PART 2 *** BOWIE SPEAKS (EXCERPTS FROM MTV NEWS INTERVIEW, 1995 – CONTD.): “I THINK IT WOULD BE EXTREMELY POMPOUS FOR ANY ROCK ARTIST TO SAY THAT BLACK MUSIC PROBABLY WASN’T THE MATTRESS FROM WHERE ALL OTHER FORMS OF POPULAR MUSIC SPRINGS FROM, and I indeed felt the effervescence of American black music was something that always…. was one of the few things that musically really cheered me up… I didn’t strive for success, I wanted to do something that was artistically important and valid... I just wanted to bring the idea of performance and acting into rock… MOST OF MY CHARACTERS HAVE BEEN SORT OF ALIENATED… … it’s one of the ingredients of what my characters represent.” BOWIE’S INFLUENCES: Upon listening to Little Richard's song ’Tutti Frutti,’ Bowie later said that he had "heard God." Bowie was first impressed with Presley when he saw his cousin Kristina dance to ‘Hound Dog’ in 1956. Bowie's half-brother, Terry Burns introduced him to many of his lifelong influences, such as modern jazz, Buddhism, and beat poetry, and shortly after that his enthusiasm for players like Charles Mingu and John Coltrane was born. He particularly strove to emulate the British musical theatre singer-songwriter and actor Anthony Newley, whose vocal style he frequently adopted. OTHER TALENTS: Bowie devoted time to his painting, sketching in a notebook, and photographing scenes for later reference. Bowie also dabbled in several forms of writing, including an essay on Jean-Michel Basquiat in the late 1990s. HIS SEXUALITY: Was Bowie’s gay phase in truth a marketing stance, as some argue? Buckley wrote that Bowie "mined sexual intrigue for its ability to shock.” FROM BOWIE'S 1976 PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: "It's true - I am a bisexual. But I can't deny that I've used that fact very well. I suppose it's the best thing that ever happened to me." Bowie said he wanted to be a songwriter and performer rather than a headline for his bisexuality. Mick Jagger had a long term love affair with fellow musical genius David Bowie, author Christopher Andersen has revealed, and friends and family members of the pair have seemingly confirmed this. In Wendy Leigh’s biography, she claims that Bowie and his first wife, Angie “used to have the most amazing orgies.” David Bowie’s allegedly “adventurous sex life” included a four-foot-deep bed covered in fur, positioned in their living room, known as “the pit,” which hosted the group sexual pursuits of the singer and his friends, a new biography claims. "EVERYBODY F**KED EVERYBODY IN THE PIT,” says a source. “When we were in bed together, he was more sensual and narcissistic,” says Tony Zanetta, Bowie’s assistant. “To him, it was about being adored… I don’t think sex mattered to him.” EYE INJURY: He received a serious injury at school in 1962 when his friend George Underwood punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. After a series of operations, his doctors determined that the damage could not be fully repaired and Bowie was left with faulty depth perception and a permanently dilated pupil, which gave a false impression of a change in the iris' colour. His eye later became one of Bowie's most recognizable features. COCAINE ADDICTION: Bowie's cocaine addiction during 1975 was at its peak; he often did not sleep for three to four days at a time during ‘Station to Station's’ recording sessions, and later said he remembered "only flashes" of its making. His sanity - by his own admission - had become twisted from cocaine. *** TO BE CONTD... SEE PART 3