David Bowie begins his Diamond Dogs Tour in 1974

David Bowie played the first of seven sold-out nights on his Diamond Dogs Tour at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, California on September 2, 1974.

David Bowie born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger.

A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s, and is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth of his work.

David Bowie moved to the United States in 1974, initially staying in New York City before settling in Los Angeles.

Diamond Dogs (1974), parts of which found him heading towards soul and funk, was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell's 1984 to music. The album went to number one in the UK, spawning the hits "Rebel Rebel" and "Diamond Dogs", and number five in the US. To promote it, Bowie launched the Diamond Dogs Tour, visiting cities in North America between September and December 1974. Choreographed by Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production was filmed by Alan Yentob. The resulting documentary, Cracked Actor, featured a pasty and emaciated Bowie: the tour coincided with the singer's slide from heavy cocaine use into addiction, producing severe physical debilitation, paranoia and emotional problems. He later commented that the accompanying live album, David Live, ought to have been titled "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only In Theory". David Live nevertheless solidified Bowie's status as a superstar, charting at number two in the UK and number eight in the US. It also spawned a UK number ten hit in Bowie's cover of "Knock on Wood". After a break in Philadelphia, where Bowie recorded new material, the tour resumed with a new emphasis on soul.

Although Diamond Dogs was the first David Bowie album since 1969 to not feature any of the "Spiders From Mars", the backing band made famous by Ziggy Stardust, many of the arrangements were already worked out and played on tour with Mick Ronson prior to the studio recordings, including "1984" and "Rebel Rebel". In the studio, however, Herbie Flowers played bass with drums being shared between Aynsley Dunbar and Tony Newman. In a move that surprised some commentators, David Bowie himself took on the lead guitar role previously held by Mick Ronson, producing what NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray described as a "scratchy, raucous, semi-amateurish sound that gave the album much of its characteristic flavour". Diamond Dogs was also a milestone in Bowie's career as it reunited him with Tony Visconti, who provided string arrangements and helped mix the album at his own Good Earth Studios in London, on a Trident TSM console, brand new from Trident at the time.[citation needed] Visconti would go on to co-produce much of Bowie's work for the rest of the decade.

Diamond Dogs' raw guitar style and visions of urban chaos, scavenging children and nihilistic lovers ("We'll buy some drugs and watch a band / And jump in the river holding hands") have been credited with anticipating the punk revolution that would take place in the following years.[11] Bowie himself has described the Diamond Dogs, introduced in the title song, as: "all little Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses really. And, in my mind, there was no means of transport, so they were all rolling around on these roller-skates with huge wheels on them, and they squeaked because they hadn't been oiled properly. So there were these gangs of squeaking, roller-skating, vicious hoods, with Bowie knives and furs on, and they were all skinny because they hadn't eaten enough, and they all had funny-coloured hair. In a way it was a precursor to the punk thing."

Retro History for September 2 The 50s 60s 70s 80s

Retro History For The Decade 1980

1989 18th Nabisco Dinah Shore Golf Championship won by Juli Inkster
1989 8th NCAA Women's Basketball Championship: Tennessee beats Auburn 76-60
1989 Wrestlemania V at Trump Plaza, Hulk Hogan beats "Macho Man" Savage
1989 Yankees beat Mets 4-0, sweeping 1989 mayor's trophy series in 2 games
1988 Simply Majestic sets horse racing's 1-1/8 mile record at 1:45
1988 Test Cricket debut of Curtly Ambrose, WI vs. Pakistan, Georgetown
1987 "Mikado" opens at Virginia Theater New York City for 46 performances
1987 Doc Gooden undergoes cocaine rehabilitation
1987 IBM introduces PS/2 and OS/2
1986 4 U.S. passengers killed by bomb at TWA counter Athens Airport Greece
1986 George Corley Wallace, Governor, Democrat, Alabama, announces retirement plans
1986 NCAA adopts 3-point basketball rule (19 feet 9 inch distance)
1985 U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1984 46th NCAA Mens Basketball Championship: Georgetown beats Houston 84-75
1982 Argentina seizes Malvinas, also known as the Falkland Islands
1982 In exhibition game A's pitcher Steve McCatty comes to bat using a 15" toy bat (under Billy Martins orders), protesting disallowing of DH
1981 Belgium's 4th government of Martens resigns
1981 Heavy battle between Christian militia and Syrian army in East Lebanon
1980 Wayne Gretzky becomes 1st teenager to score 50 goals in a season

