Dancing in the street - Mick Jagger & David Bowie - 1985 - Rock 80s

Mick Jagger & David Bowie

Dancing in the street

Mick Jagger

Source: Wikipedia

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer, songwriter and actor, best known as lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones.

Jagger's career has spanned over 50 years, and he has been described as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll".His distinctive voice and performance, along with Keith Richards' guitar style, have been the trademark of the 

Rolling Stones throughout the career of the band. Jagger gained press notoriety for his admitted drug use and romantic involvements, and was often portrayed as a countercultural 

figure. In the late 1960s Jagger began acting in films (starting with Performance and Ned Kelly), to mixed reception. In 1985 Jagger released his first solo album, She's the Boss. In early 2009 he joined the electric supergroup SuperHeavy.

In 1989 Jagger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2004 into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. In 2003 he was knighted for his services to popular music.

In their earliest days the members played for no money in the interval of Alexis Korner's gigs at a basement club opposite Ealing Broadway tube station (subsequently called "Ferry's" club). At the time, the group had very little equipment and needed to borrow Alexis' gear to 

play. This was before Andrew Loog Oldham became their manager. The group's first appearance under the name the Rollin' Stones (after one of their favourite Muddy Waters tunes) was at the Marquee Club in London, a jazz club, on 12 July 1962. They would later 

change their name to "the Rolling Stones" as it seemed more formal. Victor Bockris states that the band members included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Ian Stewart on 

piano, Dick Taylor on bass and Tony Chapman on drums. However, Richards states in Life that "The drummer that night was Mick Avory--not Tony Chapman, as history has mysteriously handed it down..."

Avory himself has categorically denied "on many occasions" that he played with the Rollin'

Stones that night. In fact he only rehearsed twice with them in the Bricklayers Arms pub, before they became known as the Rollin' Stones. Some time later the band went on their 

first tour in the United Kingdom; this was known as the "training ground" tour, because it was a new experience for all of them. The line-up did not at that time include drummer 

Charlie Watts or bassist Bill Wyman. By 1963 they were finding their musical stride as well as popularity. By 1964 two unscientific opinion polls rated them as Britain's most popular group, outranking even The Beatles.

By autumn 1963 Jagger had left the London School of Economics in favour of his promising musical career with the Rolling Stones. The group continued to mine the works of American rhythm and blues artists such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, but with the strong 

encouragement of Andrew Loog Oldham, Jagger and Richards soon began to write their own songs. This core songwriting partnership would flourish in time; one of their early compositions, "As Tears Go By", was a song written for Marianne Faithfull, a young singer 

Loog Oldham was promoting at the time. For the Rolling Stones, the duo would write "The Last Time", the group's third No. 1 single in the UK (their first two UK No. 1 hits had been cover versions) based on This May Be the Last Time, a traditional Negro spiritual song 

recorded by the Staple Singers in 1955. Another fruit of this collaboration was their first international hit, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". It also established the Rolling Stones' image as defiant troublemakers in contrast to the Beatles' "lovable moptop" image.

Jagger told Stephen Schiff in a 1992 Vanity Fair profile: "I wasn't trying to be rebellious in those days; I was just being me. I wasn't trying to push the edge of anything. I'm being me and ordinary, the guy from suburbia who sings in this band, but someone older might have 

thought it was just the most awful racket, the most terrible thing, and where are we going if this is music?... But all those songs we sang were pretty tame, really. People didn't think they were, but I thought they were tame."

The group released several successful albums including December's Children (And Everybody's), Aftermath and Between the Buttons, but in their personal lives, their behaviour was brought into question. In 1967 Jagger and Richards were arrested on drug 

charges and were given unusually harsh sentences: Jagger was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for possession of four over-the-counter pep pills he had purchased in Italy. The traditionally conservative editor of The Times, William Rees-Mogg, wrote an article 

critical of the sentences; and on appeal Richards' sentence was overturned and Jagger's was amended to a conditional discharge (although he ended up spending one night inside London's Brixton Prison). However the Rolling Stones continued to face legal battles for the next decade.

In 1970 Jagger bought Stargroves, a manor house and estate in Hampshire. The Rolling Stones and several other bands recorded there using a mobile studio.

After Jones's death and their move in 1971 to the south of France as tax exiles, Jagger and the rest of the band changed their look and style as the 1970s progressed. He also learned to play guitar and contributed guitar parts for certain songs on Sticky Fingers (1971) and all 

subsequent albums (with the exception of Dirty Work in 1986). For the Rolling Stones' highly publicised 1972 American tour, Jagger wore glam-rock clothing and glittery makeup on stage. Later in the decade they ventured into genres like disco and punk with the album 

Some Girls (1978). Their interest in the blues, however, had been made manifest in the 1972 album Exile on Main St. His emotional singing on the gospel-influenced "Let It Loose", one of the album's tracks, has been described by music critic Russell Hall as having been Jagger's finest-ever vocal achievement.

After the band's acrimonious split with their second manager Allen Klein in 1971, Jagger took control of their business affairs after speaking with an up-and-coming front man, JB Silver, and has managed them ever since in collaboration with his friend and colleague, 

Rupert Löwenstein. Mick Taylor, Brian Jones's replacement, left the band in December 1974 and was replaced by Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood in 1975, who also operated as a mediator within the group, and between Jagger and Richards in particular.

While continuing to tour and release albums with the Rolling Stones, Jagger began a solo career. In 1985 he released his first solo album She's the Boss, produced by Nile Rodgers and Bill Laswell, and featuring Herbie Hancock, Jeff Beck, Jan Hammer, Pete Townshend 

and the Compass Point All Stars. It sold fairly well, and the single "Just Another Night" was a Top Ten hit. During this period, he collaborated with the Jacksons on the song "State of Shock", sharing lead vocals with Michael Jackson.

