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- David Bowie has an
announcement to make.

Let's now go over
live by satellite

to beautiful downtown
Burbank in Los Angeles.

It's nice to see you, David.

You look well.

What color is your hair?

- Which bit?

- The center bit at the top
above where your nose would be.

- Well, what color is it look?

- Well it looks
a bit something out of

the end of Straw Dogs.

- Something out of
the end of Straw Dogs.

- You've got an
announcement to make

to us all, David, haven't you?

You are changing your
plans for the future,

and you've got something
up your sleeve for 1976?

- Yes.

I'm touring,

but I'm coming back
to England in May

to play shows

and look at you
and look at England

and be there, be English.

- Again?

- Well as always, but
English in England.

- What's brought you back?

Are you short of
money or are you short

of the feeding of
live audience bit?

- I'm short of England
more than anything else.

- What, why?

I mean you do know that the
England you left two years ago

is not the England you
are going to come back to.

- Yeah, well this Thursday is
nothing like last Thursday,

but it's just as important.

I'd miss it if it
wasn't after Wednesday.

- You know that the
pop scene at this end,

the pop world has changed
somewhat since you left?

- No.

No.

- Have you heard of
the Bay City Rollers?

- Yes.

- Well, you know that they
are appealing to a kind of

large, mass-hysterical
audience of young people

who wave a lot of stuff around?

Now I wonder what
kind of audience

you are going to
come back to face?

- I don't know,
what do you think?

- You may have to create a
whole new scene for yourself.

- No.

Can't qualify that, I'll just
come back and play my songs.

- One, two, three,
- Yeah!

- Few musicians
have pushed the boundaries

quite as spectacularly
as David Bowie.

During a career
spanning half a century,

he was an innovator
unlike any other.

- I've been doing this
for a whole century.

And I'm really very
comfortable doing it.

It feels,

it's very fulfilling.

- Pop star,
composer, showman,

actor, producer,

David Bowie symbolized
versatility like
few musicians could.

The constant evolution
of his style, sound,

and artistic persona
had a colossal influence

on popular culture.

- David, hi, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

How very, very good
to be here tonight.

I can't quite believe
how much rubbish

I've written in my
life.

'Cause you know when you
go through all the tapes,

you find all the things you
never wanted to release.

And you kind of find out,

it becomes very apparent why.

But, some of it's
just too funny,

so I have to put it out.

- He brought a
theatricality to the pop world

which gave him a
very strong image.

He thought very theatrically,

and he thought
about presentation.

- It just won't stop.

My personal need to
entertain has changed a lot.

I think when I was young,

I was about creating
theatricality,

and creating a more artificial

kind of parallel
reality onstage.

And as I've gotten older,

especially over the
last five or six years,

I've really fallen
into the comfort

of actually just
interpreting the songs.

- If you
want to cause a stir,

then wear a dress at a
press conference in Texas

which is what David did.

- He looked weird.

Everything about him
was right to be a star,

against all odds in a way.

- As far as style is concerned,

I don't really think that
I want to have a style.

Sort of, "Oh yeah, that's
David Bowie's sound.

I'd much prefer to be
sort of a free agent,

and move from one
thing to another

as my enthusiams take me.

- When
you were thinking

about what to wear on this tour,

did you think of what
it would look like

translated onto
thousands of fans?

- I just wanted something
very simple, simple outline.

- Yeah?

- So, what we're
wearing tonight.

- The landscape
of fashion has changed,

but it's changed because
of people like David Bowie.

- That
concept of androgyny,

and the science-fiction look,
and the colors, the dyed hair.

This was all red
meat to designers.

Clearly, David was a genius
in that area as well.

- Now, when you come
back to England,

you're not presumably
coming back

with the glamour and glittery
Ziggy Stardust thing, are you?

- Uh-huh.

- Are you
coming back as that?

- Well, I don't know yet.

I haven't even worked on it.

I think it'll probably.

I'll be a lot more spontaneous.

- You haven't
planned your wardrobe?

You haven't planned a figure?

You haven't planned an image,
whatever that may mean?

- I think the image I may adopt

may well be me.

I'm sort of inventing
me at the moment.

- You mean
reinventing you?

- Yeah, self-invented.

- From the waist upwards?

- Yes, jolly uncomfortable.

- What you're going to wear?

Are you going to wear a little
suit, a straight suit or--

- I know what songs
I'm going to sing

which is the most
important thing.

- David Bowie
didn't just entertain.

He intrigued and provoked.

After 50 years in the spotlight,

the legendary musician
somehow managed

to retain a sense of mystery.

- I never really thought
that I could do it,

but in a way, my
band egged me on

to kind of be like this.

And so, it's been
less and less theater,

more and more band
and sing, sing, sing.

- Along with The
Beatles and Elvis Presley,

Bowie obliterated
musical boundaries

and defined what
pop music should be.

- Testing, we're back
to rock and roll.

One, two, three, four, one, two.

- We're
talking about one

of the most influential
20th-century icons of all.

- Don't forget to
tip your waitresses.

- He
left a permanent mark

on more than one generation.

- People I've talked
to about you here

say you're very personal person,

if you know what I mean?

- People who go out with me?

- No, to work with you.

- I thought you said
people who go out with me.

- You're a very, not
secretive, but personal,

keep things to yourself.

- Quiet, yes.

- Do you think you're shy?

- No.

No, I'm not really shy.

I'm just a bit quiet.

- Do you think if you didn't
keep things to yourself,

people wouldn't be surprised
at what you did next?

- I never really
thought about that.

I'll let you know
after the show.

- OK.

- I have to do a show.

- I think he
got to where he wanted to be

which was a kind
of Lennon plateau,

and it doesn't get
any higher than that.

- I don't believe
that there've been really

any major artists that have
had the creative portfolio

that David had.

- Quite rightly,
you would say that The Beatles

affected the way
young people thought.

And I think the same with Bowie.

- Here is one
of the people who made

the greatest difference in
our world in our lifetime.

Sounds like a mighty big
claim, but it's true.

- It took years
of work for David Robert Jones

to emerge as one of the more
influential figures in music.

Growing up in the austerity
of post-war Britain,

he came of age in
the swinging '60s.

He was born in the Brixton
suburbs of London in 1947

to mother Margaret and
Bernardo's charity worker,

Haywood John Jones.

- David invited me down
to his parent's basement.

There I was at 14
with this kind of man

from another planet, as
far as I was concerned.

It sounds silly now,
but I'd never been

to a working class house.

I was in culture shock,

but that was my own
limited upbringing.

His house which was tiny,

and the two main
seats of the parents

who were there both
facing the television.

And I remember the mother made
us some tuna fish sandwiches,

but the parents didn't speak.

I'd never been into
such a cold house.

This is what shocked me.

I'd never visited a
house where people

didn't laugh and make
merry and be joyous

because it was just, ugh.

It was like a walking around

with cement blocks
on your shoulders.

- I loved his dad, it was
sort of pretty bourgeois.

People say he was working-class,

but I don't think so.

It didn't struck that way to me.

- David said to me, "Then,
I'll never forget this."

He said, "Whatever it
takes, I want to get out

"of this place.

"I never ever want
to grow up here."

- David was
introduced to rock and roll

at an early age through

his elder brother Terry's
record collection.

The recurring theme
of mental instability

in Bowie's early work
connects to Terry

who was institutionalized
with schizophrenia

and committed suicide in 1985.

- He did go and see his
brother in the mental hospital.

I didn't realize the enormity

of the impact on
the family actually.

And after that, he never
mentioned his brother.

- Well, I never met
the brother 'cause

he was institutionalized then,

but I did meet his mum,

and she was just a
very average lady.

- I feel not quite
sorry for the mother.

- She was very
stiff, very starchy.

You didn't have no chance of
getting to know her properly.

She was very reserved.

- Quite often, later
on, several years later,

the mother would be ringing up

while David was starting
to get more and more famous

and he would never, often
didn't want to speak to her.

So, Angie, of course,
being the perfect hostess,

would be the buffer to
say, "Oh, he's busy,"

or "can't make it".

So, I don't know that he was
that close with his parents.

- By
the time he was six,

the Jones family had moved
to the suburban streets

of Bromley in Kent.

