Brave & Bold Like Bowie: 9 Lessons From the Starman

by Cari Cole

Annie Lennox said it best: “Like a gazillion other people, I feel stunned by the news that David Bowie has departed this earth. At the loss of someone who has impacted and influenced your life, you can hardly begin to measure the shape of what’s left behind. Our personal and collective inner landscape has shifted and we’re trying to come to terms with it. No one exists forever and it seems our elegant gentleman was well aware that his last mortal chapter was about to reach its conclusion. ‘Blackstar’ was his parting gift. Provocative and nightmarishly ‘otherworldly’… we are jolted towards the twilight realms of epileptic seizures and voodoo scarecrows. The bejewelled remains of Major Tom lie dormant in a dust coated space suit… It leaves me breathless. You must see it to believe it… He knew…He could see through it all.”

David Bowie knew he was dying. Though his producer of 40 years, Tony Visconti, also knew, David kept his impending doom a secret, even from his musicians. Hard to imagine, our Starman silently suffered 6 heart attacks during the making of his final record Blackstar. Often quite feeble and breathless during the recording sessions, he stubbornly persevered and managed to turn even his death into art. His parting gift … shocking, macabre, confessional, vulnerable, generous, and deeply private, he was a true artist to the very end. And the world stopped on that day, just like the day his friend and mentor John Lennon died. And another member of our legendary musical family meets the maker, unannounced, unexpectedly and we reeled from the loss. The impact of Bowie’s music on our lives was beyond profound and revelatory. He was an enigma indelibly etched in our common historic experience.

He, like all great artists, musicians, poets, playwrights, mystics… spoke in prose, in riddles for us to decode. And like all legendary musicians, he gave us a piece of him to take with us, forever.

There is so much he left for us to learn from him.

 

9 Lessons from the Starman…

1. Be Fearless in Your Art

Bowie was bold from the very beginning with his art. From Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke he was always fearlessly inventing and recreating himself.

To the people who worked with Bowie, his lasting legacy is his uncompromising artistic spirit. That’s something we all witnessed from afar, but which they saw up close. His colleagues insist this quality is what sets him apart from his peers, and offers a lesson to anyone striving to reach the top of their profession.

“The lack of fear that he showed, even in his death, that’s something that went through his whole musical life,” Ken Scott tells Quartz. Scott worked with Bowie on his seminal early -1970s albums and produced his breakthrough albums The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and Hunky Dory.

How can you push yourself to practice fearlessness in your art. Fearlessness doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid, it means you don’t let it stop you.

 

2. Be Yourself

Bowie once said “I’m not a rock musician.” He never defined himself by the status quo or genres in music, but maintained his own independence and standards. He wasn’t defiant, just independent.

Find yourself, trust yourself and be yourself, unapologetically.

 

3. Realize Your Musical Vision But Don’t Micromanage

“He always had a vision, but he never micromanaged,” says keyboardist Mike Garson of David Bowie, whose death shocked the world earlier this week. “Whatever it took to stretch the boundaries, no matter how wild it sounded, David was game. That’s where his genius was, almost like a great casting director. In that sense he was like Miles Davis: He knew who to pick to work with, and he knew if he got out of the way and let them do their thing, he’d get the most out of them.”

He trusted his own musician vision uncompromisingly so. He followed through with great detail to achieve the exact sound he was looking for. Musicians who worked with him often reflected with admiration about his diligence to the craft and grand musician vision. He often did things that at first didn’t seem to work, but were radically innovative.

Stay true to your vision.

 

4. Art Over Commerce

Fascinating how even Bowie, the ultimate rebel artist, sometimes felt the need to bend to commercial pressure, but ultimately learned that his genius lay in his deep respect for art over commerce. “I wasn’t happy with a lot of the commercial things I did in the ’80s. I was being pressured by the record company, and I ended up compromising my integrity. So what I would like to do now is this wild, improvised kind of album where I pick all the people who have been my strongest influences, to take me out of my comfort zone.”

What can you do to step outside your comfort zone and not compromise your integrity?

David Bowie on John Lennon:

“It’s impossible for me to talk about popular music without mentioning probably my greatest mentor, John Lennon. I guess he defined for me, at any rate, how one could twist and turn the fabric of pop and imbue it with elements from other art forms, often producing something extremely beautiful, very powerful and imbued with strangeness.”

 

5. Be An Eternal Student

Record producer & songwriter Darrell Brown, who I met years ago at the Durango Songwriters Expo said this about his close encounter with our beloved Major Tom:

“Over twenty years ago I spent a long weekend taking a Robert McKee Screenwriting seminar. The three day class broke down the script of the movie Casablanca. The best part of the weekend was the man sitting to my left for all three of those long days. It was David Bowie. Kind. Focused. Beautiful. Translucent Spirit. He would intensely listen during class, taking notes. During class breaks we would talk cinematographers, food, animals, authors, shoes, family and on the last day we talked about music. Over the years I would have sweet little miracles of running into him again and again and he would give me a hug, we would ask each other if we had written anything new, he always treated me beautifully. Going back to the last day of the weekend class we took together. On the last day I still remember the teacher singing “As Time Goes By” and the class joined in for the last few lines of the song, and there I saw David turning to me as we both sang those last couple of lyrics …As Time Goes By ….to each other and we both smiled our biggest smiles.” Darrell Brown, producer, songwriter (Keith Urban, Lee Ann Rimes, John Mayer).

