NewsRadio 1030’s Bradley Jay, host of WBZ’s Jay Talking, recalled legendary musical artist David Bowie, who died Sunday at 69 after a battle with cancer. “While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief”, read a statement posted on the artist’s official social media accounts.
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Bowie’s eldest child, son Duncan Jones, tweeted a solemn confirmation of the news.
He added: “As soon as I heard of his death, very, very sad, Life On Mars comes flowing back into my mind”. I’ll be off-line for a while.
Bowie first entered the charts in July 1969 with his track Space Oddity, and scored 25 top 10 singles and 29 top 10 albums across his career. From Ziggy Stardust to the soul of his mid-’70s work and up through his explorations of pop and new wave, Bowie left no genre of music unturned. But it ends with this eerie, indecipherable paean to the fictitious Bewlay Brothers, who may or may not be stand-ins for Bowie himself and his half-brother, Terry, a schizophrenic.
Bowie’s achievements were many, and the inimitable artist’s iconic canon of work has inspired no small number of musicians who’ve come since. Bowie gave us five decades of solid music.
I covered his song Rebel, Rebel on my 1974 debut album, although now I think it sounded horrific – I’m so ashamed, I feel now that I should have done more for the song.
His chameleon-like ability to reinvent his image, drawing on everything from mime to kabuki theater, was accompanied by a string of albums until heart problems curtailed his productivity in the 2000s.
Bowie had last performed in 2006 and was rarely seen in public.
By now an influential icon of artistic reinvention venturing into the theater, film and fashion worlds, Bowie continued to innovate, helping produce Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” album, delving into American rhythm & blues and co-writing the hit “Fame” with John Lennon.
He said: “I grew up listening to and watching the pop genius David Bowie”. His first show in Music City, at Municipal Auditorium on November 20, 1972, drew 4,244 fans, who, according to a Tennessean review, “kept eyes glued on the musician…anxiously trying to decipher what the highly publicized newcomer had to offer”. “A huge loss”, Cameron wrote on Twitter.
Mr Whitehead, formerly of Gillingham, now resides in Rotherham, and is among many to pay tribute to the musical genius since news of his death broke, offering his condolences to the family.
“I’m standing here, my hands are shaking, I feel as though I’ve lost something, I’ve lost something incredibly important today”.
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Bowie said he was gay in an interview in the Melody Maker newspaper in 1972, coinciding with the launch of his androgynous persona, with red lightning bolt across his face and flamboyant clothes.