David attended Burnt
Ash Primary School,

and showed aptitude in singing
and playing the recorder.

- You're right, the most
famous ex-pupil of the school.

20, 30 years ago, he was
thought of as quite radical.

- David Bowie appeared
in the film Labyrinth.

- Personally, I
didn't understand him.

- David Jones
was recognized at school

as much for his
vividly artistic dance

as he was for his vocals
and flair for instruments.

- I don't recall
anyone having lessons.

He just listened
to your records,

if he could get
any from America,

and played along them
or sang along with them.

- It was rather disturbing
because when you're young,

you think so much is
important, including oneself.

But, as you get older,

I think you find less
and less is important

apart from some very
fundamental things.

One of them being a love
for one's fellow man,

and a care for their survival,

and a care for one's
immediate family,

then friends, and then
wider like a circle

like ripples in water.

- After
failing his 11 plus exams,

David Jones attended
Bromley Technical College

where he studied art,
music and design.

He displayed an early
interest in aliens,

creating a UFO magazine,
and would later claim

to have seen battalions
of alien craft.

- Angie and I, I think
we were in England,

and Bowie rings up
from America saying

he's just spoken to somebody
who's been to Roswell,

the place where
the aliens landed.

And he said, "I know
that there's one there."

And he rang especially to say,

"You know this is definitely it.

"The alien has landed.

"It's in cold storage in some
government bunker somewhere."

And he absolutely believed it,

and so did we because
he'd said he'd seen it.

- During
David Jones' adolescence,

there was one indelible
incident in 1962

which would forever
change his image.

- The incredible
photogenic eyes were partly

a result of his being punched
by his friend, George.

- It was an unintended damage

that I did to his
eye when I was 15.

It was over a girl, and
it was a silly thing.

And he said
afterwards, "I'm sorry.

"I shouldn't have done it."

But, it was just one
of those stupid things

you do when you're a kid.

And I didn't go
around hitting people

in the eye as a hobby.

It wasn't something I did.

It was just once
and that was it.

And I never ever wanted to.

I always felt awful afterwards.

You know, it's made him
quite distinctive in the end.

Fortunately, he did say later

that I did him a favor.

- It just changed
the look of the eye.

But, for fashion reasons,
this is magnetic.

So bizarrely, he owed
George for hitting him,

but they remained friends and
that's the important thing.

- David
Bowie spent the 1960s

enduring a succession
of false starts.

He would later steer music
into new areas of exploration,

when despite becoming one
of the most iconic musicians

of all time, he only
performed because no one else

would sing his songs.

- I hate my singing voice.

I hate singing, really.

It's not an enjoyment.

Someone's got to do it.

I like interpreting songs.

I guess that's what it is
about the whole process.

I like writing personally
and foremostly.

I would give my right arm,

maybe not my right arm.

I would give
somebody's right arm

if I could find somebody to
sing one of my songs for me.

I really would.

- I don't
think singers hate

their singing voice.

It's only false modesty.

- I don't think
he had any ego at all

until he got into
the cocaine trip,

which really did him in.

- He didn't have a great voice.

One of the things that
attracted me to him,

he sang like Anthony Newley.

- Well, I always
thought that he sounded

very like Anthony
Newley, and I never knew

that he acknowledged that.

we're living today

- Today,
Anthony Newley is a bit

of a forgotten name,
but he was massive

when Bowie was growing up.

Continually on television,
he was a renaissance man.

love for the old days

- There's hugely
strong connection.

Anthony Newley was a
massive inspiration

and influence over
David in his early days.

- This was somebody
that he did rate highly.

- Newley, in
fact, was a great actor.

- He looked up to
him because we both came

from the same era when the
one cool television show

called something like My
Old Life of Gurney Slade.

Tony Newley was the star,
and anyone who was anybody,

and cool and hip,
watched this program.

- If you check back to some
of Anthony Newley's hits,

and then compare that
with the Laughing Gnome,

and you'll see an
absolute direct line

between the two.

- The crossover that
Anthony Newley made

from the theatrical
side into pop

would have made him
slightly more visible

to artists like David Bowie.

- Anthony Newley
was involved in musicals

and the whole sort
of dramatic thing

that he also represented.

That was part of the Newley
package, if you like,

as far as David was concerned.

- I remember Tony Newley
was doing something

in the Marquee Club.

It was something called
Ready Steady Goes Live,

and he was there.

Bowie made quite sure
that he was there too

to listen to him.

- David
Jones left school

with one O-level in art.

The late '60s saw him
working his apprenticeship

as a musician and
displaying early signs

that he was pursuing
an identity.

First with
blues-influenced bands

such as the Kon-rads,
which he formed aged 15.

- When we first met, we
were about nine years old.

We became best friends.

We stayed very close and formed
the sort of bands together,

and I decided the music
scene wasn't for me,

and I went back to
finish art college,

but I knew David was
destined for bigger things

'cause he was just
extremely sharp.

I never met anyone like him.

- After
performing in a series

of unremarkable
bluesy folk acts,

the aspiring artist went
through several reinventions

on route to Space Oddity.

- It's obvious
that he liked blues

from the records he made
with his early group,

but nothing to suggest
that he had anything

really original to offer.

- He saw himself
as a folk singer,

and he was patrolling the
folk clubs looking for gigs.

But, I think he didn't
fit it in to any category.

- We did a gig very early on.

It was a very small
gig somewhere,

before he dressed up as a girl.

And it could have been
it was an early gig.

It could have been
for whatever reason.

I just felt he was a bit
lost and a bit tentative.

Didn't know what
to with his arm.

- He was much better
performing in a role.

I always felt that he
looked much more comfortable

when he had, I don't
know, some outfitty thing.

- At that time, I felt he
needed these various persona

to give himself
confidence onstage.

- You can see why he
said he didn't want

to go onstage being himself.

He was quite reserved.

He didn't seem the type of bloke

that would jump onstage and
dress like Ziggy Stardust.

- I really enjoy
just performing songs

and not having the commitment
of having to be a character

which has made it
less of a strain

than it normally is.

There's not so much
artifice attached

to when I'm doing these thing.

I still like the idea of
doing a theatrical thing,

and it doesn't so preclude me
maybe doing one in the future.

- It must have
been 1963 or four.

He came out onstage
at the Marquee Club.

It was David Jones
and the King Bees,

and he came out with his bright
yellow lemon-colored hair

which was really
unusual in those days.

Dressed in a slightly Sherwood
Forest Robin Hood-look,

as in knee-length suede
boots with tassels.

- This was reacting against
a very monochrome background.

The rock bands arriving
were pretty, you know,

still jeans and
sometimes we'd get back

to the audience on long
guitar solos and all of that.

I don't think anybody
had really given

quite as much
thought to the idea

of presenting their music
as David was now expressing.

- He was a showman.

He knew how to impress people.

- I was amazed at
how good he was

'cause I didn't realize
how good a singer he was.

And what presence
he had onstage.

- There were no echoes

of "Oh, maybe I shouldn't
do that," and hesitancy.

He just went for it.

- After the whole show was over,

he just comes up and says to me,

"Can I come home
with you tonight?"

And I said, "Yeah."

We walked back to South
Kent, 25 minutes walk,

and he stayed the
night on my top floor.

In the morning, coming down
at sort of breakfast time,

'cause I had to
go off to school,

I introduced him to my parents

who were coming out
of their bedroom.

And I said, my father
told me afterwards,

they actually thought
it was a girl,

that I'd just had a
girlfriend to stay.

But no, when I said,
"This is David Jones,"

they went, quite surprised.

He used to, I think, attract
far more attention than me

'cause he used to sometimes
come and pick me up from school.

And the girls in my class
reminded me the other day

that they were all kind
noses pressed to the window

looking at him.

Yeah, he was eye-catching.

- Enrolling
in Lindsay Kemp's

London dance center,
Bowie began to explore

the world of mime.

- What is the best
thing you've done

on any stage anywhere
that still lives with you,

that you measure, use
as a measuring stick?

- Best, that's very hard.

One of the most
exciting things I did

was work with old
Lindsay, Lindsay Kemp,

back in the, what would it be?

I can't remember which theater
we did it in, but years ago.

It was a combined sort
of mixed media show.

That was very good.

- And it didn't have to be a
big, glossy exciting thing.

