Updated at 22.36pm
TRIBUTES HAVE FLOODED in for music icon David Bowie, who passed away today, aged 69.
His publicist this morning confirmed the news, saying Bowie had suffered from cancer for the last 18 months.
He had just released his latest album, Blackstar, to rave reviews.
Bowie was an icon of rock music and his influence can be felt after generations. Musicians and public figures alike have been paying tribute to him today.
Gerry Leonard, the Dublin guitarist who worked with Bowie from 2002′s Heathen album on, said it had been a “great honour” to perform with him.
Speaking to Ryan Tubridy on RTÉ Radio 1 this morning, Leonard said the singer was a “master”.
“Meeting somebody like that, it’s something that changes your life,” Leonard said.
He lived like an incredible artist and he made some incredible art and I got to witness some of that by his side and I feel very privileged and very sad. I’m shell-shocked.
Bowie will be honored with a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall that was announced with eerie timing just as the world discovered he had died.
The March 31 concert will feature performers influenced by the trailblazing British artist including Cyndi Lauper, the pop singer whose flamboyance made her a 1980s celebrity, and Perry Farrell of alternative rock giants Jane’s Addiction.
News of the concert was released early today as previously scheduled with the launch of a special website for the charity concert.
Moments later, Bowie’s management made the shock announcement that he had died Sunday at age 69 following an undisclosed battle with cancer.
Fans have been leaving flowers and messages at the star’s birthplace in the Brixton area of London.
One card read “You are a unique talent thank you for the wonderful music. Your legacy will live on forever”.
Bruce Springsteen has also paid tribute:
“Over here on E Street, we’re feeling the great loss of David Bowie,” Springsteen tweeted, referring to his band.
David was a visionary artist and an early supporter of our music.
“Always changing and ahead of the curve, he was an artist whose excellence you aspired to,” he said in another tweet. “He will be sorely missed.”
Author Roddy Doyle paid tribute to Bowie via Facebook, where his ‘two men in the pub’ discussed the star’s legacy, Dublin-style:
-He has a new record ou’. Last week, just. Know how I know?
-How?
-Me granddaughter. She showed me his video. ‘Blackstar’. Unbelievable. Brillant. Scary.
-Business as usual.
-Exactly.
-It’s so fuckin’ sad.
-Yeah.
Long-time collaborator Tony Visconti wrote on Facebook that he had known for a year what was coming.
“His death was no different from his life — a work of art,” Visconti wrote.
He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift.
He leaves behind his second wife Iman, a Somali-born supermodel who he married in 1992 and with whom he had a daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones.
He also had a son, film director Duncan Jones, with his first wife Angie Bowie.
A statement said that Bowie “passed peacefully surrounded by his family”.
With reporting by Daragh Brophy and AFP
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