David Bowie

From Discogs:

British rock singer and musician born January 8, 1947 in Brixton, London, inducted into Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

From Lastfm:

David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947 in Brixton, London, England, United Kingdom) is an iconic English singer, songwriter and musician. Active in five decades of popular music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He has been cited as an influence by many musicians and is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth of his work.

As a multi-instrumentalist, he is famous for playing the guitar, piano and saxophone; but also plays the harmonica, drums, cello, marimba, bass guitar, koto, and stylophone. The single "Liza Jane", with the King Bees in 1964, and he rose to fame with the heady 1969 folk rock single Space Oddity and became a glam rock icon with the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). Subsequent albums have explored blue-eyed soul, electronica and new wave, often pre-dating these genres' popularity or even the point at which they were defined as genres.

Bowie is one of the most influential rock musicians from the 1970s to the present. He has sold an estimated 136 million albums in his career and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Due to his wide spread into different genres, it could be said that he influences most modern bands at least on an indirect level (i.e. Bowie influenced a band who influenced them). In addition to his musical career, Bowie has had success as a painter, web-designer, sculptor, Broadway actor starring in The Elephant Man, and movie actor starring in many films (including Labyrinth, Basquiat, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, The Hunger, The Prestige and Zoolander) across the years.

On September 11, 1977, David Bowie appeared alongside Bing Crosby for the filming of Crosby's annual Christmas special, shortly before Crosby's death. Their duet of "Little Drummer Boy" proved to be one of the most influential moments of music history as they bridged the generations with a single song.

Bowie is also credited as being a major inspiration behind the new romantic/futurist movement, and subsequent development of electronic/electronica music, all of which eventually led to dance music as we know it now.

His stage act is rivalled by few, with Bowie frequently bringing the worlds of high-art, mime and straight theatre to the rock stage. His most famous on-stage look was that of Ziggy Stardust. Other personae include Halloween Jack, Aladdin Sane (the album cover of which features the famous lightning bolt across his face) and the Thin White Duke.

David Bowie truly is a living legend.

From Wikipedia:

David Robert Jones (born 8 January 1947), known by his stage name David Bowie ( BOH-ee), is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Bowie has been a major figure in the world of popular music for over four decades, and is renowned as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He is known for his distinctive voice as well as the intellectual depth and eclecticism of his work.

Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture." The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.