It was a small, but
something important to you.

- Well, yes.

- David was very into sort of
this whole Lindsay Kemp thing

at that moment, Marcel
Marceau, white face,

the miming.

- When he showed me a
bit, he was very into

all that mime stuff.

- Definitely, he learned
a lot from Lindsay,

but that was sort
of a side thing.

- He taught David stagecraft.

David learned mime from him,

and he was very, very
grateful to Lindsay

for what he learned.

- Lindsay always said that he
often did his shows on acid,

which I thought was pretty good,

because it's quite hard
to do shows on acid.

- Lindsay was absolutely
besotted with David.

He was totally in love with him.

- David had been exploring

that whole sort of visual
presentation thing,

and that whole
thing about the face

and the eyes and
the body movements.

And that's what drew
me into Feathers.

- Bowie
toured with Lindsay Kemp

for a year before leaving
to form the band Feathers

with Hermione Fatheringale,

the girl who inspired
Life on Mars.

- The
first time I saw David

was at an underground
psychedelic club

in Convent Garden
called Middle Earth.

And he was there with
his group Feathers,

and his girlfriend Hermione.

It was sort of a
mixed media group,

as they were
called, at the time.

He wasn't doing much of the
lead singing in Feathers.

He was much more the mime artist

and the person who was
expressing the music.

- I had
thought he was magnetic.

I really did.

- I rented this
house 45 years ago,

and as one did, I put
an ad in the paper

and Hermione Fatheringale rang,

and said she'd like
to see the place.

She said, "The trouble
is there are two of us."

And I said, "That's fantastic."

Anyway, she came and
the boyfriend she had

was David Bowie.

David wasn't known then.

He held back.

He didn't so much mingle
with the rest of us.

He used to borrow my clothes

because I was in the
fashion business.

And anything that I
had that was funky,

he would borrow and wear.

- I would go with him
to Carnaby Street in '64, '65.

He was a very trendy dresser.

He always was in a
uniform, or in a look.

He didn't slop out in a pair
of ripped jeans and t-shirts.

- Some years later,
Hermione left David

because she was doing
small-time movies,

and she fell in love with one
of the actors in the movie,

and she left David.

And David was brokenhearted.

- Well, he was in love with her,

but he didn't treat
her very well.

- David had a serious
control over his heart

for many, many years.

His heart lay with performing,
songwriting and music.

And if he thought
his heart was broken,

it was only for
a minute in time.

- He was a rascal,
and of course,

the neighbors objected
to us being so wild.

So, I didn't want
to leave the house,

but David had to go.

- Bowie considered
leaving music altogether.

In 1967, he retreated to a
Buddhist monastery in Scotland.

- I think a lot of
youth find it very hard

to find exactly where it
is that they're supposed

to fit in to this rather
new terrifying world.

I think I would feel
very much like that.

I think maybe I would
shrink back into

wanting to find a more
spiritual kind of life.

I think maybe I would maybe

backpack through the
world and get to endure

and do all those things
that my generation

tended to do in the '60s.

It would be a very hard choice,

but mind you, I would,
yes, I would become a monk,

but a monk who played
an awful lot of guitar.

- He went to Samye Ling Tibetan
Center in Dumfries Shire

and stayed there
for about a month,

and did some very intensive
meditation practice.

And as a result of that,

I think at one stage, he did
consider becoming a monk.

- I'm still sort of
wondering whether I should be,

if I've found God
as a Buddhist or

- He told me that he never
really lost the music,

and that it was with
him all the time,

on the cushion in
the dining room,

out walking in the hills.

It was just buzzing
through his head.

And he realized, I
think eventually,

that he was not
being true to himself

and so he packed
up and went back

to London and show business.

- David
Bowie began 1969

as far from his pop
ambitions as he'd been

throughout the '60s.

- Once, when we were
both a bit broke,

we both went to
audition for Hair.

You know, the musical
where everyone in there

takes their clothes off.

We both got turned
down.

- He had a job in a
copying office in London,

a place called Legastat.

But, he only did it
about once a fortnight.

He hated it.

And he'd have the old
gig here and there,

but, no, he was broke.

I supported him for
quite some time.

- Everything that he
had, he put to good use,

and occasionally,
if it meant being

a bit slotty
occasionally, or whatever,

you did what you
had to do in order

to get to the next
level in the business.

- He was entirely,
totally and completely focused.

- I think when you are driven,

when you've really
got something to say,

then inevitably you're
going to make sure

that you achieve that,

and that definitely
applied to David.

- He was absolutely
dedicated to his career.

Music was the focus of his life.

During the time when
he was sitting around

the flat not doing very much,

he was constantly composing.

He was never idle.

- Are you being absolutely
accurate and honest

when you say you're
a disciplined person?

- Oh, yes.

- You
impose a discipline

on your own music writing
and your own work?

You don't just get up when you?

You know what I'm saying to you?

A lot of people
in your position,

they have a kind of repetition.

- Discipline doesn't
mean that you make sure

that you have breakfast
at 8:00 in the morning

and you're out of the
house at half past 8:00.

Discipline is if you
conceive something,

then you decide whether
or not it's worth

following through.

And if it's worth
following through,

then you follow it through
to its logical conclusion,

and do it to the
best of your ability.

That's the discipline.

Yes?

Whether there are areas in it

that are not to one's liking,

you have to go right the
way through it and do it,

and that's what I do.

- By
the spring of 1969,

Bowie was living with
journalist Mary Finnigan

in the London
suburb of Beckenham.

- He was living in my
apartment as my lodger,

but it was never a sort of

conventional landlady/lodger
relationship.

He was extremely messy.

He never did anything
around the house,

unless it suited his purpose.

He staged a very
elegant seduction for me

by cooking me a very nice dinner

when I came home from a
shift at the Sunday Times.

And then, he made a
sort of nest of cushions

in his room, and
he put big speakers

on either side of my ears,

and then played me
his favorite music.

I was pretty broke, so was he,

and absolutely penniless.

So then, our lifestyle
was unsustainable,

so he had the idea
to start a folk club.

And we found a location
in a pub in Beckenham,

and they gave us the back room.

And in the first week, there
were only about 25 people.

Second week, there were 90,

and after that, it
absolutely jam-packed

with never less than 120.

- He built an arts laboratory.

David based the whole idea of it

on the existing arts
laboratory on Drury Lane.

- He took the psychedelic
environment ambiance

out of central London and
set it up in the suburbs.

And I think it was
probably one of the first

in the suburban environment.

- London was so
vibrant in those days.

Everything was just exploding
into this burst of color.

- It is often said
that how the fortunate people

who were young in the
'60s had the best sex,

the best drugs and
the best music.

- You've got new
magazines, new newspapers,

new venues, new places to go,

a new order, this
counterculture,
as it was called,

was the reality,
and David loved it.

- It was an arts laboratory.

It was art of any
form or variety.

He compared it and he
performed his own set,

and he got the
confidence as a performer

week after week after week.

It was the bedrock of
his rise to stardom,

his ascent to the stratosphere.

It was a brief slice
of social history

which was really
quite remarkable,

and I'm glad that
I was part of that.

- I thoroughly enjoy
looking at myself

and looking at the
environment that I'm in

at any time with the eyes of
someone who's not involved

in any particular
line of the arts.

So, it comes out as a sort
of eclectic manifestation.

I'm still a fan of everything,

fan of films, fan of records,

fan of rock bands
and a fan of yours.

- As one of the most

consistently great British
songwriters of all time,

David Bowie's skills as
a lyrical storyteller

remain unparalleled.

- I don't have a
problem writing.

I do write a lot over
the course of a year.

It's never really been
hard for me to do that.

It wasn't painful in any way.

The only painful albums
I've had, I think,

were way back in the '70s.

There are a couple of instances

where it was really
hard for me to write

because I felt I was
delivering great chunks

of my soul out there.

But, that was a state
of mind, I guess.

- The other thing
in the sort of mix

of everything that
sometimes gets neglected

is David's brilliance
as a songwriter.

- David didn't write love songs.

A time when everybody
was writing love songs,

that's what you did, he
didn't write love songs,

and it was brilliant.

- We would often go
to something called

the Gioconda Cafe which is in
Denmark Street, Tin Pan Alley.