Retro History For The Decade 1970

1979 Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin visits President Sadat in Cairo
1978 7th Colgate Dinah Shore Golf Championship won by Sandra Post
1978 Basil Williams scores 100 on Test Cricket debut, vs. Australia Georgetown
1978 TV show "Dallas" premieres on CBS (as a 5 week mini-series)
1978 Velcro was 1st put on the market
1977 Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors," album goes to #1 and stays #1 for 31 weeks
1977 Mont Canadiens set NHL record of 34 straight home games without a lose
1976 Cambodia Khieu Sampan succeeds prince Sihanouk as premier
1976 Portuguese constitution assumed
1976 A's trade prospective free agents Reggie Jackson and Ken Holtzman, to Orioles for Don Baylor, Mike Torrez and Paul Mitchell
1974 David Bowie played the first of seven sold-out nights on his Diamond Dogs Tour at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, California.
1974 Arganat Commission publishes report concerning Yom Kippur War
1974 Tony Greig takes 8-86 vs. WI Port-of-Spain (later 5-70 in 2nd inn)
1973 CBS radio begins on hour news 24 hours a day
1973 Ed Kemper stuffs mother's throat in disposal
1973 ITT pleads guilty to asking CIA to affect Chilean President election
1972 44th Academy Awards - "French Connection," G Hackman and Jane Fonda win
1972 Tennessee Williams' "Small Craft Warnings," premieres in New York City
1971 Sci-fi soap opera "Dark Shadows" concludes an almost 5 year run
1970 Meghalaya becomes autonomous state within India's Assam state
1970 Qatar gains independence from Britain
1970 2 men begin ascent of south face of Annapurna I, highest final stage in a wall climb in world

Retro History For The Decade 1960

1969 Milwaukee Bucks sign (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor)
1968 Beatles form Python Music Ltd.
1968 Chad creates Union of Central African States
1968 Senator Mccarthy wins Democratic primaries in Wisconsin
1967 Actress Lynn Redgrave marries John Clark
1967 Susie Maxwell wins LPGA Louise Suggs Golf Invitational
1966 Soviet Union's Luna 10 becomes 1st spacecraft to orbit Moon
1966 WJET TV channel 24 in Erie, Pennsylvania (ABC) begins broadcasting
1965 Hochhuths play "Stellvertreter" banned in Italy
1964 Josef Klaus succeeds Alfons Gorbach as chancellor of Austria
1964 Military coup in Brazil by General Castello Branco, President Goulart ousted
1964 U.S.S.R. launches Zond 1 to Venus; no data returned
1963 Explorer 17 attains Earth orbit (254/914 km)
1963 U.S.S.R. launches Luna 4; missed Moon by 8,500 km
1960 Cuba buys oil from U.S.S.R.
1960 KPEC TV channel 56 in Lakewood Center-Tacoma, WA (PBS) 1st broadcast

Retro History For The Decade 1950

1958 Antillean Brewery, maker of Amstel beer, opens
1958 National Advisory Council on Aeronautics renamed NASA
1958 Wind speed reaches 450 kph in tornado, Wichita Falls, Texas (record)
1956 Peter Ustinovs' "Romanoff and Juliet," premieres in Manchester
1956 Soap operas "As the World Turns" and "Edge of Night" premieres on TV
1955 U.S. Female Figure Skating championship won by Tenley Albright
1955 U.S. Male Figure Skating championship won by Hayes A Jenkins
1955 Pancho Gonzales retains tennis title by winning a tournament playing under table tennis rules
1954 Plans to build Disneyland 1st announced
1953 Raab forms his 1st government in Austria
1950 WTAR (now WTKR) TV channel 3 in Norfolk, Virginia (CBS) begins broadcasting

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Vintage Retro Music & Retro Pop Culture is our passion and what we LOVE. We keep it going everyday for the love of producing it for you to enjoy. Thanks for viewing. Much Peace! David Bowie begins his Diamond Dogs Tour in 1974.