Of course, I've read bits'n'pieces about Bowie over the years and have known'n'dug his music since "Changes" first started appearing on the FM Radio stations. It helped that my then-girlfriend was pretty much a glam-fanatic, but I was certainly drawn to Mick Ronson's guitar work, along with Bowie's well written tunes and outrageous stage persona.
This is yet another book that tells the story through interviews - hence "the oral history", natch. Dylan Jones (really? Is there any way that could possible be a real name?!) actually interviewed Bowie himself at times, and for this book he collected reminiscences from family (I didn't know/had forgotten about Bowie's half-siblings and the mental illness that ran in his mother's side), friends, lovers, musicians who worked with him and who simply knew him along with lots of others.
Bowie's childhood is discussed, of course, but Jones moves pretty quickly to the teenage years and Bowie's various 60's musical projects before his solo career. Naturally, lovers are a big topic of the story, as they included fellow musicians, landladies, managers (possibly) and more, as well as "just" lovers. According to many of the people interviewed, David was bisexual and often had multiple lovers juggled at the same time - in fact, supposedly he had a landlady/lover in the suburbs, Angie in London and various others here'n'there all at the same time!
His career takes off with Ziggy Stardust, but as much of the book is dedicated to who he was fucking as to his music and the band. It really is so ubiquitous that it is almost absurd - he just fucks almost anyone around him - mostly women (and young groupies like Lori Lightning and Sable Star), but men, as well, if the "kiss'n'tell" aspect of the book can be believed. Multiple people describe Bowie as a sex addict, although I can't blame him for taking advantage of his situation - and the women say that he was always a gentleman and a seducer, not just a wham-bam-thank-you-maam". But it does almost get in the way of the story, since it is so all-encompassing.
He is somewhat known for being self centered and controlling as well as simultaneously being pompous and insecure. He uses people but really, I don’t know if it’s much more than anyone uses anyone else (especially in the music biz), other than the fact that he was on another level.
I'm a rock'n'roller, natch (and a bit of a folkie), so my fave part of the tale is his early days and rise to fame and his work with Ronno. Once he started into his soul phase, while not terrible, he lost my interest and so more than half of this book covers the period that I don't care too much about, which coincides with his absurd drug abuse. Funny quote though - Earl Slick, who plays guitar on Station to Station calls it Bowie's best album! Hah! Kinda egotistical and I don't know ANYONE else who would say that - not even in most people's top 5, I would think...Also humorous is Deep Purple's Glenn Hughes becoming close to Bowie - not sexually, although Glenn makes it sound like Bowie would have liked that, but apparently Bowie dug Hughes' voice, which makes sense as he was getting more into African American music and Glenn had a soulful voice. Still odd to me and something that I never heard before and they seemingly would have traveled in somewhat different circles.
As we get into the 80's, we get to Bowie's most vapid work which, ironically, is his most popular, but that was the 80's for you! Even the author admits that much of Bowie's work during this period was boring drek. Unfortunately, this British author does what all too many British authors do and continually cite various British references, slang words, obscure (to anyone outside of Britain) people, places and things and more. Of course, you can always get the gist, but the assumption that people outside of England will understand what you're talking about is somewhat pompous and annoying, at least for a midwestern kid like me.
There's quite a bit abut the numerous films that he did - I tend to forget that he was in so many since I haven't seen a lot of them - but there's a somewhat funny part when talking about Bowie playing Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ since I just read Peter Wolf's book and he auditioned for the part but Scorsese says he never considered anyone but Bowie - not very nice!
The book tends to run on'n'on - it definitely could have been considerably shorter as half of the book rambles on about music that basically no one cared for and talks about his interest in art and his business and so on...Just nowhere near as compelling as his early years and could easily have been edited deeply. There's also literally hundreds of pages of eulogies after his death that just rambles on and doesn't really add much to the narrative, other than to reiterate how much he meant to people.
Naturally, fans will want to read this, and there is some entertaining escapades herein, but I do think that the sex'n'druges were highlighted more than necessary and there could have been more about his music - especially the great 60's and 70's sounds that made him the star that he was. Maybe if I was a bigger fan of Bowie's later work I would be more of a fan of this book, but for me it rambled on and I skimmed a lot of the later chapters. Maybe I missed something compelling by doing that, but it really just got to be a bit too much....
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