Pop icon
Bowie’s companion: Time with him not valued enough
The British musician David Bowie at the “Go Bang” festival at Lübeck’s Blankensee Airport in June 1997. Photo: Markus Beck / dpa / Archive
© dpa-infocom GmbH
David Bowie died six years ago. Today he would have been 75 years old. Former Bowie pianist Mike Garson remembers their time together – and missed opportunities.
He stood on stage with David Bowie for decades – and now thinks he wasn’t a fan of the British pop icon.
At least that’s how Bowie pianist Mike Garson put it in an interview with the PA news agency. Bowie, who died six years ago, would have turned 75 on Saturday. Garson said that he was so focused on his task that he did not adequately appreciate the “big picture”. “When you work with a guy like that, when you’ve been hired to play the piano the best you can, you’re not looking at him from a fan’s perspective.”
To commemorate Bowie, Garson is hosting an internet streamed concert on his birthday with artists such as Noel Gallagher, Def Leppard and Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon and John Taylor entitled “A Bowie Celebration”. The US pianist Garson was hired by Bowie for his Ziggy Stardust tour in 1972 and 1973 and can be heard on nine of the superstar’s studio albums.