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David Bowie (1947–2016) was an English musician, songwriter and actor. Throughout his life, he had numerous relationships, both personally and professionally.

Family

• only son
• mother Margaret "Peggy" Jones (1913–2001)
• father Haywood Stanton "John" Jones (1912–1969)

• John died in early August 1969, shortly after the single release of "Space Oddity".
• Kenneth Pitt: "He was always wonderful. I wish he could have witnessed David's success."

Terry Burns

half-brother, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia

• major influence on Bowie's writing in the early 1970s
• Narrator of "All the Madmen" inspired by Terry; Bowie confirmed in 1972 that the song was "written for my brother and it's about my brother"
• by 1970 he was confined to London's Cane Hill Hospital, graced on the original cartoon cover of The Man Who Sold the World and the lines "mansions cold and grey" on "All the Madmen"

• Terry was a fan of Cream and took Bowie to see them play in the 1960s; Bowie attempted covers of "I Feel Free" for Pin Ups and Scary Monsters before finally recording it for Black Tie White Noise

• "The Bewlay Brothers" – Bowie told a radio interviewer in 1977 that the song was "very much based on myself and my brother"; further said in Radio 2's Golden Years documentary: "I was never quite sure what rea position Terry had in my life, whether [he] was a real person or whether I was actually referring to another part of me, and I think 'Bewlay Brothers' was really about that."
• Burns resided at Haddon Hall but his condition deteriorated by the recording of Hunky Dory

• died by suicide in 1985 (check Sandford)

• "Jump They Say" – loosely based on Terry

• "It's the first time I've felt capable of addressing it."

Personal life

Angie Bowie

• first date on 30 May 1969; met through music executive Calvin Lee

• Visconti: "Calvin Lee was besotted with David—and his hidden agenda was to have him as a boyfriend. But Angie Bowie, who arrived on the scene during the recording of [The Man Who Sold the World], squashed all possibility of that."

• wrote his 1970 single "The Prettiest Star" for her, playing it down the telephone as part of his proposal to her on Christmas 1969
• married on 19 March 1970, two weeks after the single flopped

• open marriage

Duncan Jones

David and Angie had one son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, born on 30 May 1971 shortly before the sessions for Hunky Dory began; David wrote "Kooks" as a tribute to his newborn. On Duncan's opinion of the song, Bowie said in 1999: "He likes it. Yeah, he's got fondness for it. He knows full well that it was written for him."

Pegg

• Bowie attended the premiere of his son's feature film Moon in January 2009 and declared his love for the film: "It's hard to believe it's his first. I'm so happy for him and proud as Punch."
• Discussing his father's influence on him, Duncan said that his love for science fiction drew from watching science fiction films with his father growing up as a young boy
• The two also made home movies together. Duncan: "It's great, one of those father-and-son things we used to do together."
• David taught his son about moviemaking, from storyboards and script-writing, to lighting and editing: "While Dad would go on stage, I'd be making my little movies."; Duncan visited his father on the sets of The Hunger, Absolute Beginners and Labyrinth in the 1980s

Duncan's interest in filmmaking sparked from his desire to find a creative outlet that differed from his father's. He told interviewers that growing up, David attempted to teach his son several instruments, including piano, saxophone, guitar and drums, to no avail

• Tribute to father: "He gave me the time and the support to find my feet, and the confidence to do what I do."

Iman

• Bowie met Somalian model Iman in Los Angeles following the Sound+Vision Tour in October 1990
• married in a private ceremony on 24 April 1992 in Lausanne, Switzerland; formalised their marriage in another ceremony in June, featuring a slew of celebrity guests

• daughter Alexandria Zahra Jones born on 15 August 2000 in New York City, midway through the sessions for the Toy project

• attended the progressive Little Red Schoolhouse (now called LREI) in Greenwich Village

• recently stated she will never remarry

• "'I don't mind at all being referred to as 'David Bowie's wife'," she added. "But I always remind people that I existed before I met him. And he was also very particular. He never introduced me by saying, 'Meet my wife'. He'd always say, 'Meet Iman, my wife.' So we both already had our own identity. We were separate together."

