Starman – David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016) adopted the stage name David Bowie and became an extremely versatile and accomplished singer/songwriter and actor. He was a dynamic figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator. He also became a voice for an entire generation of youth who felt different from the crowd. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influenced popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales were estimated at 140 million worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. He stopped concert touring after 2004, his last live performance being a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie emerged from a decade-long recording hiatus with the release of The Next Day and remained musically active until he died of liver cancer on 10 January 2016, just two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar.