David Bowie-Living On The Bri - Softcover

George Tremlett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099958406 ISBN 13: 9780099958406

Publisher: Random House UK, 1997

Synopsis

How has pop icon David Bowie kept creating new music and fascinating his fans? What does he believe and where did he come from? Are the mercurial changes in his public image an accurate reflection of the inner man, or is he cleverly concealing his real self? Veteran rock journalist George Tremlett knew David Bowie well in his early days and grew close to many of his contemporaries (including Mott the Hoople, Brian Eno, and Peter Frampton). Tremlett delves beneath the images of Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The Thin White Duke for the intriguing story of media manipulation and financial management, shrewd deals and groundbreaking music.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Despite his long-term access to Bowie and others close to him, British rock journalist Tremlett (Dylan Thomas, 1992, etc.) is stronger in its portrayal of the finances of the rock biz than in profiling one of pop music's most enigmatic figures. Born David Jones in 1947, David Bowie flitted about the mod and hippie fringes of 1960s London until he hit it big in the early '70s as Ziggy Stardust, one of the first of a series of adopted stage personas. By 1973, by dint of canny songwriting and even cannier self-promotion, Bowie was an international sensation who traveled with a huge entourage and embodied the decadent, high-living rock-'n'-roll lifestyle. While Bowie's concert tours and records were raking in huge amounts of money, he was seeing relatively little of it, and his musicians even less. This was perhaps as much the due to his enormous cash outlays for cocaine and limousines as to greedy management. Nevertheless, following the advice of John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and others, Bowie eventually wrested control of the company that ran his career (but as he belatedly learned, was not owned by him) and again reinvented himself, this time as a successful rock burgher, living in Swiss tax exile. Since then, Bowie's new albums have, by turns, been greeted by critics as crassly commercial or myopically self- indulgent. Fans and fellow musicians have been kinder, as evidenced by accolades at his recent 50th-birthday concert. Certainly, Bowie fans will learn a lot in this book: that despite his flamboyant gender-bending reputation, he was, for the most part, a voracious heterosexual; that he was a devoted and intensely private father; that his ability to get into and out of character might have stemmed from a family history of schizophrenia. This sober look at one of pop's most mercurial icons will no doubt send fans scurrying to dust off their Bowie platters and listen to them anew. (photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House UK
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0099958406
• ISBN 13: 9780099958406
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352