 

6. Be A Gentleman

David made being a gentleman in rock and roll look easy. Never confusing the art with who he really was, he managed to maintain his friendly gentlemanly nature as extended in this unassuming early letter written to his first “American” fan.

 

7. Keep Your Private Life Private

Despite being a legendary icon, Bowie was particularly good at keeping a private life. This picture circulating on Twitter after his death of Bowie in cargo shorts and sneakers reveals why nobody recognized him and why he was able to move through the big city unseen. Brilliant.

 

8. Appreciate & Respect Musicians

The outpouring following his death from musicians in David’s camp is telling of the appreciation and respect the Starman had for his fellow music makers.

“David let me and all the other musicians be ourselves. He rarely told us how to play the music. It was left to us to be creative. He respected my beliefs and wanted everyone involved to express themselves. It was truly an honor to work for David and something I will always cherish. David was a genuine person, one of a kind. He was a humanitarian. He cared about many things, he cared about human rights and he knew what was going on in the world. He was a voracious reader.” Sterling Campbell, drummer.

“He fooled us in the end, didn’t he? Therein lies that mystery that is David Bowie. We’re left to negotiate his death. Are Blackstar’s lyrics encrypted? Well, dammit, every Bowie song is encrypted. It’s a weird place that we find ourselves which is exactly the legacy of David Bowie. We have lost one of our princes — it might be that he was just lost from space, but wherever he came from, he’s gone back, and it’s all our losses.” Carlos Alomar, guitarist/Bowie collaborator for more than 40 years

“David demanded your best,” legendary guitarist Earl Slick, who also worked with Bowie from his breakthrough early-70s period until his surprise return, The Next Day, in 2013. “I started with him in 1974 on the tour supporting the Diamond Dogs album. I was young and on stage with all of these great players, like David Sanborn and Michael Kaman and Mike Garson, so that was really cool. But he knew I could do it, maybe before I did.”

Guitarist Gerry Leonard, who co-wrote several songs on The Next Day with Bowie and was on those final tours, also has fond memories of playing with a legend who was remarkably collaborative. “David had a profound effect on my life, and I can see that now,” Leonard says, reflecting on his work with Bowie. “He was a master and I was an apprentice and I learned a lot from him. But he was very generous with that relationship, and never treated you like the apprentice. When you were making music with him, he wanted it to be a level playing field. He wanted you to behave like an equal, or to try at least. That’s an incredibly generous way of working with someone, to make them feel that they’re wanted for what they bring to the table.”

 

9. Obliterate Limits

“His death was a work of art,” The Cure guitarist Reeves Gabrels insists. “David was a big Warhol fan, and saw life as a work of art.”

“I don’t think anyone in music history has ever been able to do what David did,” Ken Scott (who worked with Bowie on his seminal early-1970s albums and produced his breakthrough albums The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and Hunky Dory) agrees. “He recorded that album that basically prophesied his passing. When he completed that album, with those songs, he couldn’t possibly have known when it was going to happen. But he had such an absolute mastery of his art. It’s phenomenal that he thought so much about the public that he would do that. He kept his privacy intact and was doing great work right up until the end,” Garson says. “He went out doing art. He even got to have his birthday and see through the new album and off he went. Only David could have achieved in death as much as he did in life. That’s truly a testament to how great he was.”

Excerpted from the Pitchfork.com article “What’s It Like to Play Guitar With David Bowie”

Pitchfork: “I think people are wondering right now what they can do to honor Bowie.”

Carlos Alamar: “You should be courageous. When we look at the human experience and the human revolution and what’s necessary for us to progress, we have a mentor. We have someone. We have a prophet, we have somebody that showed us the way. We had a person that traveled a lonely road all by himself—and of course he dragged us kicking and screaming along the way. Nonetheless, if we’re all courageous and we understand that life is a moving target, then we’ll never be satisfied with accomplishments. Accomplishments have nothing to do with anything. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. It’s what allows us to think like Bowie: “I’m a pioneer. Well, what the hell am I pioneering? I already got a number one hit, why am I still there? Everybody’s copying what I just did—how the hell am I supposed to compete with myself? I need to jump the tracks and take the next train, going in the opposite direction.” So that’s what I would say to everybody. Take a page from his book, have courage, pave your own path.”

 

Bring it. Bold and Brave Like Bowie.

 

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Hi, I’m Cari Cole.

You’ve got talent, but you want to become great at it. You’re in the right place! My mission is to help you refine your unique artist vision to bring to the world.

About Cari Cole

Cari Cole is the CEO / Founder of caricole.com and CCVM: Label Without Walls. She is a Holistic Vocal Coach, Artist Development Expert, A&R Director, and Songwriter based in New York City helping artists for the past 38 years. She is a mentor for Women in Music and The Association of Independent Music Publishers.

Her latest venture, CCVM a label services company, provides artists with a seamless path from creation to completion. After 30+ years of observing the overwhelm and challenges that artists face, Cari pulled together the best top creative professionals and designed a new approach to supporting our artists.

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