And he'd sit in this cafe

and he'd nurse a cup of tea for
hours because at any moment,

anyone from the song
publishing companies

would rush in say, "Oh,
we need a bass player,

"or we need a backing singer."

And they would sit
and wait till somebody

came and called you
in for something.

So, he'd spend a
lot of time there.

- We were looking for a
comedy song for me to record,

so I went along and met David.

And I think it was
just him and I.

And I would have been about 22,

and he'd been about 20, I think,

so he was a very young man
and hadn't at this point

changed his name to Bowie.

And I was very struck by him.

He was very serious,
'cause I ,

I'm not overly serious.

But, he was quite, I felt,
intense for a young man.

I was beginning to
wonder whether this man,

who seemed quite
serious, would have

the element of comedy
that was required

for the thing that
I was looking for.

David had written this song
called Over the Wall We Go.

- He played it to me, and I
thought it was very funny.

I said, "Yeah, I think
that's a good song.

"Let's have a go at that."

So, we went into the
studio, recorded it.

He introduced a character

which was a slightly
more camp chap.

- David does a little
bit in the middle

where he does a roll call.

- And it was very big.

It was very brash, very brassy.

It was well-arranged,
and immediately got
banned by the BBC.

It was felt it was too.

So, I feel quite proud
to have been associated

with a song that was
banned by the BBC.

I suppose that's the difference

between, I don't want to
compare myself to him,

but I went off and
had a fag and a laugh,

and he stayed with it.

- 50 songs isn't
enough, I've realized.

I heard, green with
envy, Dylan's got like

147 songs he chooses from.

And I can see that you
got to build up to that

because even when you got 50,

there are some that you're going

to fed up with
faster than others.

So, that 50 becomes
kind of the 30

with an unwritten 20
that you don't actually

want to ever play again.

So, you're back to 30 again.

So, I think you have
to go for at least 100

to then end up with like 50
that you like doing.

- The
root of Bowie's genius

lay in his ability to
write classic pop songs

and lots of them.

- I take my work very seriously,

but I try not to
let it topple over

into my psychological
life too much

and tear me apart
like maybe it used to.

- So, is
it very much work?

Are you able to kind
of, what is it you do,

carry the whole thing
with you forever period?

It is necessary
part where you need

to forget it and have
your personal life?

- No, no, no, it's
always with me,

but not quite the same
way that it used to be.

Probably the priority in my life

is my domestic and private life,

but it's reflected in my work.

- The songwriting
was the core of it all.

- It's his songwriting
will be remembered.

- We're coming right back now
to man and acoustic guitar.

So, you strip away
all the other stuff

and just bring it back
to that, voice and song.

And David was
absolutely world-class.

His lyrics, if there
wasn't any other lyric line

but to "see the mice
in their million hordes

"from Ibiza to the
Norfolk Broads",

you'd pin that as being one
of the great lyric lines ever.

And David seemed almost
able to pull this stuff out

almost effortlessly.

That was the
extraordinary thing.

- I do see that the
writing that I do

is very much in integral part
of my for-real 24-day life.

I do write a little
bit every day.

Some days I hate it.

It's an inconvenience,
but it's just something

I have to do.

And some days, I can't
wait to sit down and write.

- There was one which he
wrote after Zowie, Duncan,

had been born.

But, I was just
thinking how sweet.

He'd written this for his son.

A lot of things he
wrote with such heart.

- I have to be comfortable
with what I'm doing,

and if I feel
there's a kind of a,

as near to a truth
or an integrity

about what I do and write,
then that makes me feel

that I'm a successful
artist, I guess.

- Some
of Bowie's lyrics

owned their composition
to the cut-up technique,

popularized by the
poet William Burroughs.

- You take a song, and there
it is in its right order.

You cut it to pieces,

and then put it back
together again randomly,

and you are going to
get the same words.

They're just in a
different order.

But, the ultimate meaning of
the song remains the same.

He wasn't a sort of
artist, chiseling away

at the coal face of creativity.

It just seemed to
flow out of him.

- In 1967,
Bowie met his first wife,

Angela Barnett.

- She turned up one day
after I'd been away,

and I discovered that
she'd more or less

moved in with David.

I'm not quite sure why I
allowed this to happen,

but I was ousted, and she
replaced me as his lover.

- He was the first
one to say to me,

"Look, I've met somebody I
think who's really special.

"I think you'd get
along well with her."

- I'm not going to
bitch about Angie.

She was turbulent.

This can go on record.

She was turbulent.

She was a drama queen.

She threw wobblies quite a bit.

Some of them were just
straightforward hissy fits.

Others were designed to
focus attention on her,

and others to attract somebody

that she wanted to impress.

- Angie and I
instantly hit it off.

We were instantly good friends,

'cause I never had issues with,

I was happy that he'd found
somebody to be with him.

- I allowed them to
stay in the apartment.

She was there pretty
well all the time.

Why did I do it?

I wouldn't tolerate
it for 30 seconds now.

They would have been
out on their ear.

- We'd go down
there most weekends

and hang out with him and Angie.

- I was having so much fun.

I was enjoying it.

The activity that went
on around the arts lab,

and the continuous party.

Our house became the
court of King David.

- Angie was
amazing in those days.

You could literally give
Angie a carrot and a potato

and an onion and she
would make enough food

to feed everyone because
she was that organized.

- She was very generous.

She bought her own
food and took us out

to lots of nice outings.

- She was the
perfect foil for him.

She was loud, but
highly cultured.

She'd speak French.

She'd traveled.

Her parents were very nice,

and she was there
always for him.

- We spoke French together,

which irritated David to no end.

We'd both been to
school in Switzerland,

so we did quite in
common back then.

- He would be in his room
off and just lolling about

with his acoustic
guitar or bits of paper

having ideas for songs.

Or sometimes he'd
play a song to her.

She always was positive.

She would always
say, "This is great."

- In September 1969, they
found their own apartment

and they moved out,
but we stayed friends.

My love for him had changed
a little bit pretty quickly

because I was deeply pissed off

about what had happened.

I was sad for a while,

and then annoyed,
and then resigned.

- I read Mary Finnigan's
book where she said,

"She was devastated 'cause
he was being unfaithful."

I didn't expect
faithfulness from Bowie.

He was a musician
for goodness sake.

The two don't go together.

- I didn't
know what he was up to

when he wasn't there,
but I found that out

many years later.

- Women that thought
their hearts were broken

were fools basically
because you don't tame

a man like Bowie, especially
not in those early years.

- Yeah, I was pretty upset,

but it didn't last
for very long.

I got over it.

- In August
1969, Bowie and Finnigan

organized a free music festival

which was held on the
recreation ground in Beckenham.

- That was kind of
a peak experience,

when about 1,000
people turned out,

and we hardly
publicized it at all.

David was very sad.

He was grieving
because his father

had died about a week earlier.

And he performed as
a true professional,

and nobody who saw him
performing would have known.

- Right from the
start, I was aware

that David had a vision in terms

of what he wanted to do
and how he saw himself,

and the kind of music
that he wanted to make.

I was an aspiring DJ.

My whole job was to
fill the dance floor,

and I'd invited David
to come down with me

because I thought this
might be an option

for him to play.

So, he'd just started
going out with Angie,

and so, she came.

So, I remember her sitting
on the edge of the stage.

David had a set of
the backing track

of this single that he was
working on at the time.

So, I introduced him.

We had been slamming out
this really loud bass beat

and all of that,
and David came out

with his little
acoustic backtrack

which he then sang
live over the top-off.

The volume difference
between my dance music

and him was huge.

The floor cleared.

People got restless.

People were booing.

People started throwing beer,

and it just got absolutely
chaotic within almost moments.

And David had to
leave the stage,

and I strolled into
the center of stage.

I was so furious.

I said, "You
remember this night.

"This is David Bowie.

"Remember the name.

"He's going to be huge."

And I really knew
it at the time.

They just wanted to party,

and this rather sort
of kooky acoustic alien

that had arrived onstage
was a bit too much for them.

- Throughout his career,

David Bowie's style and image
were inextricably linked

with his music.

- Bowie set trends.

He created his own styles.

His creative vision was
about reinventing himself.

That was something that
no one had done before.

