As a multi-instrumentalist, he is famous for playing the guitar, piano and saxophone; but also plays the harmonica, drums, cello, marimba, bass guitar, koto, and stylophone. The single "Liza Jane", with the King Bees in 1964, and he rose to fame with the heady 1969 folk rock single Space Oddity and became a glam rock icon with the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). Subsequent albums have explored blue-eyed soul, electronica and new wave, often pre-dating these genres' popularity or even the point at which they were defined as genres.

Bowie is one of the most influential rock musicians from the 1970s to the present. He has sold an estimated 136 million albums in his career and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Due to his wide spread into different genres, it could be said that he influences most modern bands at least on an indirect level (i.e. Bowie influenced a band who influenced them). In addition to his musical career, Bowie has had success as a painter, web-designer, sculptor, Broadway actor starring in The Elephant Man, and movie actor starring in many films (including Labyrinth, Basquiat, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, The Hunger, The Prestige and Zoolander) across the years.

On September 11, 1977, David Bowie appeared alongside Bing Crosby for the filming of Crosby's annual Christmas special, shortly before Crosby's death. Their duet of "Little Drummer Boy" proved to be one of the most influential moments of music history as they bridged the generations with a single song.

Bowie is also credited as being a major inspiration behind the new romantic/futurist movement, and subsequent development of electronic/electronica music, all of which eventually led to dance music as we know it now.

His stage act is rivalled by few, with Bowie frequently bringing the worlds of high-art, mime and straight theatre to the rock stage. His most famous on-stage look was that of Ziggy Stardust. Other personae include Halloween Jack, Aladdin Sane (the album cover of which features the famous lightning bolt across his face) and the Thin White Duke.

David Bowie truly is a living legend.

David Bowie (pronounced /?b??i/, BOH-ee; born David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Active in five decades of popular music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He has been cited as an influence by many musicians and is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth of his work.

Although he released an album (David Bowie) and several singles earlier, David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when the song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era as the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona epitomised a career often marked by musical innovation, reinvention and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame", co-written with John Lennon, and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer identified as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low (1977) ? the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. The so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all reached the UK top five and garnered lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes" and its parent album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). He paired with Queen for the 1981 UK chart-topping single "Under Pressure", but reached a commercial peak in 1983 with the album Let's Dance, which yielded the hit singles "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Modern Love". Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. His last recorded album was Reality (2003), which was supported by the 2003?2004 Reality Tour.

In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie ranked 29. Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 136 million albums, and ranks among the ten best-selling acts in UK pop history. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time and the 23rd best singer of all time.