NYT interview

• "David and I were both very protective of our privacy," Iman said one afternoon in mid-October. "There were certain things nobody else was going to see," explained a woman who, like her husband, has spent the better part of her life under a microscope. "Our house, our bedroom, our daughter have always been off limits."
• "When David and I met, we had both had successful careers and previous relationships,"; "We knew what we wanted from each other,"
• "I know my identity, and David knew his," Iman said. "When we met, we agreed on living life with a purpose."
• Each was strong-minded, and both were intensely focused, she said. "Our focus was on each other, what belonged to us and our daughter," she said, referring to Alexandria Zahra Jones (Jones was Mr. Bowie's given name), known as Lexi. "We were very protective of each other."
• To a surprising extent, the couple succeeded in achieving a kind of normal life. Much of their time was spent hidden in plain sight in downtown Manhattan.

Other relationships

Hermione Farthingale

A dancer

• Turquoise/Feathers

• recorded a track in the studio, "Ching-a-Ling", with Bowie, Farthingale and John Hutchinson each singing lead on a verse, for the Feathers repertoire
• Farthingale was not a fan of the song, telling Pegg that Bowie attempted to sound like Marc Bolan, which failed: "it was a rubbish song".
• A clip of the trio performing the song appeared in the Love You till Tuesday film

• "Letter to Hermione" and "An Occasional Dream" off Space Oddity addressed to her

• on "An Occasional Dream", Farthingale said she "always thought it was a wonderful song".

• David and Hermione resided in a rented flat in Clareville Grove, South Kensington from August 1968 until their separation
• broke up after Love You till Tuesday film

• Bowie declined to speak of Farthingale for many years until he broke his silence in BBC Radio 2's 2000 documentary Golden Years. He recalled that "as young love often does, it sorts of, you know, went wrong after about a year". They met again shortly before Bowie married Angie and "talked a lot".
• David blamed himself for their breakup, admitting in 2002 that he "was totally unfaithful and couldn't for the life of me keep it zipped." They spent a night together during the Ziggy years but by then "the spark had been extinguished," although Farthingale, who was married by that time, declined ever meeting beyond 1970
• speaking to Pegg, Farthingale spoke of Bowie with deep affection, saying "we shared something fantastic as young people". Their breakup saddened her, but she explained that she "couldn't stay and subjugate my entire life to David's career."

Lori Mattix

• claims to have met Bowie in 1972 during the Ziggy Stardust Tour when she was 14
• claims to have lost her virginity to Bowie, with fellow groupie Sable Starr present, but at another time said she lost her virginity to Jimmy Page
• However, Starr gave a conflicting account of the same night's events, claiming that she alone had sex with Bowie and that Mattix was no longer with them by the time they were at the hotel. Mattix claims she continued to see Bowie "many times" in the ten years afterwards.
• timeline issues and changing accounts

• Mattix's account is contradicted by fellow groupie Pamela Des Barres' 1987 memoir I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, in which Des Barres recalled Page being in an relationship with the then 13-year-old Mattix by late 1972 and before February 1973,

• additionally, Mattix claims to have met John Lennon and Yoko Ono with Bowie at the Rainbow Bar during the alleged encounter in March 1973, although Bowie and Lennon never met until September 1974.

• Tony Zanetta (friend): "No one talked about the age of the girls at the time. and it wasn't an issue at all. You can't judge 1972 by 2017 standards. There was a magazine called Star that was completely devoted to these girls, prepubescent groupies. It was as common as mud and nobody batted an eye."

Ava Cherry

• Astronettes

[1]

Following his divorce

• Susan Sarandon

• co-star of The Hunger; had a sexual relationship when working on the film; "He's worth idolising. He's extraordinary."
• said in 2014: "Bowie's just a really interesting person, and so bright. He's a talent, and a painter, and ... he's great."

• apparent threesome with Mick Jagger?

• Melissa Hurley

Bowie dated Melissa Hurley, a dancer on the Glass Spider Tour, for three years between 1987 and 1990. The two began their relationship at the end of the tour when she was only 22 years old. According to author Paul Trynka, they were very relaxed with each other, "almost childlike". Bowie's Tin Machine collaborator Kevin Armstrong remembered her as "a genuinely kind, sweet person". They announced their engagement in May 1989 but never married; Bowie broke the relationship off during the latter half of the Sound+Vision Tour, primarily due to the age difference—he was 43 at the time. He later said spoke of Furley as "such a wonderful, lovely, vibrant girl". Bowie collaborator Erdal Kizilkay later commented: "She was a great person, but maybe not strong enough for David." Pegg believes the Tin Machine track "Amazing" might have been addressed to her.