Now, lots of artists reinvent
themselves all the time.

We're very used to seeing that,

but he was the first
person to make himself

the focus of his own
kind of reinventions.

- Do you see the way
the people out there,

how their appearances are
changing during the tour?

When they first saw you.

- It's quite amazing because
there's all seven characters

that I've created
throughout this summer.

I see a Man Who Fell To
Earth, and a Ziggy Stardust

and a Thin White Duke.

And at the moment, a lot of
sailor's hats and things.

That's incredibly endearing.

- Are you aware
of the consequences

of things that you do and say?

Is it possible to
be relaxed to act

in a spontaneous
way when everything

that you were can be
suddenly picked up by?

- Well, it is at
the moment because

it's not that sort
of outrageous really.

I mean, everybody
wears plastic now.

- I cannot recall an
artist who changed

his or her image so
frequently and so completely.

This caused tremendous
problems for his fans

who would turn up for his gigs

dressed in last year's image,

and at the interval,
would look very sheepish

because they realized they
were wearing the wrong costume.

- Have you come
on the train like that today?

- Yeah.

- You came on the
underground dressed like that?

Did you get a bit of stick
from other passengers, I mean?

- Sort of, one way guy.

- Singularly, the
most important artist

in terms of style and fashion.

You only got to look
around at the audience

at a Bowie concert
and it's a carbon copy

of what's going on inside.

- I was a compere on a few
of the early tour dates,

so from the stage, you're
getting a pretty unique view

of what's happening
in front of you.

And gradually, you're
beginning to see people arrive

looking like David.

Wow, I mean, you looked
out at the whole audience

and they'd all made
a massive effort

to kind of dress
up and be Bowie.

- Ziggy
was his best character.

- When you
saw him do Ziggy onstage,

what made you decide
to look like that?

- Just brilliant.

Just everything
you could imagine.

- What's your name?

- Ziggy Zowie.

- What
was it before?

- My real name is Mandy Laming,

but that's a bit
boring.

- Well, I've had the
outfit for ages, really.

It's just built up from
a tour a long time ago.

I just put it together
when I saw his new film.

Then, I saw he got
fed up with dyed hair,

and so he's matured.

Just carried on doing that.

- You think
he's ahead of time,

or he's just completely?

- Yes, he's about six years
ahead of it, I suppose, yeah.

- I think he attracts the punks

because they like
the idea of someone

who's in a constant
state of change,

and also doesn't represent
the hippie period.

- Why do you think
they want to look like him?

- Wouldn't you?

- You seem
really happy onstage

to go through the old songs,
and to do them in a new way.

And everybody, obviously,
in the audience

goes along with it.
- Yes, I'm having

a very good time.

- But, please
tell me why is though

that your fans are happy to
go along with your changes?

Do you know what I mean?

There are the performers
that their fans--

- You have to ask them, I think.

- Yeah, they all seem
happy to spend 300 quid

and come and see you on tour.

- Yes, is that how
much my tickets are?

- No, that's how many
concerts they're been to.

- I know, it's quite
amazing, incredible.

- Bowie first
tasted commercial success

in 1969 when Space
Oddity was released,

as the world was
transfixed with Apollo 11

and its journey of discovery.

- I just thought it
was the greatest song.

Just most fantastic,
fantastic original song.

- People don't realize
what a slow burn

David was in the United States.

Space Oddity was not a hit
on its immediate release.

It was only a hit after Elton
had had Rocket Man in America,

and then Space
Oddity became a hit,

early '73.

It's inconceivable to think

that the albums we
consider classics

were not upon release,
popular in the United States.

- I hadn't realized what an
impact is was going to make,

'cause it did actually.

It suddenly put him out there

as a little bit of the alien

which has stayed
with him forever.

- The song
was used by the BBC

for their coverage
of the moon landing.

And although it
reached number one,

success was far from assured.

For all its brilliance,
the public thought of it

as a novelty record.

- Then, really not
very much happening.

He sort of disappeared
from certainly

any degree of success.

- It wasn't that
easy at the beginning

'cause he wasn't managed
by anyone really good

until Defries, but he
did what he wanted.

- That's how I did
for management,

and I signed him for records.

And I think the greatest
favor I ever did him

was he had no
interference whatsoever

when he was recording.

No input from the
record company.

And that gave him a
huge amount of freedom

which artists
didn't usually have.

They were just artists.

They came.

They went.

No one thought they were
going to make history.

- Not everyone
appreciated David Bowie's

songwriting skills.

- The first time I met
Andrew Lloyd Webber,

Starman was on the radio.

And he said to me, "What
do you think of this?

"He can't sing.

"I used to love rock.

"I loved the Everly Brothers,

"but I'm losing touch.

"I don't like this."

And of course, that was
the change in his writing

away from Jesus
Christ Superstar,

which had been a
so-called rock opera.

- I was the first Mary Magdalene
in Jesus Christ Superstar.

- And that was a very daring
thing, Jesus Christ Superstar,

in those days.

Just to call Jesus
Christ a superstar

offended a lot of people.

And we had a lot of people
out front protesting.

- David and Angie came to
see Jesus Christ Superstar,

and they left in the interval.

They hated it.

I was mortified.

I knew they wouldn't like it.

It's not his kind of music.

- Now, this is a
mutual antipathy

because David left
at the interval

'cause he didn't like
that style of music.

Of course, the world was
big enough for both of them.

- They should've stayed
for the crucifixion.

It was brilliant.

- Paul Nicholas,
who was fabulous,

I had to watch him
being crucified

eight times a week for a year.

- I was particularly good
in that bit.

I didn't have to
do a lot, mind you.

- Artistically,
Bowie was powering ahead.

In 1970, he formed a
short-lived band called Hype

though the recruitment of
Hull guitarist, Mick Ronson.

- It's impossible
to overstate, I think,

how important Mick Ronson was
to everything that happened.

- Mick Ronson was a great
guitarist, genius guitarist.

- If anything, Mick
Ronson's contribution

to David's sound has
been underplayed and
under-recognized.

I think he was crucial,
absolutely crucial,

to the sound and image.

- I don't think he
was that comfortable

with all the kind of
getting down on his knees

in front of David
and all of that

'cause he's a straight
guy from Hull.

- A version
of Hype would evolve

into the Spiders From Mars

and create some of Bowie's
most groundbreaking work,

starting with the Man
Who Sold the World

followed by Hunky
Dory which introduced

the sexual ambiguity
that would become

an important part
of Bowie's imagery.

- You had Space
Oddity, and then there was

a lull for a moment, but
then came Hunky Dory.

- There's David in a dress on
the album cover, unheard of.

Tame by today's standards
where everyone's

nearly naked on the pop video.

- So, David is saying to
gay people in the early '70s

"Don't be afraid.

"Be you.

"Look what we can do.

"Look at me."

- He was androgynous, gay.

He was outrageous.

He didn't know which way he was.

He didn't really care.

- He was already
giving all the signals

that he was going
to blur the lines.

- Marc Bolan
started it for him, started it.

- Marc was kind of
androgynous in a way.

He had this corkscrew hair.

He wore ballet
shoes, and makeup,

and guys hadn't sort
of done that before.

But, absolutely
parallel with that,

David was developing
the Ziggy persona.

- He questioned
notions of gender

and of what masculinity is,

being a sort of
performing artist

as opposed to a rock star.

But, have since become adopted

by a lot of other people since.

- The bisexual thing,
it was very well-timed.

Suddenly, to be gay was
kind of cool in those days.

- Up until then,
nobody was overtly gay.

Johnnie Ray, who
was a huge star.

He was gay, but no
one knew about it

because the fear was no
one would buy his records.

And I said, "You know,"

and this was the perceived
wisdom at the time.

I was .

"Girls buy records and
girls have their pop stars."

And he said, "You know,
time to change it.

"Don't worry about it."

And he was so bright.

He glammed up and
he wore the tinsel,

but he didn't say he was gay.

- He was always, in my
opinion, far more hetero.

He was a real man,
strangely enough,

although he had, when naked,

he had what I call childbearing.

His hips were bigger than
his very thin shoulders.

He had a rather odd shape,
actually, when stark.

- He made it OK.

You can be successful.

You don't have to
hide what you are

or who you are.

