Producer Tony Visconti recalls the heartbreaking moment David Bowie removed his woolly cap to reveal he had no eyebrows – when he knew straight away that the music legend had cancer
The globe was left reeling when news emerged of the Ziggy Stardust icon’s passing, aged 69, just two days after the launch of his heartbreaking final work in January 2016.
Bowie’s longtime producer Tony Visconti has vivid recollections of the moment Bowie embraced him and revealed his liver cancer diagnosis. Tony, who collaborated with the music legend for five decades, recalls: “I remember going to his offices and a girl who worked there opened the door and she had been crying.
“Her eyes were red. She led me into this small room with a small table and a seat on either side and says ‘David will be with you in a minute’.
“David then sits in front of me and he has got a woolly cap on. The first thing I notice is that he has got no eyebrows. I went, ‘I know what that is. It is chemotherapy’. I cried my eyes out.”
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Tony, who helmed 14 albums for Bowie including Blackstar, explains: “He is my lifetime friend since the 60s. I started mumbling things like ‘don’t worry, we will get through this. We will get the best doctors in the world. You’re strong. You are going to get over this’. I just started blabbering sh*t like that and he comes to my side of the table and he starts hugging me. Given what he knew about his own health, I think he wanted to make the best album of his life.”, reports the Mirror.
Tony, who helped craft the legendary tracks Heroes, Young Americans, Diamond Dogs, Ashes to Ashes and Fashion, reveals that musicians were bound by secrecy whilst working on Blackstar in New York. He recalls: “Before he started the album he said to everyone ‘Guys, I have something to tell you’. He pulls his cap off and he stands there bald in front of them and they are looking at each other like ‘who wants to run away? Who wants to crawl under their piano? What the f*ck do you say?'”.
“The song I Cant Give Everything Away on the album makes me very tearful. He is talking about his disease. It would be like the worst thing in the world to tell people he is ill. Elvis would not have done it. The Beatles would not have done it. And he is right up there with the rest of these iconic guys.”
Blackstar keyboardist Jason Lindner reveals that Bowie maintained his professionalism throughout his illness, explaining: “We were all pretty nervous and on edge to meet David Bowie. We stood up when he walked in, almost like soldiers at attention. He was immediately like ‘guys, just sit down, relax’. David told us in the beginning ‘I don’t know what this is going to be. We will just make some great music’. We would ask him how he was doing, but he did not want to focus on that. He wanted to focus on the music.”
The legend’s final chapter is explored in a fresh documentary, Bowie: The Final Act, which traces his humble origins, his meteoric rise as Ziggy Stardust, his commercial peak during the 80s, the challenging 90s period, and his spectacular return headlining Glastonbury in 2000.
Over 250,000 devotees witnessed Bowie as he celebrated the new millennium by commanding the stage at the iconic festival – nearly three decades after his debut performance there as an emerging glam rock sensation in 1971.
However, seasoned music promoter John Giddings reveals it almost never materialised, as Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis remained unconvinced by Bowie’s experimental foray into drum ‘n’ bass throughout the 90s.
John, who operates the annual Isle of Wight Festival, explains: “In the 90s, David was not over happy with anyone suggesting he should play Ziggy Stardust and the songs that went with it. He felt like it was the past and he was more interested in the future. I had the genius idea of ‘why don’t we play Glastonbury?’ We were playing The Astoria in London with drum ‘n’ bass and I invited Michael Eavis.”
However, Michael departed midway through the performance – let down by the absence of his beloved Bowie classics and questioning whether he was suitable as a main attraction.
John recalls: “The next day Bowie’s PR Alan Edwards invited me to see The Spice Girls and I was asked if I had any gossip. I made up this story saying ‘yeah, Glastonbury are begging David Bowie to headline next year’.
“A week later the newspapers were saying Glastonbury want David to headline and then Michael Eavis gets all these faxes and phone calls and he made me an offer for David to play. I phoned David, but he said ‘great. Many thanks, but I can’t do it.’ I was like ‘what do you mean you can’t do it?'” In a bid to convince him, John added: “I said ‘well, if you don’t do it, someone like Madonna will’. Eventually, he thought ‘f*ck it. David Bowie should play Glastonbury'”.
And he delivered hit after hit. Bowie’s performance at Worthy Farm played a significant role in reviving his career, which had stagnated in the 90s, following criticism in the mid-80s for ‘selling out’ with hits such as Let’s Dance.
His collaboration with rock band Tin Machine also received negative reviews. John further shared: “I represented David for 30 years. Let’s Dance created this worldwide audience and suddenly he was a superstar.”
However, John believes that Bowie was more interested in exploring new avenues than chasing fame. He elaborated: “When he did Tin Machine and wanted to play hard rock my heart said ‘that is a great thing to do’ and my head said ‘financially, it is a disaster’.”
Nevertheless, Bowie’s Glastonbury gamble proved successful, setting the stage for acclaimed albums like Heathen, Reality and his 2013 comeback The Next Day, released nine years after he withdrew from public life following a heart attack during his A Reality Tour.
The worldwide tour represented the most extensive of Bowie’s career, encompassing 112 performances from October 2003 through to June 2004, taking in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Tragically, he became unwell during a performance in Prague, forcing him to abandon his set early.
The icon’s longtime pianist Mike Garson remembers: “As a pianist, there is a connection and I could feel my hands tightening up when I was accompanying him. Something was going on. He was in pain. On a telepathic level I was feeling that. He saw a doctor and they told him it was a muscle spasm.”
Merely two days afterwards, Bowie collapsed upon leaving the stage at Germany’s massive Hurricane Festival. His guitarist Earl Slick recalls: “He looked like hell. His skin colour did not look good I thought ‘Oh f*ck. They are not telling us everything’. He had a heart attack. It was a very weird ending. There was kind of silence for a while…nine years of it.”
Earl, who appeared on albums Young Americans, Station to Station, Heathen and Reality, reveals Bowie also concealed his battles with depression from admirers. He explains: “There were a couple of different Davids. There was the 70s David, the 80s David and the 21st Century David. I loved the 21st Century David to death.
“We were older and cleaned up, but we both suffered from really bad depression at times. Really bad. Winston Churchill called it The Black Dog. When he was like that everyone in the band would try and talk to him, but I would stay away. I was like ‘he will figure it out’.”
Today, Bowie’s former bandmates continue to perform across the globe in different configurations as their own tribute to the icon’s enduring influence. However, they all confess to missing the Starman who consistently delivered fresh musical innovation to audiences worldwide.
Keyboardist Mike Garson reflects: “The song Lazaraus on Blackstar showed a lot of grace. He came to grips with death and he was able to express it through his music. He wrote his own requiem. Who does that?”.
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