage. Finally, there he was, clad in red. I was in the same room as
David friggin’ Bowie! It was an incredible feeling. The renditions of the songs
in this setlist are stellar, with Peter Frampton playing lead guitar. I had the
VHS (still do, and I’m watching it now) and I played the cassette over and
over.
The Rykodisc reissues of the RCA albums were—and still
remain—definitive in their inclusiveness. Those are the versions I have. As a
young man in the late 80s, I wanted Bowie to be a certain way. Turned out,
Bowie was all ready to move on. You see, I hadn’t lived through the warp speed
transitions of the 70s, but I was about to. Tin Machine I enjoyed, but it
confused me. I didn’t get it in 1989, but I understood in 1991 when Nirvana
exploded on scene. Ah! So Bowie was already ahead of the game and had left the over-the-top
80s sound. Typical.
The Sound + Vision tour, in 1990, was the opposite of Glass
Spider. Plain stage, excellent musicians, and just the music. And that was
perfectly fine. I loved that show, my second time to see him.
The 1990s David Bowie proved, in retrospect, to be nearly
the equal of the 1970s Bowie. I loved all the LPs he released. Only in 2003 was
the pattern apparent. You see, Tin Machine allowed Bowie to reboot himself. He
went back to his jazz and 60s pop roots with Black Tie White Noise. Outside
teamed him up with Brain Eno again, the first time since the Low/Heroes/Lodger
records of the 1970s. Man, that was a swing for the fences. The concept was
perfect for the end-of-the-millennium/X-Files era and I soaked it all up.
Pianist Mike Garson is all over these songs, and this album contains some of my
all-time favorites: Strangers When We Meet, The Heart’s Filthy Lesson, The
Motel, Hallo Spaceboy, and the title cut. The tour (that I missed!) had Bowie
playing with Nine Inch Nails and recasting his songs with a techno-industrial
vibe. He brought out songs even I had forgotten (I found a bootleg of the show.
Shhh! Don’t tell anyone.) What this music also made me do was seek out Nine
Inch Nails music and other techno music.
Earthing (1997), with its drum-and-bass, jungle music had me
scratching my head once again. What was this music Bowie was making? I wasn’t
sure, but I sure loved it. Back to the record store (pre-internet times) to get
me some of the music Bowie listened to for inspiration. “Dead Man Walking,”
with his long-note vocals over a furious beat, is a stunning song and proof yet
again that Bowie is a crooner. “Battle of Britain (The Letter)” is very good,
and the single, “Little Wonder,” is a fist-pumping song. This was the era when
going acoustic was all the rage and he took some choice cuts off this LP and
older songs and made acoustic versions. I found more bootlegs of acoustic shows
and other performances and was in Bowie heaven.
Then, in 1999, Bowie started a trilogy. Hours (1999) saw the
return of a softer, Hunky-Dory-esque Bowie, with “Thursday’s Child,” “Seven,”
“Survive,” and “Something in the Air” adding themselves to my favorites.
Heathen (2002) can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with ANYthing from the 1970s.
Period. “Slow Burn,” “Everyone Says Hi,” “Sunday,” Heathen (The Rays)”, and
“Slip Away” are incredible pieces of music. Plus, his themes of isolation fit
perfectly in the post 9/11 world. Reality (2003) had some callbacks to 1980’s
Scary Monsters LP and featured some killer songs: “New Killer Star,” “Fall Dog
Bombs the Moon,” “Reality,” and “Bring Me the Disco King.”
It was the Reality Tour in 2004 that I last was in the
presence of David Bowie.
The
setlist was a dream for me: 17 out of 26 songs I had never heard. And the ones he performed were so good:
Battle for Britain, All the Young Dudes, Hallo Spaceboy, The Supermen, Slip
Away (with the Polyphonic Spree), and he friggin closed with “Ziggy Stardust”!
Come on! The last thing he sang in my presence was “Ziggy played guitar,”
center stage, arms outstretched. Perfect.
This touring band had Mike Garson on piano and I’m here to
tell you his is a vital ingredient to Bowie’s sound. Gail Ann Dorsey was the
bass player for this band. She was also the “Freddie Mercury” when they played
“Under Pressure.” You talk about coming full circle with a single song. Dorsey
is phenomenal in her vocal delivery. No one can replace Mercury, but damn,
Dorsey comes close. She is so, so good. If you are of a mind, I can’t recommend
the Reality Tour DVD highly enough. Thirty songs. 140 minutes of beautiful
music. (I’ve now put this DVD in and am listening to it now.)