And I think that influenced
not only other artists,

but the public.

- One object
of Bowie's admiration

was New York pop art
icon Andy Warhol.

- Andy Warhol was a massive
figure in David's life

in the late '60s, early '70s,

what the factory was
doing in New York.

- He said, "Look, OK,
I've written a song

for you Andy Warhol."

But, strangely enough, for me,

one of the weirder
songs to give to me

'cause it's very abstract.

I don't sing abstract.

I sing about emotions.

I would rather die than
have an Andy Warhol

can of soup on my wall.

But, I never felt that
close to the song.

It was hard to put
any emotion into that

because Andy Warhol is not,
it's not an emotional song.

Then, he liked my
version so much,

he did his own version
on the Hunky Dory album.

- Hunky
Dory was received

with moderate success,
but all that changed

with the Rise and
Fall of Ziggy Stardust

and the Spiders from Mars.

During 1972, Britain was
crippled by industrial action.

The mood of the nation was dark,

and the culture
was conservative.

This is when Bowie
unleashed Ziggy,

the leading figure in
the glam rock movement

which turned pop
in a new direction.

- It's very funny.

It's, again, it works a lot more

because of its mistakes
than its intentions,

but it's great.

It's terrific.

The one thing that comes to
me more than anything else

is how influenced I
was by Japan back then.

It just screams from the screen.

It's the whole thing.

It looks like I'm
stretching over to the East

for inspiration.

I never realized how much
that was apparent at the time.

- The Rise and Fall
of Ziggy Stardust

and the Spiders from
Mars, it's so amusing.

It's now, of course, a classic,

but it didn't even
make the top 40

on its original release
because American radio

considered him too weird.

- Bowie was already
planning fresh career moves.

In 1973, he stunned his audience

by announcing the
retirement of Ziggy.

- I've had a really
incredibly loyal audience

for so many years now.

Virtually since when I started.

They sort of, it doesn't
really matter what I do

that they seem to
follow my turns

and all those strange
distracted things I do,

but quite loyally, you know?

Which I'll always
thank them for that.

- By the
mid-1970s, David Bowie

had metamorphosed
again, and was still

breaking new musical ground.

Station to Station provided
a dose of synthetic funk,

and introduced Bowie's
most toxic alterego,

The Thin White Duke.

- Do you have
any idea, at this stage,

apart from just getting
out on the stage,

how you astound?

Or does it actually come to you

in the middle of
the night before?

- Actually, it'll probably be
a lot faster than I've been.

That'll be my.

No, I haven't any thoughts
about that at all.

The impact of the show has
to be the outstanding thing,

not the dressing of it.

Dressing of the show
is just a dressing.

It's a sort of perfunctory
sort of thing.,

but the content has to astound.

You can dress a show
with a trillion dollars,

or trillion pounds
worth of goodies,

but if the show is
not a substantial,

they will be no impact.

- He was more into
the craft of being

an artist onstage then any rock
star I've ever worked with.

David did all the
lighting onstage

as the show rolled.

Lights from the right,
lights from the left,

and with a fill-in
from the bottom.

This pose is essentially a
cue to his lighting director

that when the hand went up,

the lights went down.

- I didn't really
embrace him fully

until Station to
Station, which I loved,

and then Low, really.

So, it was great working
with him after that,

'cause I could ask
him lots of questions.

He was a superstar, then
went kind of more left.

And when he went to Berlin,

things like Low, what people
saw as really experimental,

they were pop songs,
but they were presented

in kind of a left-field way.

And that album wasn't
really accepted,

but it was probably my favorite.

- For someone who claims not
to be that good a musician,

why are you coming back
to perform onstage?

Or are you a better
musician, in fact,

than you would admit?

- I can't link those two parts.

If I'm not that good a musician,

why am I coming back?

- Yes, yes.

- Well, coming back's
got nothing to do

with being a musician.

- Do you think you're
a better musician

after two years away from it?
- I don't say

anything on stage.

I'm a good performer

and I'm a good singer.

That has nothing to do
with being a musician.

Does it?

- The
cocaine-fueled paranoia

that seeped through
Station to Station

reflected Bowie's increasingly
troubled state of mind,

exacerbated by legal
and financial battles

with former managers.

- He'd been through
quite a lot of managers,

or damagers, we
used to call them.

And he always said, "One
day I know I'll find

"the right manager."

And the right man
was Tony Defries

who had this company
called main man.

- No one managed
really Bowie's career.

He managed his own career.

Where Defries was smart, he
would just stand in-between

Bowie and anybody who wanted
to talk to him and say, "No."

And perpetuate the diva.

- Tony
Defries represented Bowie

through his rise to
stardom, reputedly making

more money from deals
than Bowie himself.

- He always said, "Right,
in order to be successful,

"you must go to America."

So, he uprooted all of us
to go and live in New York.

- They were inclined
to have limousines

on-hand 24 hours a day.

They were inclined
to charge the company

various subsidies he's
going to make tea with.

- main man was five
years of total madness,

glory, fantastic times.

Defries had said that
"Everyone has to have limos,

"24 seven limos, a secretary."

I had a secretary
who was fantastic.

We all had assistants.

The offices were on Park Avenue.

He'd got a grand
piano shipped in.

And there were many
nights Mick, as in Jagger,

who was staying the The
Plaza around the corner

would turn up and we'd all be
hanging out till the morning.

At one point, there
were about 40 staff.

I don't think David
ever questioned

where the money came from.

- The stage had to be
whatever it was, 60 feet wide.

David Bowie would
have it measured

and say, "It's three feet short.

"I can't go on."

And Tony would say, he
wouldn't say that was stupid.

Tony would say, "Oh,
three feet short,

"we're not going on."

And that's how it
progressed really.

- So, David was just A,
having a way every time

which didn't just mean
partying actually.

It meant working and
doing what he wanted to do

which was creating music.

Nobody thought about who
was paying the bills.

- At one point, he
said, "I can't handle

"the madness and David."

And I remember he had
to book a telephone call

to break the whole contract up.

And it was only a
thing because suddenly

David was getting
wise to the fact

that he'd been working
all these years.

He had five number ones.

He didn't actually
have any money.

But, the reason was
a lot of the money

that was coming in
was fueling the costs

of running main man.

- At the time that they
went off to America,

I was in for
75,000, as I recall,

75,000 pounds of my own money.

So, I said, "Look, for
the next few years,

"you give me say half
a million pounds."

You know, "Ha, ha,
half a million pounds

"is more money than
there was in the world."

And a year or so later, they
sent me a balancing check,

and it was fine.

I was very happy.

- Musicians were
just so grateful to,

"Sign here, you're going to
get every musician you want.

"You're going to
fly here and there.

"You're going to gigs.

"You're going on
a great tour bus."

And suddenly, everything
like the house of cards

came crashing down.

- He and Defries are
falling out big time,

and RCA Records were not
getting any product from David.

And we organized a
summit in Los Angeles.

RCA paid for it.

This huge suite at the
Century Plaza Hotel.

Berry had a suite
with his people.

Defries had a suite.

I was with RCA, and
it was like Kissinger

and the Vietnam Conference.

It was just silly.

I called them in.

I said, "All you other
guys did for me."

It was only money.

And you're really
being stupid because

"you're both intractable and
if you both give a little bit,

"there's a chance
you can resolve this.

"And if not, no records
are going to go out."

And Demartin came
out and said to me,

"Look, this is
very embarrassing.

"David would like to
sign a piece of paper

"saying you're not getting
anything out of this."

And I said, "You tell David
to go [beep] himself."

- I think at that
point, David decided

to become a businessman.

- In later years, when
I tried to contact him,

I couldn't get him.

I couldn't get him,
didn't want to know.

- David
Bowie will be remembered

for his astounding
musical career,

but he pushed financial as
well as musical boundaries.

- Gosh.

- A lot of artists don't
even want to get involved

on the business side of things,

but David did, and successfully.

- I do the art and then I
try and sell it.

It's not much more
complicated than that really.

But, while I'm working
on the art itself,

I am 100% artist.

And when I'm trying to sell it,

believe me, I'm
100% businessman.

- By doing so, reinforced
the general impression

of himself as being a visionary.

That somehow he was able to see

what was going to happen next,

but before anybody else did.

