He was basing that on the handful of still photographs he had seen in recent months--looking rather bleak, he opined. It was also a bit strange that Bowie was staying out of the limelight, considering he was to release a new album--Blackstar--on January 8th, 2016, his 69th birthday.
Well, it's really sad news that Bowie has passed. He was part of one of rock'n'roll's foremost eras, where he, Roxy Music and others backed their considerable outward
outrageousness with innovative music--stretching boundaries, but still with traditional and even campy elements intact. I will miss him, as I already miss that time period.
Two things to make you smile (I hope):
One of my earliest music pals at Texas Lutheran College (now University) pronounced the last name "Boo-ie." I told him something like, "Nothing to do with Jim Bowie, Mike--it's Bow-ie.:
And then, from 1973: I was in a band called Anyway (yeah, I know--why that name?) with Dave Grenville, Mark Lachowicz and Mike Mulvahill (rhythm guitar, lead guitar and bass, respectively). We had three Bowie songs in our repertoire, "The Jean Genie," "Suffragette City" and "Panic In Detroit"; the latter was really hard to do and I should have played it Bo Diddley-style for parts of the verses, but I wasn't a smart enough drummer, being 18 then.
I believe it was the first or second gig we ever did, outside on a sunny summer day where we wanted cash but got paid in fried chicken, all we could eat. A lady older than my parents asked if the band knew "Stardust," the Hoagy Carmichael song first published as "Star Dust" in 1929--could we play it?
Ziggy Stardust...," Dave offered.