For his own personal contributions in the 1985 Live Aid multi-venue charity concert, he performed at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium; he did a duet with Tina Turner of "It's Only Rock and Roll", and the performance was highlighted by Jagger tearing away Turner's skirt. He 

also did a cover of "Dancing in the Street" with David Bowie, who himself appeared at Wembley Stadium. The video was shown simultaneously on the screens of both Wembley and JFK Stadiums. The song reached number one in the UK the same year. In 1987 he 

released his second solo album, Primitive Cool. While it failed to match the commercial success of his debut, it was critically well received. In 1988 he produced the songs "Glamour Boys" and "Which Way to America" on Living Colour's album Vivid. Between 15 and 28 March he had a solo concert tour in Japan (Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka).

David Bowie

Source: biography.com

David Bowie was born in South London on January 8, 1947. His first hit was the song "Space Oddity" in 1969. The original pop chameleon, Bowie became a science fiction character for his breakout Ziggy Stardust album. He later co-wrote "Fame" with John 

Lennon which became his first American No. 1 single. An accomplished actor, Bowie starred in The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Known as a musical chameleon for his ever-changing appearance and sound, David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, South London, England, on January 8, 1947.

David showed an interest in music from an early age and began playing the saxophone at age 13. He was greatly influenced by brother Terry, who was nine years older and exposed young David to the worlds of rock music and beat literature.

But Terry had his demons, and his mental illness, which forced the family to commit him to an institution, haunted David for a good deal of his life. Terry committed suicide in 1985, a tragedy that became the focal point of Bowie's later song, "Jump They Say."

After graduating from Bromley Technical High School at 16, David started working as a commercial artist. He also continued to play music, hooking up with a number of bands and 

leading a group himself called Davy Jones and the Lower Third. Several singles came out of this period, but nothing that gave the young performer the kind of commercial traction he needed.

Out of fear of being confused with Davy Jones of The Monkees, David changed his last name to Bowie, a name that was inspired by the knife developed by the 19th century American pioneer Jim Bowie.

Eventually, Bowie went out on his own. But after recording an unsuccessful solo album, Bowie exited the music world for a temporary period. Like so much of his later life, these 

few years proved to be incredibly experimental for the young artist. For several weeks in 1967 he lived at a Buddhist monastery in Scotland, and in 1968 he started his own mime troupe called Feathers.

Around this time he also met the American-born Angela Barnett. The two married on March 20, 1970, and had one son together, Zowie, in 1971, before divorcing in 1980.

By early 1969, Bowie had returned full-time to music. He signed a deal with Mercury Records and that summer released the single "Space Oddity." Bowie later said the song came to him after seeing Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. "I went stoned out of my mind to see the movie and it really freaked me out, especially the trip passage."

The song quickly resonated with the public, sparked in large part by the BBC's use of the single during its coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The song enjoyed later success in the U.S., when it was released in 1972 and climbed to No. 15 on the charts.

Bowie's next album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970), further catapulted him to stardom. The record offered up a heavier rock sound than anything Bowie had done before 

and included the song "All the Madmen," about his institutionalized brother, Terry. In addition the album also featured two hits: "Hunky Dory," a tribute to Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan; and "Changes," which came to embody Bowie himself.

As Bowie's celebrity profile increased, so did his desire to keep fans and critics guessing. He claimed he was gay and then introduced the pop world to Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's imagining of a doomed rock star, and his backing group, The Spiders from Mars.

His 1972 album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, made him a superstar. Dressed in wild costumes that spoke of some kind of wild future, Bowie, portraying Stardust himself, signaled a new age in rock music, one that seemed to officially announce the end of the 1960s and the Woodstock era.

But just as quickly as Bowie transformed himself into Stardust, he changed again. He leveraged his celebrity and produced albums for Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. In 1973, he disbanded the Spiders, shelved Stardust and announced he was through with live shows.

Around this time he showed his affection for his early days in the English mod scene and released Pin Ups, an album filled with cover songs originally recorded by a host of popular bands, including Pretty Things and Pink Floyd.

By the mid 1970s Bowie had undergone a full-scale makeover. Gone were the outrageous costumes and garish sets. In two short years he released the albums David Live (1974) and 

Young Americans (1975). The latter album featured backing vocals by a young Luther Vandross and included the song "Fame," co-written with John Lennon, which became Bowie’s first American number one single.

In 1980 Bowie, now living in New York, released Scary Monsters, a much-lauded album that featured the single "Ashes to Ashes," a sort of updated version of his earlier "Space Oddity."

Three years later Bowie, with a new contract with RCA, recorded Let's Dance (1983), an album that contained a bevy of hits such as the title track, "Modern Love" and "China Girl," and featured the guitar work of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Of course, Bowie's interests didn't just reside with music. His love of film helped land him the title role in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), and later The Elephant Man (1980).

Over the next decade, Bowie bounced back and forth between acting and music, with the latter especially suffering. Outside of a couple of modest hits, Bowie's musical career languished. The albums Tin Machine (1989) and Tin Machine II (1991) proved to be flops, 

while his much-hyped album Black Tie White Noise (1993), which Bowie described as a wedding gift to his new wife, supermodel Iman, also struggled to resonate with record buyers.

Oddly enough, the most popular Bowie creation of late has been Bowie Bonds, financial securities the artist himself backed with royalties from his pre-1990 work. Bowie issued the bonds in 1997 and earned $55 million from the sale. The rights to his back catalog were returned to him when the bonds matured in 2007.

In 2004 Bowie received a major health scare when he suffered a heart attack while onstage in Germany. He made a full recovery and went on to work with bands such as Arcade Fire and with the actress Scarlett Johansson on her album Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008), a collection of Tom Waits covers.

Bowie, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, was a 2006 recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.