BBC arts editor Will Gompertz looks at the chameleon entertainer's influence as an artist

Mark Savage
Music reporter

Image source, AP

Today's news is all the more shocking because David Bowie had recently emerged from suspended animation - revitalised and reinvigorated. 

His two latest albums, The Next Day and Blackstar, ranked with his best, the former celebrating his past, the latter casting forward to the future. The fact he won't be there is heartbreaking. 

But then Bowie's entire career has been a vanishing act. The son of a waitress and a nightclub owner, David Jones became David Bowie, who became Ziggy Stardust, who became the Thin White Duke. All of them were fictitious. All of them became iconic. 

In the 1970s, he was restless, flitting between musical styles and personas, producing Lou Reed and The Stooges, and taking up painting in Berlin. His every move sparked impersonators and inspired musical sub-genres. He was the first post-modern pop star. 

He struggled to remain relevant in the 1980s and 90s, but continued to push boundaries with the industrial rock of Outside and the drum and bass influenced Earthling. An enforced hiatus, prompted by an emergency angioplasty, took him out of the spotlight for most of the 2000s before that celebrated, unexpected comeback on his 66th birthday. 

That late period of creativity may now be reassessed as the work of a musician who knew his time was running out. But it remains a fitting legacy for a man who subverted and reinvented pop time and time again. 

Fresh from hosting the Gold Globes, comedian Ricky Gervais paid tribute to David Bowie:

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

"My entire career, I've only really worked with the same subject matter,'' Bowie told the Associated Press in 2002.

"The trousers may change, but the actual words and subjects I've always chosen to write with are things to do with isolation, abandonment, fear and anxiety - all of the high points of one's life.''

We all know the singer behind Changes, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.

He was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London, on 8 January 1947. He shares the same birthday as Elvis.

But given that The Monkees had a Davy Jones in their ranks, he changed his name to Bowie (and, in case you're wondering, it rhymes with Joey).

He emerged into the public eye early on: at the age of 17, he was interviewed on a BBC programme as the founder of The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men. He complained: "It's not nice when people call you darling and that".

One short video in particular is already doing the rounds online among those remembering the singer - it's a series of images drawn by the artist Helen Green and made into a video last year to mark his 68th birthday. It gives a clear idea of how Bowie changed his image over the years.

Image source, Reuters

Three years ago, aged 66, Bowie released his first new material in a decade, with little warning. The single Where Are We Now? and album The Next Day gained wide praise.

Only three days ago, he released another new album, Blackstar. It was well-received in the music press - Rolling Stone called it "one of the most aggressively experimental records the singer has ever made".

We have a full profile of the life of the Thin White Duke, seen as one of the rock world's greatest ever pioneers - you can read more here.

The news of David Bowie's death was confirmed in a post on his official Twitter and Facebook feeds just before 06:30.

There was speculation online that the news was a hoax, but soon after, his son, film director Duncan Jones, posted his own tweet.