Coco Schwab

Corinne "Coco" Schwab was Bowie's personal assistant for 43 years, from 1973 until his death in 2016. Originally a receptionist at the London office of Bowie's then-management company MainMan, Schwab assisted in extracting him from MainMan's financial grip on him, after which he invited her to be his personal assistant.

• she appears in Alan Yentob's Cracked Actor documentary (1974)
• she maintained close guard of him, even toward Angie. Visconti said in 1986: "Coco kept the irritating people out of his life and Angie had become one of them." Angie later blamed Schwab for the downfall of their marriage

• "often a cause of tension between David and his musicians" (unsure if he means all the time or just in the TM period)

• Bowie, who called her his best friend, credited her for saving his life in the 1970s by helping him kick his drug addiction; "Coco was the one person who told me what a fool I was becoming and she made me snap out of it."
• she moved with him to Berlin and found the apartment complex

• "blessed with an impressive fluency in languages and a hard-nosed approach to business"
*mainly stayed in the background and never gave interviews

• dedicated "Never Let Me Down" to her; said in 1987 "I don't know if I've written anything quite that emotive of how I feel about somebody"; at the time, rumours circulated that the pair were to marry, although Bowie denied such claims;
• on the rumours they were lovers, Bowie said, "I'm glad to say, sex is not all there is. There really have to be relationships in your life to make it all worthwhile."

• Author Wendy Leigh argued Schwab acted as a mother-figure for Bowie , "making up for the emotional absence of Peggy"; journalist Paul Du Noyer said "she acted almost as a mobile phone for the star who refused to have one"

• left $2 million to her in his will
• upon his death, friends of the singer, including Tony Zanetta and Robin Clark, offered tributes to Schwab as well

Working relationships

Tony Visconti

Bowie was introduced to producer Tony Visconti in 1968 by his then-manager Kenneth Pitt after the commercial failure of his material for Deram Records. At the time, Visconti was an assistant to Denny Cordell and had worked with the Move and Manfred Mann. The two men became immediate friends, which the former attributed in 1976 to their mutual interests in Tibetan Buddhism. Establishing a working relationship that lasted the rest of Bowie's career, their first recordings together were the rejected singles "Let Me Sleep Beside You" and "Karma Man". According to O'Leary, Bowie needed a producer who shared similar interests and working methods rather than established producers he had worked with previously, such as Tony Hatch and Mike Vernon.

Visconti did not produce "Space Oddity" (1969), viewing it as a "novelty record", but produced the rest of David Bowie (1969).

• produced "The Prettiest Star" and The Man Who Sold the World
• Together with guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer John Cambridge, Bowie and Visconti performed as the Hype, donning flamboyant superhero-like costumes
• Visconti and Ronson created most of the music arrangements for The Man Who Sold the World, as Bowie was preoccupied most of the time with Angie
• Visconti departed Bowie's company in August 1970 due to his dislike of Bowie's new manager Tony Defries and the artist's general lack of enthusiasm during the making of The Man Who Sold the World
• Bowie and Visconti did not work together again until 1974, when the latter returned to provide string arrangements on "1984" and mix the Diamond Dogs album at his home studio in London
• The two worked together for the rest of the 1970s; produced 1975's Young Americans, with the exception of "Fame" and "Across the Universe", the Berlin Trilogy (Low, "Heroes" and Lodger) and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps); he did not produce 1976's Station to Station due to scheduling conflicts

• Visconti was responsible for Low's unique drum sound, created using an Evantide H910 Harmonizer

Scary Monsters was Bowie and Visconti's final collaboration for over 20 years. Visconti had set time aside to produce what became Let's Dance, but Bowie neglected to inform him that he had chosen Nile Rodgers to produce the new record; the producer learned through Coco Schwab. Deeply hurt, the move damaged the two men's relationship and the two did not work together again for almost two decades.

