David Bowie

July 24, 2017
In this comprehensive oral history, GQ editor Jones delves deeply into the details of rock icon David Bowie’s fame, financial problems, drug use, sexuality, Buddhist practices, and romantic entanglements. But it’s Jones’s focus on Bowie’s friendships that truly shines. He has compiled extensive selections from over 180 articles, books, and original interviews (including several interviews Jones conducted with Bowie before his death in 2016). Jones doesn’t dwell on his personal feelings toward Bowie, except in his introduction, where he writes: “Like everyone who grew up with the man, Bowie would confound, annoy, and occasionally disappoint me, but I never found him less than fascinating.” All these facets of Bowie’s personality and more are on display in anecdotes from music journalists, Bowie’s bandmates and childhood neighbors, and fellow musicians such as John Lennon and Iggy Pop. Jones incorporates honest, even biting, observations (“David grew up petted and privileged,” biographer Wendy Leigh notes. “He wasn’t a working-class hero by any stretch”)—and such inclusions contribute to the well-roundedness of this remarkable volume.

July 1, 2017
A sweeping, gossipy biography of the chameleonic pop star in the form of an oral history, with input from dozens of collaborators, lovers, and admirers.Bowie himself weighs in, too, as longtime music journalist and British GQ editor Jones (Elvis Has Left the Building: The Day the King Died, 2014, etc.) scored excellent access to Bowie and his cohort. However, Bowie's contributions are mostly gnomic pronouncements--e.g., "my art has little to do with trends, and nothing at all to do with style." For details (and dirt), Jones finds producers Tony Visconti and Brian Eno, who weigh in on Bowie's approach to recording (game for anything but impatient); fashion and music journalists, who were wowed by his path-breaking 1970s performances; his first wife, Angie, who had an embattled relationship with the singer as he deeply indulged in sex and cocaine in the mid-'70s. (Deep Purple's Glenn Hughes recalls "so many girls coming and going one by one, nonstop.") Bowie's musical output after the early 1980s is generally dismissed as cravenly commercial and/or lazy, but Jones' interlocutors tend to argue even Bowie's miscues reflect the same seeking spirit that produced "Ziggy Stardust"; he just became more interested in acting and art collecting and had settled down with his second wife, Iman. Jones unearths quirky bits of Bowie-ana (he wanted to sing a duet with Mick Jagger from a space shuttle) and details his highly creative months preceding his death from cancer in 2016. But the occupational hazard of oral histories is that they lack broader context, and a hermetically sealed, accentuate-the-positive feel intensifies in closing pages thick with encomiums--though the author does make room for critic Paul Gorman's assessment: "he made execrable records during 1984-1995, often wore terrible clothes, stupid makeup and had rotten haircuts." Jones captures his subject's transformations and the responses they provoked, but the tone is fan-friendly, assuming Bowie's greatness rather than arguing for it. A dishy but overstuffed and overly praiseful portrait.

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May 15, 2017

In what is billed as an oral biography, British GQ editor Jones makes use of the nearly 200 new interviews he conducted with David Bowie's friends and lovers, bandmates and managers, to offer an intimate portrait of this music giant. A big task, given Bowie's shifting identities.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017

Described as "a groundbreaking oral history," this ambitious endeavor aims to broaden the David Bowie (1947-2016) legacy, and on that front, British GQ editor Jones does not disappoint. Over 180 contributors offer anecdotes of speculation, frustration, and adoration of the notoriously enigmatic music legend. Insights from known Bowie collaborators, including Peter Frampton, Angie Bowie, Earl Slick, and Iggy Pop blend with lesser-tapped sources such as makeup artists, publicists, and childhood sweethearts in an attempt to craft the mosaic of a multifaceted artist. However, the sprawling style and sheer volume of voices makes for an unwieldy, repetitive chronology. More discomfiting is the cavalier attitude with which memories of sexual trysts with underage fans are discussed by multiple participants. Frequent contradictions, some within a single story, support the overall tone of the book; Bowie was many things to many people but left a universal impression as a consummate creative with a preternatural ability to both embody and surpass the cultural zeitgeist. VERDICT Far from an "introductory course," this tome is best reserved for 301-level Starman fans. [See Prepub Alert, 4/24/17.]--Ashleigh Williams, School Library Journal

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.