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Noteworthy Then

1/8/1947 David Bowie born

 

 

David Robert Jones was born on this day in 1947 in South London. Attending a broadly based technical school where he was able to study art, design and music, the future David Bowie was a student of Owen Frampton, an instructor whose son Peter also attended Bromley Technical High School. With Owen's encouragement, the two focused increasingly on music.

David formed his first band at 15. The short-lived Konrads got wedding and youth social gigs that required limiting their set list to familiar pop material David had little interest in. Brief stints in groups billed as the King Bees, the Mannish Boys and the Buzz followed, with none attaining much success.

Meanwhile, The Monkees had become enough of a sensation that Jones knew continuing his career under his own name would cause confusion with Davy Jones of that group. A knife designed for an American pioneering legend named Jim Bowie was also in vogue at the time, so David Jones opted to adopt Bowie as his last name.

He became involved in avant garde theater and dance pieces and developed a strong sense of the importance imagination and image could have in his development as a musical performer. Some of his songs were used in productions, but none translated into successful releases.

That all changed when he wrote, recorded and released the Song Space Oddity just days before the launch of Apollo 11, the space mission that landed Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong on the moon. The single rocketed to the top 5 on British singles chart and David Bowie was on his way.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on January 8 include...

1931 Concert promoter Bill Graham is born.

1935 Elvis Presley is born.

1946 Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger is born.

1947 Terry Sylvester of the Hollies is born.

1974 KISS sign recording contract with Casablanca Records..

1975 60,000 Led Zeppelin tickets to 4 Madison Square Garden concerts sell in 4 hours.

1979 Rush named Ambassadors of Music by Canada.

1991 Def Leppard guitarist Steve Clark dies at 30 from alcohol and pain killer combo in London.

1994 Nirvana does last US concert, Center Arena, Seattle.

1995 Pearl Jam hosts Self Pollution Radio broadcast.
2002 Chris Robinson and Steve Groman quit the Black Crowes.

2004 Police arrest a woman convinced that Axl Rose was communicating with her telepathically for stalking the Guns N' Roses singer.

2016 David Bowie releases Black Star, his 25th album, two days before his death.
2022 Woodstock festival co-organizer Michael Lang dies of non-Hodgkins lymphoma at 77.