David Bowie, Musician And Trendsetter There is no doubt that among the history books holding the names of rock legends, the name of David Bowie is up there with the best of them. A man who doesn’t just play the game by his own rules, but created the game itself and then ripped up the rules too. He took on the prescribed format of musical output in the early seventies and almost single handedly changed it forever. In this Bowie inspired Join Up Dots biography we take a look at how this unassuming man, born David Robert Jones in Brixton, South London on January 8th 1947, could at first struggle so badly to ignite the flame of success. Mimicking the stars of the day, and stars of yesterday, unable to find his real voice, until stumbling on the very thing that would make him who he is today And that thing was changes, the ability to reinvent himself, and freshen his sound, image and outlook at will, keeping all of us guessing as to his next move for the next forty years. David’s start in life was about as normal as a child growing up in the United Kingdom in the 50’s could have expected to live. His mother, Margaret Mary worked as a waitress, while his father, Haywood Stenton Jones, from Yorkshire, was a promotions officer for Barnardo’s a children charity. Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School until he was six years old, where teachers considered him as a gifted and single-minded child, although not with obvious musical genius, and a singing voice only classed as adequate. When David Bowie was a small child he was fascinated by music, and loved nothing more than tuning into the radio stations of the day to hear the scratchy sounds from some distant DJ in a basement far far away like so many other children. But it was when he was thirteen, and encouraged by his older brother Terry, he picked up a saxophone and started making his own sounds that things started becoming more than a hobby. Terry was nine years older, and inspired and influenced the young David greatly, as most older brothers do, exposing him to literature, rock music and the kind of influences that a thirteen year old child growing up in South London would have been unlikely to discover on their own. David at first tried to teach himself the saxophone, but struggled with it, so made the bold decision to phone the top British saxophonist Ronnie Ross, who he had seen play in the West End of London, and asked for lessons. Ronnie charged David £2.00 per lesson, which was more than this soon to be wealthy practicing rock star could hope to afford. But this wouldn’t deter, young Davy Jones, and he got himself a job as a butcher’s delivery boy to ensure that he had the cash to allow the fortnightly lessons to occur. Unfortunately, although a major part of setting the fledgling rock star on his way to super stardom, with his encouragement and support, David’s brother Terry was not to be in his day to day life for long. Suffering with his own personal demons, the family had Terry committed to an institution fearing for his safety. This no doubt had a huge impact on the young David Bowie, and although good in its intention haunted David for a good deal of his life, even becoming the topic of his song “Jump They Say” after Terry’s suicide many years later. At the age of sixteen, David Bowie graduated from the technical high school he had attended in Bromley, only memorable for a fight he had with a school friend that left him with eyes different in colour to one another, and got his first job a commercial artist. He joined as a Junior Visualiser /Paste up Artist for the Yorkshire based company Neven D Hirst. This is a fascinating move for David to make, as although he was still playing for bands, and striving to break into music business in the evening, he still followed the path that most of us follow. He left school and set about getting a job. Is there anyway that we can break from the path that has been trod for generations before us? Even if we have greatness desperate t