David Bowie

On the occasion of his 60th birthday, we rebroadcast an excerpt of a 2002 interview with David Bowie. More than 30 years ago, Bowie created the gender-bending Ziggy Stardust, and produced the now classic album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. With it, Bowie helped invent glam-rock. This interview originally aired on Sept. 4, 2002.

It's been over 30 years since David Bowie created the gender-bending Ziggy Stardust, and produced the now classic album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. On Tuesday, the musician and songwriter will receive a 2006 Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award.

It's been more than 40 years since David Bowie created the gender-bending Ziggy Stardust and released the now-classic album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. With it, Bowie helped invent glam-rock. In conversation with Fresh Air's Terry Gross from 2002, Bowie was in the midst of making the following year's Reality, and here talks about leaving characters in his songs, his love of Tibetan horns, and his childhood desire to write musicals and play saxophone in Little Richard's band.

The icon's new album plays like a collection of discreet singles, with each performed in a different style, genre and mood. In this way, the album isn't a return to form, in part because David Bowie never took one form to begin with.

His new book is Picture This: Debby Harry and Blondie. Rock photographed many musicians before they were famous. The British-born photographer took pictures of Lou Reed, Brian Eno and Ziggy Stardust (aka David Bowie) when he was just a cult figure in London. His book Blood and Glitter is about the Glam Rock era.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new albums from David Bowie (“Heathen”) and Bryan Ferry (“Frantic”).