Bowie : Loving The Alien By Christopher Sandford Reviewed by Steve Rudd

Rock writer Christopher Sandford sure doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to writing highly detailed and thoroughly engrossing biographies of some of the biggest names in rock music. As well as having written this mini-masterpiece about Bowie, he's also dedicated huge swathes of time and energy to documenting the fascinating lives and times of other rock luminaries such as Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Kurt Cobain.

In Loving The Alien, Sandford starts right from the beginning when David Bowie was more commonly known as Davy Jones. He changed his name to David Bowie largely because of the existence of another Davy Jones in the 'Pop' world who was part of The Monkees. So, in order to save a little confusion, Jones became Bowie - allegedly naming himself after Jim Bowie, the man who fought at The Alamo, and who invented the famous double-edged knife of the same name.

Sandford, throughout this book, has called upon dozens of so-called reliable witnesses to help gain insights into Bowie's life. Infamous writer William Burroughs is one such person who sheds light on Bowie, along with musician John Hutchinson (who was an auxiliary member of Bowie's band The Spiders From Mars in live situations, not least the farewell gig performed at London's 'Hammersmith Odeon').

Before David emerged as the hugely exciting singer-songwriter that released Space Oddity to critical acclaim, he played in a number of short-lived bands The King Bees, The Manish Boys and The Lower Third, and all these facts are documented with relish. Charting Bowie's success right through the Seventies, Eighties and much of the way into the Nineties (this book was published in 1996), Loving The Alien is an exhilarating ride both for hardcore Bowie-philes and for those who might be being introduced to the enigma that is David Bowie on a virgin basis.

Since the book's publication, Bowie has been as hard-working as ever, with 2003's Reality album being his most recent, and which was accompanied by a huge world tour. Both his professional and personal lives come to the fore in this biography, and it's interesting to read how his relationship broke down over time during the Seventies with his wife Angie.

For a great many years Bowie led something of a solitary existence, having lived in Berlin on his own whilst conceiving his Low and Heroes masterpieces. In 1990, though, he met and fell in love with Iman, the Somalian-born model and actress. Two years later they got married, and since then Bowie seems to have been living happily ever after, especially compared to in his younger days that were genuinely dominated by sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll on an overwhelming and frankly disturbing scale.

Nobody can underestimate the monumental influence that Bowie has had on popular music, and it's a true show of his talents that he's still making fantastic music even as he approaches his 60th birthday next year, having been born on January 8th 1947. It might be a shame that Bowie has never released a warts 'n' all autobiography, but surely Loving The Alien is the next best thing. Fundamentally, it is the story of how a young boy from Bromley became one of the most famous and respected rock icons in history. And what a story it is... (ISBN 0-316-87978-9. 'Little, Brown and Company' first published in 1996).

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