• Bowie was hurt by Visconti's "oversharing in the press", saying in 1993: "I'd become annoyed at how much he would feel it was necessary for him to be the essayist on my relationship with my son. I just got tired of the incessant gossip: he was turning into a real old woman."

• By late 1998, the two men had reconciled and began making recordings together again
• Visconti contributed string arrangements to two tracks for the Toy project

• Heathen and Reality

• The Next Day and Blackstar

• Visconti spoke on Bowie's behalf during interviews when promoting The Next Day

Iggy Pop

Bowie met Iggy Pop, then frontman of the proto-punk bank the Stooges, in 1971, at a time when "we were all pretty bad but he was at least viable".

Bowie was hired to mix the Stooges' 1973 album Raw Power but stopped their collaborations by 1974 due to Pop's drug addiction. By 1976, both Bowie and Pop wanted to rid themselves of their respective drug addictions and the drug culture of Los Angeles and moved to Europe at the end of the former's Isolar Tour; Pop joined travelled on the tour with him

• Alomar on friendship: their joint explorations "somehow had a calming effect". They were similar, but different, "just like when you split an atom and it's twins".

• The Idiot

• Bowie composed most of the music while Pop wrote the lyrics, often in response to the music Bowie was composing
• "He subsumed my personality, lyrically, on that first album."
• The track "Nightclubbing" reflected Pop's experiences in the European club with Bowie
• Bowie played keyboards on Pop's tour supporting The Idiot, while Pop contributed backing vocals to Low's "What in the World"

• Lust for Life

• The two moved into the same apartment complex in Berlin

• Bowie personally visited Pop's parents in their Detroit trailer home, where he was thanked by Pop's father for helping his son

Bowie reportedly covered The Idiot's "China Girl" for Let's Dance as a way to help Pop, who by 1983 suffered from dwindling commercial fortunes. Accompanied by a music video, Bowie's version reached number two in the UK and number ten in the US. At the end of the Serious Moonlight Tour, Bowie and Pop went on holiday in Bali and Java before working together for the former's next record, Tonight (1984). For the record, Bowie covered Pop's tracks "Don't Look Down", "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat" (the latter two from Lust for Life) and co-wrote two new songs with him: "Dancing with the Big Boys" and "Tumble and Twirl", the latter concerning the two's time in Bali and Java.

The duo's final collaboration was Pop's 1986 album Blah-Blah-Blah, which Bowie co-wrote and co-produced

• Bowie's following album Never Let Me Down (1987) contained a cover of Pop's "Bang Bang"

• two drifted apart in ensuing decades; Bowie had hoped to sign Pop to his own ISO label in 2002, but Pop was still under contract elsewhere; Pop also failed to perform at the Bowie-curated Meltdown festival that year due to scheduling conflicts Pop stated in 2010 the last time they had spoken to each other was a 2003 phone call
• Pop's 2016 album Post Pop Depression contained a track titled "German Days", reportedly inspired by the two's time living in Berlin. After Bowie's death, Pop stated: "David's friendship was the light of my life. I never met such a brilliant person. He was the best there is."
• After his death: "He resurrected me. He was more of a benefactor than a friend in a way most people think of friendship. He went a bit out of his way to bestow some good karma on me."

Brian Eno

Bowie met ex-Roxy Music multi-instrumentalist Brian Eno in 1973 and on occasion for the next three years. By 1976, the two became infatuated with the German movement of krautrock, while the former became interested in the latter's ambient records Another Green World and Discreet Music

• Berlin Trilogy

• Bowie and Eno reconnected at the former's wedding ceremony in June 1992 and agreed to collaborate again; they spoke briefly after the next year, sending each other "mini-manifestos" that equated to the Outside album

• The two communicated by email during the final years of Bowie's life;
• "David's death came as a complete surprise, as did nearly everything else about him. I feel a huge gap now. We knew each other for over 40 year, in a friendship that was always tinged by echoes of [comic characters] Pete and Dud."

• His final email to him, less than a week before his death, ended with the sentence: "Thank you for our good times, Brian. They will never rot." "And it was signed 'Dawn'. I realise now he was saying goodbye."
• Eno said about a year prior the two began discussing a follow-up to Outside: "We talked about revisiting it, taking it somewhere new. I was looking forward to that."