- I wouldn't give you
a comment on Napster.

I think it's very
hard for artists

to have reached a certain
level of economic means

to be take seriously
when they start talking

about copyright
issues and Napster.

I'll give you a scenario though.

Around six months
time, record companies

will have banded together
in some kind of club.

All the copyright
difficulties with Napster

would have been
solved just in time

for them to put in
a fee so people have

to pay to use the site,

and then competition will
spring up everywhere,

and then Napster
will be one of many.

- He was very intelligent,

and he was very, very savvy.

- The other thing that he did

that was way ahead of everybody
else was the Bowie Bonds.

- In 1997,
Bowie made history

by launching Bowie Bonds,
which were as groundbreaking

as his music.

- He was the first artist

to securitize his back catalog,

and these were 10-year bonds.

- He was saying, "Invest in me,

"and over a long period of time,

"you'll get the benefit
by getting royalties back

"from work not written yet."

- You've gone on
with your plans to go public?

- Yes, we needed money.

- Evan Davis had jokingly said

after the financial
collapse of 2008,

"Well, we should
blame David Bowie."

But, we did make a
profit after 10 years

on the Bowie Bonds.

Our society as a whole did not,

and we had the
financial collapse.

- I'm watching this thing.

It's like it's crazy.

It's just crazy out there.

Most industries are a kind
of in decline at the moment.

They really are.

Industries are having
a really bad time,

but the main differences
with price slashing like this

the record industry's
so different

because they're
the only industry

where their products is actually

also available
for free.

As competition to
the price-slashing,

so it's a really
peculiar situation.

- Throughout his career,

Bowie remained
creativity restless

and constantly innovative.

- So, I've only got five words.

That was five.

Four more there.

That's three.

Two.

- During the mid-'70s,

he transformed again in another
unexpected career swerve.

He released Young Americans.

- He released 15
albums in the 1970s.

So, blink and you missed it.

The one that made Bowie
a mainstream figure

in the United States was Fame

which was an accident.

- He's in New York doing
Madison Square Garden.

He called John Lennon up,
said, "What's happening, John?

"I'm down the street here.

"Why don't you come in?"

John popped down to see him.

The guitarist, the three of them

were jamming on this
riff that built,

and suddenly you've
got a song called Fame

which catapulted David to the
top of the American chart.

- While others
would have been happy

to stick to the soul template

that broke the US, Bowie
would again change tack

and release some of the
most uncompromising music

of his career,
endlessly manipulating
his public identity.

The weird aura around
him was boosted in 1976

when he was cast as
a stranded alien.

- Now, you've
finished making the film

called The Man
Who Came to Earth.

- Fell to Earth.

- Fell to Earth,
I beg your pardon.

It's not an easy film
to explain to people

who haven't seen it, and
it's not yet finished, is it?

- It's finished in visual.

It's not finished in sound.

I've got to record the sound.

We've written a lot of it.

It's, I tell you,
all I can tell you

is it's a love story
more than anything else.

It's very, very
sad, very romantic.

It brought a lump to
my throat watching it.

And it's been a
gas working on it.

- The leading criteria
of his professional career,

I think, was first the music.

- Tony Visconti said you've
"put everything you had into it"

and you were totally
professional as an actor.

- Cool.

- Do you think
that's a compliment?

- Yes, it is, very much so.

- Do you see acting
taking over more and more

of your time?
- No, directing maybe.

Let's behind that thing.
- Yes.

- Bowie continued
to progress as an actor

receiving strong reviews
for the 1980 stage role

as John Merrick in
the Broadway production

of the Elephant Man.

- Theater is something
I enjoy very much.

But, I don't think
I can generalize

and say theater is
dishonest.

I think theater tells
a lot of truths.

It's just a different
way of doing things.

I still like the idea of
doing a theatrical thing,

and it doesn't preclude me
maybe doing one in the future.

But, right now, I'm very
happy just being a singer.

- For the
remainder of his career,

Bowie confined himself

to occasional supporting
roles and cameos.

- We were asked to
produce the music

for Absolute Beginnners.

This is the bloke who I
thought was the best producer

in the world, and I'm
asked to produce him.

It was a strange, scary
experience to begin with.

We were supposed to
meet at the James' Club,

and Al and myself
were quite scared

'cause we weren't
used to being seen

with rock royalty like that.

It was all kind
of quite surreal.

Then, he played us the
demo, which was amazing,

of Absolute Beginners.

He could have put that out.

So, I kind of was concerned,

and I think David was concerned.

It was like, "How are we
going to better the demo?"

But, he had his own
sense of criticism.

He was fun to work with,

or you had so much respect,

so you worked hard.

You concentrated all the time,

and things got done
pretty quickly.

He was a very nice guy.

I had one of those relationships

which is very music busy.

You felt like you were friends,

but I think there
was only a few people

who really knew what
he was completely like.

And he could converse
about anything,

and he was a very
attractive person.

Powerful, but without
showing off his power.

- I've got the
cheek of the devil.

- By
the end of 1976,

Bowie had taken up
residence in Berlin

accompanied by sometime
collaborator, Iggy Pop.

- He called me up in New
York in like November,

and said, "Hey, why
don't you come over.

"I've got these
demos I'm playing."

I said, "Great, I'll
bring my demos."

And we were playing demos
and he started listening

and went, "Mm, I like that."

And said, "We could do this.

"I could come in and
write some stuff."

We didn't use anybody to
kind of drive us around.

None of that.

It was all right out.

- David Bowie
was a roadie as well?

- Both of us, yeah, yeah.

The both of us also
had helped having

producers who were
both experienced

at getting things on the radio.

And yes, yes, I want
my stuff on the radio.

Yes!

I deserve it, and I want it,

and I'm going to get it.

- I still have very
fond memories of Berlin.

- A bit
violent, isn't it though?

- Yeah.

- Did
that worry you at all?

- I think towards the
end, it was something

that I felt I didn't
really want any part

in my life too much.

It was getting more violent.

- What he did
successfully in the 1970s

was so impressive because
he gave Mott the Hopple

All the Young Dudes,
which he produced.

He produced Lou Reed,
Walk on the Wild Side,

and then, very
impressively, Iggy Pop.

The Passenger is probably

the best known song
from that period.

- During this
intensely creative period,

Bowie released three
classic albums,

Lodger, Low and Heroes.

- Heroes isn't an
album about Berlin,

but it reflects.

There a resonance of Berlin
about the album Heroes

because that's where
it was written.

And you can kind
of feel that that's

the city is was written in.

- In-between
sessions, Bowie found time

to feature as a keyboard player
on Iggy Pop's Idiot tour.

- I used to go some of
the gigs on the road,

but, of course, David
didn't like to fly.

He had this fear of flying.

Most people would get
to a hotel after the gig

and fly the next day.

He would go straight
to his huge limo

with a big Mack driver and
go for hundreds of miles

across America sitting
kind of slumped

in the back of the seat.

And somebody would always
have to go with him.

I went a few times
with him in the car,

and he, sleep wasn't
really on his mind.

He got so drained, so tired,

that it was a miracle that he
actually finished the show.

- Meanwhile,
Bowie's relationship with Angie

had been disintegrating and
they would divorce in 1980.

- It was excruciatingly
public, very undignified.

- It's the worst I've
ever felt in my life,

and it's totally
and utterly thanks

to the great enthusiastic

behavior of Corinne Schwab

and David Bowie being a
total and utter coward.

A skank coward because he
couldn't even talk to me.

I felt like I lived at
the bottom of a slave ship

with the rats and the extra men.

- After a decade
as a major cult figure,

Bowie's stardom reached
new heights in 1983

with the worldwide
success of Let's Dance.

This was to be the most
commercially successful period

of his career,
and introduced him

to a whole new generation.

- Is the record
on a whole a dance record?

- Dance is so diversified now.

There's so many
styles of dancing.

- A lot of
different dances to do on it?

- Absolutely, yeah,
yeah.

If you dance slow, there's
a slow track on there.

- There have been rumors

that this might be
the last hit tour.

Would you care to stem those?

- I doubt that.

I can't see that I'd be
touring next year again,

but I've got no real feeling
about stopping touring.

If this goes as happily
as I want it to go,

then it would, I'd probably tour

a lot more frequently
than I have.