I saw David Bowie for the last time 29 April 2004. My wife
was with me and it was her first time to see him. She didn’t know all the
songs, but loved the show. Two short months later, he had a heart attack in
Europe and cancelled the rest of the tour.
And then he was gone. Seemingly forever.
As the years went
on, I counted my blessings to have seen that last tour and heard that last
album. If Reality was the final tour/record, I was okay with that. He owed me
nothing more having given me and the world so much.
But Bowie wasn’t finished. I distinctly remember checking
his website in early January 2013 and there was a NEW SONG! “Where Are We Now”
is a somber, yet thrilling song. It has some of the most intimate lyrics he’s
ever written. He had gotten older, his audience had gotten older, and Bowie
understood that. The song moved me to tears when I heard it (not a difficult thing,
actually, softy that I am) and the entire record was incredible. I knew there
wouldn’t be a tour, but we had a new album! “The Star (Are Out Tonight),” “I’d
Rather Be High,” “The Next Day,” “Love is Lost,” and more are fantastic
additions to the catalog. Couple that with the EP that came out later that year
and you had what appeared to be a nice epilogue to a wonderful career.
But Bowie still wasn’t finished. “Sue (or in a Season of
Crime)” was a new song for a new compilation. This song featured Bowie fronting
a big band. It wasn’t your grandfather’s big band. It was Maria Schneider’s
Orchestra and it was as far away from Glenn Miller as your could get. It was
more in the realm of Gil Evans and Miles Davis. And Bowie was in his full
crooner mode. I remember thinking in 2014 “Man, if he’d do a whole album of
this, it would be so awesome.”
He almost did. Blackstar, his latest (and last) record is that
album. It’s not all big band, but it’s jazz musicians working with a rock
musician. It’s out there. The record demands repeated listenings. I pre-ordered
the album and had it the moment I woke up on 8 January, his 69th birthday. I
listened to it four times in a row. Non-stop. I hadn’t done that for any record
in years. The music engulfed me. I was so happy to have new music and that the
music was jazz! And Bowie! Folks at my office saw me react to this music. I
even played a couple of tracks for my wife who wasn’t as impressed as I was. It
was a great time to be a David Bowie fan.
The husband was
gone. The father was gone. The friend of so many was gone. The inspiration to
so many was gone. The man I never met but became a musical mentor was gone.
It’s still shocking to realize it now, three days after the news broke. He was
one of the four pillars of rock music for me, the other three being KISS,
Chicago, and Bruce Springsteen. He was the one I found on my own. He was the
one whose musical choices led me to new places and opened my mind to new ideas.
He was the one who electrified me when I was in his presence. He was DAVID
BOWIE!
I know his wife and daughter and son all miss him more than
I do. I understand that. His close friends, too. But to all of us out here
whose lives he touched, we’ll miss him, too. Blackstar is a fitting last album
because it demands to be encountered and understood and not merely listened to.
It’s already led me to seek out the albums of Donny McCaslin (saxophone) and
Maria Schnieder because I want to know what Bowie heard in those artists that
inspired him.
David Bowie granted me many gifts. His own music is part of
my musical DNA. It will be with me forever. His music is an indelible and
intricate part of my life’s soundtrack. I am not completely who I am in 2016
without David Bowie.
Thank you, David Bowie, for everything you did.
*Bonus Tracks*
The best tweet that summed up what David Bowie meant to the
world was this. I quoted JeSuisDean:
“If you're ever sad, just remember the world is 4.543
billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David
Bowie.”
On the day the news broke, my friend, Daniel, posted this
video to his Facebook page. Of all the tributes I read and saw about David
Bowie, none moved me to tears quite the way this clip did. I've never seen the
movie (It's Kind of a Funny Story), but this one scene captures all the exuberance you can have when you're
different but find a home in a group that's also different and everyone is
equal. It also shows the sheer joy in making music, truly a sublime facet of
this life. Thanks, Daniel, for sharing it with me. "It's Kind of a Funny
Story" is now on my radar.