Nile Rodgers

In autumn 1982, Bowie met Nile Rodgers of the band Chic in the after-hours New York nightclub Continental, where the two developed a rapport over industry acquaintances and shared musical interests, eventually asking him to produce his next record. Rodgers initially thought Bowie desired to continue making art rock records—a follow-up to 1980's Scary Monsters—until the artist informed him, "I want to you make hits".

• Rodgers did not return for Tonight, as Bowie wanted to prove he could make hits without a "celebrated hit-maker"

• The two went their separate ways before reconnecting in 1991 after a Tin Machine concert,<--see BTWN-->
• first recorded "Real Cool World" for the animated film Cool World
• produced 1993's Black Tie White Noise

Reeves Gabrels

• Bowie met Reeves Gabrels backstage during the American leg of the Glass Spider Tour in 1987. Towards the end of the tour, Reeves' wife Sarah gave Bowie a tape containing some of her husband's demo recordings, showcasing the guitarist's unique sound. Reeves later recalled. "It happened really fast. David called me, I went over to Switzerland, and we had this music to do—in a weekend." It marked the beginning of a collaboration that lasted the rest of the 1990s.

Tin Machine, Black Tie White Noise (lead guitar on "You've Been Around"), Outside, Earthling

Hours

• recorded most of Hours by themselves
• disagreements arose between the two during the sessions; Gabrels wanted an Earthling follow-up and annoyed at hiring of Mark Plati and the demotion of certain tracks to B-side status

Gabrels departed Bowie's company after his performance for VH1's Storytellers series on 23 August 1999. After Bowie's death, Gabrels said of his departure:

I was running out of ideas for him. I was afraid that if I stayed, I would become a bitter kind of person. I'm sure you've spoken to people who have done one thing for too long, and they start to lose respect for the people they work for, and I didn't want to be that guy. The most logical thing for me to do at that point was to leave and do something else. I departed on good terms.

Other musicians

• Ronson/Spiders

• Bolder remembered Bowie as "an aloof, selfish figure"

• Carlos Alomar

• George Murray and Dennis Davis

• Station to Station, Berlin Trilogy, Scary Monsters

• Earl Slick

• Diamond Dogs Tour, Station to Station, Serious Moonlight Tour, Toy, Heathen, Reality, The Next Day

• Mike Garson

• Aladdin Sane, Pin Ups, Diamond Dogs, 1990s after Black Tie

• Sterling Campbell
• Zack Alford
• Gail Ann Dorsey
• Erdal Kizilkay

• "Let's Dance" demo, Blah-Blah-Blah, Never Let Me Down, Buddha of Suburbia

References

Sources

• Buckley, David (2005) [1999]. Strange Fascination – David Bowie: The Definitive Story. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0-75351-002-5.
• Cann, Kevin (2010). Any Day Now – David Bowie: The London Years: 1947–1974. Croydon, Surrey: Adelita. ISBN 978-0-95520-177-6.
• Jones, Dylan (2017). David Bowie: A Life. New York City: Random House. ISBN 978-0-451-49783-3.
• O'Leary, Chris (2015). Rebel Rebel: All the Songs of David Bowie from '64 to '76. Winchester: Zero Books. ISBN 978-1-78099-244-0.
• O'Leary, Chris (2019). Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie 1976–2016. London: Repeater. ISBN 978-1-912248-30-8.
• Pegg, Nicholas (2016). The Complete David Bowie (Revised and Updated ed.). London: Titan Books. ISBN 978-1-78565-365-0.
• Perone, James E. (2007). The Words and Music of David Bowie. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-99245-3.
• Sandford, Christopher (1997) [1996]. Bowie: Loving the Alien. London: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80854-8.
• Seabrook, Thomas Jerome (2008). Bowie in Berlin: A New Career in a New Town. London: Jawbone Press. ISBN 978-1-90600-208-4.
• Spitz, Marc (2009). Bowie: A Biography. New York City: Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-71699-6.
• Thompson, Dave (2006). Hallo Spaceboy: The Rebirth of David Bowie. Toronto: ECW Press. ISBN 978-1-55022-733-8.
• Trynka, Paul (2011). David Bowie – Starman: The Definitive Biography. New York City: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-31603-225-4.
• Wilcken, Hugo (2005). David Bowie's Low (33 1/3). New York City: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-826-41684-1.