- Let's
Dance propelled him

into that super-stardom,
shopping mall sort of pop star.

- It was a whole
different phase for him.

That was the phase where
American radio loved him.

- In retrospect, it's
interesting to see David

say that probably that
time in the early '80s,

when he was having
those massive hit,

Let's Dance, Shiny
Gun, was probably

the least fulfilling
time he felt

in his whole musical career.

- I've had big hit with albums
I really despise really.

Albums I don't like, and they've
done really, really well.

And it always has to be
about material on the album

and whether, in hindsight,
and pretty fast hindsight.

Hindsight within
like a month or two

of having made the album.

If I can really
look at it and say,

"This was definitely the
very best kind of work

"I could've done at
that particular time."

- 1988
brought a new venture,

and what many fans
perceived as a new low,

Bowie's rock band Tin Machine
garnered mixed reviews.

- Yeah, I had to let him sing,

be the singer on
the first record.

So, now David can play a
little guitar and I can sing.

- And a little saxophone.

- And some saxophone

- This big.

- Know what I mean?

- There were two
reasons why the critics

didn't like Tin Machine.

One, 'cause the record
was not very good.

Second, the concept
of a major artist

trying to be the equal of people

who were not major artists.

- To me, the first
Tin Machine album

was really good.

We were invited
along to do the sound

for the one night in Corbin.

And I thought it
was really good.

I didn't understand actually

what the backlash was all about

because amazing band,
amazing rhythm section,

and a couple of
really good songs.

- With David Bowie, he
had to be David Bowie.

People did not
want him to be part

of something else.

- After
dissolving Tin Machine,

Bowie married
Somalian model Iman,

who he had met 18
months earlier.

- I'm 47 years old.

My stars change on
a constant basis.

No wonder I married David Bowie.

We both believe in
change.

- The couple
settled in New York,

and in August 2000, they had
a daughter, Alexandria Jones.

- I've gotten so
used to the luxury

of living anonymously,
and my family.

And it is how we
live in New York.

Nobody ever bothers
you over there.

It really, unless
you're a damn fool

and want to go live
in LA or something.

And good luck to you.

You deserve it.

If you want, in New York it's
not a kind of paparazzi haven.

- So, you can walk--

- You can have a real life.

Yeah, sorry
but it's like you're

not just a product of the
newspapers over there.

You can just get on with things,

and I like that.

I've gotten used to it.

What can I say?

It's a laziness, I guess.

If I came back to
Britain, I'd probably

not opt to live in London, but
I love London really a lot.

It would be really
difficult for me

to go and live in
Gloucestershire or somewhere,

as much as a love
Gloucestershire.

I like to be in New York City.

It was great to come.

I wanted to catch up with
folks and see what's happening.

See what my son's
up to and all that.

- The new start
in Bowie's private life

triggered yet another
transformation.

He forever ditched his
other worldly persona

in favor of conventionality.

- Hello.

I like being where
I am now very much.

I much prefer it.

I feel a lot more free
about what I can do,

and dare I say, what I can
get away with musically.

- What he was doing in the '90s

wasn't registering with
the mainstream audience.

He was experimenting
with, again,

new and different musical forms,

and they didn't quite register.

The albums would always
come in high the first week,

'cause fans would buy them,
and then they'd go down.

His main achievement in the '90s

were that he was a
pioneer in the internet

with his fan service BowieNet.

This was, again, being
ahead of the curve.

It just wasn't musical.

- Not many people know
this, but actually,

I was the first artist to
take computers out on the road

in the early, very early '80s,

in fact, in the Serious
Moonlight tour in 1983.

So, we were going online then

delivering all facts and
figures back to home base.

So, my experience with computers
does go back a long time.

- Bowie
continued to tour and record

until 2003, when he
released Reality,

his 23rd album which many
assumed to be his last.

- It's a big tour
you're starting now, isn't it?

- Yeah, it's going to go
on for months and months,

but I think they're up for it.

- What do
you feel right now?

- Pretty relaxed.

I enjoy the songs a lot, so
I'm going to have a good time.

It's a struggle to understand
how I'm no longer 20.

I don't know anybody else
this has ever happened to.

Most people, they get to
20, then they stay 20.

It didn't happen for me though.

I just went on and on and on,

and suddenly, I'm 56.

Isn't that weird?

We can't wait to
bring our show to you,

whatever that show is.

It'll be fun.

All right, see you then.

- He had his first heart attack.

That was the reason he
didn't perform anymore.

So, the people who
were closest to him

didn't want you to keep
pestering them with questions.

"Oh, when's he going
to do another show?"

They just said, "He's
had heart problems.

"They're afraid the
exertion might kill him."

- But,
there was more to come.

After a decade without
a studio album,

Bowie reemerged in
2013 with The Next Day

which propelled him back into
the popular consciousness.

- It got to number
two in the Billboard

which was his highest
career peak at that point,

believe it or not.

And that set up Blackstar.

- Until
the last, David Bowie

was capable of
springing surprises.

Releasing Blackstar two
days before his death

saw him innovating
until the end.

- He did the ultimate
that every musician wants

which is you're dying,
you got an album out

three days before your death.

How cool is that?

- I listened to the album the
days leading up to his death.

So, trying to work out
what it was all about,

and it was a bit down.

- It disturbed me.

I thought there was
a message in it,

but I didn't know what it was.

I never imagined that it
was a sort of goodbye.

- It was gloomy, initially,

then it all made sense.

I felt a bit conned.

He sort of conned everyone,

but I'd say it couldn't
have been done better.

- He orchestrated it
beautifully with taste,

the way he's always been.

- It was brilliantly done,
if you want to be depressed.

Not one for the
children.

- Even in death, I think
David was very aware

of what the public
would think about it.

- The timing was
so extraordinary.

New album, new show,

both about his
death and he dies.

That is the ultimate
performance artistry.

It's so brash and
bold and brave,

and inconceivable,
but he pulled it off.

- Even by
the standards of an age

when fame and celebrity
are excessively worshiped,

David Bowie's
demise was an event

which generated worldwide
wall-to-wall coverage.

In the wake of his
death from cancer

at the age of 69, the
media went into meltdown.

- It was
absolutely devastating.

- It's
very hard still to talk

about him in the past tense.

I'm just totally dumbstruck

that he's no longer here.

I really am.

It really upset me to the core.

- I don't know if
I've ever been this emotional

about a celebrity,
an icon, dying.

His music means a
great deal to me.

- Just
really heartbroken

as if, when you feel as
if you really knew someone

and they really
touched your life.

- For everyone, he's
their David Bowie,

and he was my David Bowie
for that nine-month period,

and I thought we
had something going.

But, he had it going
with millions of people.

- It's a sad occasion
for us this morning

as we put this wreath here
on the star of David Bowie.

What an iconic entertainer,
rock star, songwriter,

performer, actor, you
could go on and on.

- I didn't sleep all night,

and I cried last night,
and then I found out.

It was like I lost
a family member.

- Feeling devastated is a
complete wasted emotion.

He wouldn't want it, so why
should anyone else do it?

- I think he
achieved everything

he would've dreamt of.

- People feeling
sorry for themselves,

they should be
thinking about him,

and he did everything
a musician wants to do.

- From the Archbishop of
Canterbury to George Clinton,

from the Vatican to
the country of Germany,

with all these different
records and styles,

he just touched an
incredibly large number

of different populations.

That when you add
them all together,

are the majority.

- I was filmed just
outside of Radio Two

by Reuters' film crew.

I said to them, "When
is this going out?"

And they said, "Over the
next God knows how long."

I said, "Right."

And they then said, "In
China, Japan, America,

"Germany, France."

And he looked at me, he said,

"David was big, massive
all over the world."

He said, "We've never
had a moment like this

"as far as demand is concerned."

- He's left so much music behind

that what could he do?

He couldn't go on
till 200 years old.

He had to go at some point.

Obviously, one can
feel sorry for his wife

and daughter and son,
but when a child is born,

that's when you should cry

'cause you know they're
going to have a life of hell

and pain and shit
and everything.

When somebody dies
is when you celebrate

and feel good
because they've gone

to somewhere better of they've
gone back to be stardust.

And I reckon he's stardust.