walking upstream…
David Bowie
photo: adam bielawski · cc by-sa 3.0 ↗David Bowie
David Bowie spent five decades treating identity itself as an instrument, slipping from folk troubadour to Ziggy Stardust's alien messiah to the icy soul man of the Berlin Trilogy without ever losing the threadline of his own restless curiosity. Born David Jones in Brixton, he fused glam theatrics, art-rock experimentation, and a magpie's appetite for outside sounds into a body of work that reshaped what a rock star could look and sound like. He died in New York in 2016, days after releasing Blackstar, his final and characteristically enigmatic reinvention.
the sound in question
1969
Space OddityDavid Bowie
walk the tributaries ↓
Anthony Newley1960s · Traditional pop / Musical theatre
Bowie's manager Ken Pitt steered the young singer toward cabaret and Anthony Newley's records, and Bowie absorbed Newley's plummy, overenunciated cockney delivery wholesale for his earliest recordings.
listen: upstream & here
1961
What Kind of Fool Am IAnthony Newley
1967
The Laughing GnomeDavid Bowie
listen forListen to Newley's clipped, theatrical phrasing on 'What Kind of Fool Am I,' then to Bowie's 1967 novelty single 'The Laughing Gnome' — the vocal impression is almost uncanny, right down to the vowels.
Elvis Presley1950s · Rock and roll / Rockabilly
Bowie shared a birthday with Elvis and treated it as a kind of destiny; when RCA asked him to write a song for Presley, Bowie obliged, and when Presley never recorded it, Bowie released it himself.
listen: upstream & here
1956
Heartbreak HotelElvis Presley
1975
Golden YearsDavid Bowie
listen forCue up 'Heartbreak Hotel' for that lonesome, echo-chamber ache, then play Bowie's own 'Golden Years' — written with Elvis's voice in mind — and hear how directly Bowie was writing toward his idol, even in absentia.
Little Richard1950s · Rock and roll / R&B
Bowie said hearing Little Richard's records as a kid felt like hearing God, and that raw, whooping, rock and roll abandon never fully left him — it just kept resurfacing under new makeup.
listen: upstream & here
1955
Tutti FruttiLittle Richard
1972
Suffragette CityDavid Bowie
listen forPut 'Tutti Frutti' next to 'Suffragette City' and listen for the same pounding, hollered momentum — Bowie trades the sax-and-piano stomp for glam guitar, but the wild-eyed, foot-to-the-floor commitment is pure Little Richard.