Monday, January 11, 2016

David Bowie: Lazarus + Heroes


David Robert Jones, age eight, 1955, Bromley, Greater London

I was as surprised as anyone when I read the news that David Bowie died from liver cancer yesterday, only two days after his 69th birthday; the same day he released his twenty-fifth studio album 'Blackstar'.  Utterly unique and a bona fide genius, he created a treasure trove of music throughout five decades, an accomplishment hard to fathom.

For this blog post I chose an early school picture rather than a photo showing one of his many fascinating recording/stage personas because it freezes a moment in time when not even lil David Jones could have predicted the brilliant career of David Bowie. Or could he? Is that why he's smiling?

The beautiful second single "Lazarus" dropped December 17 and is a fitting swan song from Bowie. The stellar video, published January 7, was directed by Johan Renck (who also directed the clip that accompanies the first single "Blackstar".)

Everyone has their favorite Bowie songs: mine is "Heroes" and so I am also posting his classic from 1977.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/blackstar/id1059043043?app=itunes