This Londoner has been on the scene for over 40 years and is still going strong today. He played saxophone when he was 13 and was influenced by his older brother Terry – who developed a mental illness, was committed to an institution and committed suicide in 1985. That tragedy haunted our Londoner for many years and caused him to write \u201cJump they Say\u201d.\u00a0 At 16, he started a career as a commercial artist, singing and playing with rock bands in his spare time. By 1966, he had recorded singles with three different groups and decided to set out on his own as a solo act.\u00a0 He is a musical chameleon, was a folksinger, androgyne, alien, decadent blue-eyed soul man, art-rocker and a modern pop star, with each persona spawning a new league of imitators. He used the saying \u201cEveryone finds empathy in a nutty family.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was born David Robert Jones on the 8th<\/sup>\u00a0January 1947 in London to Margaret Mary Burns (Peggy) and Haywood Stenton Jones (John).\u00a0 Peggy worked as a cinema usherette and John was a promotions officer for Barnardo\u2019s.\u00a0 He took up the saxophone at 13, and when he left Bromley Technical High School to work as a commercial artist three years later, he had started playing in various bands – the Konrads, the King Bees, David Jones and the Buzz. Three of David\u2019s early bands \u2014 the King Bees, the Manish Boys (featuring session guitarist Jimmy Page), and Davey Jones and the Lower Third \u2014 each recorded a single. He changed his name to David Bowie (after a friend permanently paralysed his left pupil in a knife fight) to avoid confusion with the Monkees’ Davy Jones. \u00a0In 1966, when he was 19, he recorded three singles for Pye Records. The following year he signed with Deram Records, issuing several singles and\u00a0The World of David Bowie<\/em>\u00a0(most of the songs from that album, and others from that time were collected on\u00a0Images 1966-67<\/em>).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\n
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