Editors of TIME - David Bowie

DAVID ROBERT JONES, ARTIST, musician, actor, innovator, provocateur, who died from cancer on January 10 at age 69, will long be remembered for his best-known creation, a character called David Bowie. For Jones, who had maintained the legal surname that his two children now carry, Bowie was a role he could slip into or out of, and dress up in half a dozen other personaeand by doing so keep the public guessing what was real. Not that it mattered what was true when he captivated a crowd with the opening chords of Watch That Man, its title directive a laughable redundancy: you couldnt take your eyes off him. Or when, in the headphones of a disenfranchised teen drawn to the song Rock n Roll Suicide, he insisted: Oh no, love, youre not alone... youre wonderful! Heres some of what we know: he was an Englishman and a New Yorker, an early out bisexual who liked being married, a onetime drug addict who, even at his most evident physical lows, demonstrated an astonishing curiosity and work ethic, sometimes making two albums a year, both future classics. I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human, he said. He succeeded convincinglyonly Bowie could portray a space alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth and leave moviegoers with the impression that it wasnt much of a stretch. But, as you will read, loved ones say he was quite human, warm and engaged. With his old bodysuits and mens dresses touring in a museum show, he strolled the city in jeans, which he presumably put on one leg at a time. Of course, as Bowie pal guitarist Reeves Gabrels recently noted: Einstein, too, put his pants on like everyone else, then wrote the theory of relativity. Here, we celebrate the life and work of another genius and remember the man who left us. Farewell to the talented Mr. Jones. David Bowie lives. Allison Adato

STATION TO STATION TOUR Copenhagen, 1976

David Bowie

His Life on Earth
1947 2016

Bowie at Radio City Music Hall in 1973

FOREWORD

The Picasso of Rock n Roll

In two seconds we spiritually and artistically connected, says Bowies collaborator and friend

BY NILE RODGERS

THE FIRST TIME I EVER HEARD of David Bowie was this: I was in Miami Beachit was 1974, maybe 73and a girl who was a photographer for a restaurant invited me to a nude beach. She said, I want you to come to the beach with me and sleep naked under the stars and listen to my favorite artist. Of course I complied! We lay all night listening to Ziggy Stardust. After that, how could I not be a fan? The music was great. I couldnt get Suffragette City out of my head.

I dont think I ever told David that story, because in 1982 I was Mr. Heavy Producer. We first met at an after-hours club called the Continental in New York. These were the days of the very large clubs, and the Continental was pretty massive. I probably arrived there around 5 or 6 in the morning. I walked in with Billy Idol and we both spotted him at the same time. Billy said, Bloody hell, its David effin Bowie! I walked over to David and started chatting with him. Within two seconds we just spiritually and artistically connected. I dont remember speaking to anyone else the entire time.

We spent that whole morning talking about jazz artists. I think we were both surprised at the level of each others knowledge of the genre. David knew jazz damn near on the level of a musicologist. I could drop a name on him, and hed go, Oh my god, I bought his third album. For years we had this ongoing promise, and unfortunately we never realized it. One day we were going to cover Dr. Johns I Walk on Guilded Splinters with a big band, so to me it makes total sense that Davids last album, Blackstar , was with cats like Ben Monder, Mark Guiliana, Jason Lindner and jazz-oriented players. Maybe his final opus was Davids version of New Directions in Jazz, la Miles Daviss Bitches Brew subtitle.

The night we first smothered each other in jazz raps, we were both at career lows. Artistically speaking, both of our previous albums were rewarding but certainly werent by 80s record-sales standards.

Producing the Lets Dance album was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It totally changed my life, and it totally changed Bowies. It was he and I against the world. We did it by ourselves, and he independently funded the project. It was the easiest record Ive ever made. It took 17 days from start to finish. From the day we walked into the studio to day 17, the record was finished, mixed and never touched again. We were on the same wavelength. I was charged with making a hit album, and I did.

Most of Lets Dance is a covers albummany people dont realize that. Criminal World was a song by the band Metro. Cat People, David had recorded with Giorgio Moroder for the eponymous film. So these songs already existed. This gives you a great idea of how David Bowie sees the world. I call him the Picasso of Rock and Roll because when he brought China Girl to mea song hed already written with Iggy Pop, who recorded a gritty, raw, punkish versionBowie wanted to see it with my eyes. I was like, Wow, thats cool, hes allowing me to be David Bowie. But I thought I was going to get fired because I changed it so much. I told the band, Prepare for this being our last day, because what Im doing to this song is so commercial hes going to flip out on me. When I played him my little Asian-inspired guitar riff, he was like, Fantastic!

My favorite thing everand there are a lot of favorite things about Bowiewas when David first played me his riff to Lets Dance. He told me it sounded like a hit. It sounded like a folk song to me. I asked him if I could make an arrangement, and he said, Sure. The first time he heard my arrangement was after we demoed it with a group of Swiss jazz players. I asked, David, did I make it too funky? And he said, Nile darlingis there such a thing? That was the coolest thing Id ever heard.

Years later we did another album called Black Tie White Noise . Those songs were a little bit more challenging because I think David (and he sort of admitted it) suffered from a little bit of success-remorse. Lets Dance was so big that David felt he was almost defined by one album. It sold 7 million copiesway more than any of his other records. But his tremendous body of work spans the musical gamut. No one record could ever define Bowie.

Ive been in the presence of artistic greats all my life, and David is in that rarefied league worthy of being called super-genius.

Lets Dance. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.

With reporting by Nolan Feeney

Bowie Forever and Ever

Tributes from generations of fans

It feels like we lost something elemental, as if an entire color is gone.