David Bowie died a week ago today and the world is still in the state of shock. Not just the fans who followed the Thin White Duke from his days defending long hair, through his fall to earth as a Spider from Mars to the revelation that the biggest Space Oddity from his early career was that Major Tom was a junkie.
Bowie was an artist in the truest sense. A musician, magician, mime, actor, painter and writer, his influence can be felt in every genre from punk to prog, classic rock to K-pop. Bowie's music videos were among the first to explore the limits and expansions of the form. His collaborations with artists like Eno, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Queen were augmented by his longest relationships with his personal picks of musicians like Carlos Alomar, Robert Fripp and Brooklyn-born multi-instrumentalist Tony Vicsonti.
After his death it was reported that David Bowie makes Vevo history with 51 million video views in one day on January 11th, breaking the previous record held by Adele with 36 million views when "Hello" premiered on October 23, 2015.
Vevo has over 60 videos spanning multiple decades of David Bowie's career with early hits including "Space Oddity" and "The Jean Genie," all the way to his most recent releases "Lazarus" and "Blackstar." Bowie's catalog saw a 5198% increase in views on January 11th over the average of the prior 7 days, with "Lazarus" being the most-watched video with 11.1M views.
David Bowie's first American tour was a disaster, according to a lost radio interview that was found in an attic after 40 years by Dave Cousins, of The Strawbs. In March 1971, Cousins, who was producer for the Danish broadcaster, Danmarks Radio, interviewed Bowie, but the recording was never played to a British audience.
In the interview David Bowie says his first U.S. tour was a disaster because he forgot to get a work visa and couldn't play gigs.
Bowie was in America for a planned coast-to-coast publicity tour to promote his third album, The Man Who Sold the World. But Bowie didn't have the right visa. It later came out that The Thin White Duke failed to apply for an H1 employment visa. The singer was restricted to plugging the album on radio shows. He could not performing any of its songs to live audiences, though Bowie did secret gigs for "whoever we could get in."
Bowie never officially announced that he was ailing. His last album, Blackstar, did that for him. When his The Next Day album came out after a ten-year silence, Bowie didn't make any announcement until a few days before it dropped. The Next Day was recorded in secret. When gossip broke that Bowie was making new music, he switched studios to keep the news under wraps. Produced by Tony Visconti, the multi-instrumentalist from Brooklyn who had been with Bowie for years. the album hit No. 1 in 15 countries. The album hit number two on the U.S. Billboard charts, Bowie's highest debut in America.
David Bowie was 17 years old and was still called Davie Jones and he released his first album with the band the King Bees. Davie Jones changed his name to Bowie because there was another British singer actor with the name Davy Jones playing in a band called The Monkees. They were all over the TV and the radio and Bowie, who took his name from the Bowie knife, was going in a different direction.
