David Bowie – His Glam Era.

David Bowie was famous before the Glam Rock movement started, but that is another story. Definetly he gave the movement a certain identity that nobody else was able to. Ziggy Stardust was born.

The first album of that era The Rise and Fall of ZIggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars tells the story of the ultimate rock-star Ziggy Stardust in a world that is destined to end in 5 years. With that it began his first large scale tour .His performances where almost threatrical and each concert was like a story.

The song that became a hit was Starman
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/muMcWMKPEWQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

At the same time a single that was never in an album became an instant hit with one of the bests guitars outro of all time. The song was John, I am only dancing.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/ihKvWaVK-_I" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Bowie by that time was also promoting other artists and would give them songs he had composed and produced for them. One of these songs was All the young dudes that he gave to Mott the Hoople. The song was recently featured in the movie Juno.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/XT54T42ldec" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Then in November of 1972 the first single of his upcoming album was released. The album that was released in early 1973 is one of my favorites from Bowie and probably one of the most iconic album covers of all time. The Jean Genie from Aladdin Sane
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/qA29BVtCCpM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Aladdin Sane has two other songs that made the charts around that time. The first one is Drive in Saturday that became a #3 hit in the U.K. charts.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/jgJAyu-1ocI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
The third hit was a tribute to The Rolling Stones and again one of my favorite songs Let’s spend the night together. Funny that a cover become a hit!
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/vEPEn_tP-f4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

David Bowie decided to do what great artists do. Retire at the top and change. He was not retiring from music, he was just done with Glam Rock. His dramatic and abrupt on-stage “retirement” at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. His announcement—”Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do. Thank you.”—was preserved in a live recording of the show, filmed by D. A. Pennebaker and belatedly released under the title Ziggy Stardust – The Motion Picture in 1983 after many years circulating as an audio bootleg.

pol