PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Nobody gets David Bowie like Philly, especially in early January. It’s the time of year when the city comes together for a week of Bowie-inspired celebrations.
Philly Loves Bowie Week is an annual festival honoring the rock icon, who died of liver cancer on Jan. 10, 2016, just two days after his 69th birthday. There are tribute performances, dance parties, gallery exhibitions and even a Bowie-focused karaoke night.
Everyone has a story of how they found Bowie, but few have a story like Patti Brett.
“I discovered him when I was 17 years old,” I saw him live in December of ‘72, and seeing that show changed my life.”
Later, Brett was one of the “Sigma Kids” standing outside Sigma Sound Studios as Bowie recorded his legendary album “Young Americans” in Philadelphia. He invited them in to hear the unedited tracks, inspired heavily by the Philly soul sound he’d fallen in love with during his “Diamond Dogs” tour.
Bowie’s bond with the city would grow deeper over the years, not only through regular touring appearances, but also a pair of live albums — “David Live,” recorded at the Tower Theater and “Stage,” recorded in part at the Spectrum. Notably, Bowie also narrated a 1978 recording of “Peter and the Wolf,” performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In 2017, Brett, a bartender at Doobies in South Philly, found other Bowie lovers to inaugurate a week of Bowie celebrations in the city. This year, the annual Philly Loves Bowie Week runs now through Jan. 13.
On Friday night, The National Liberty Museum kicked off the festivities with its fourth annual Bowie Bash.
“Oh, who isn’t a Bowie fan?” asked museum CEO Alaine Arnott. The event this year comes alongside the opening of the museum’s “Amplified” exhibit, which showcases the power of art and music to spur social change.
“A lot of people come and they expect it to be about protest music or big events and what we really found is that it’s really most important to talk about the personal connections,” said Aaron Billheimer, the museum’s director of exhibitions.
“The nostalgia the people have, the way they’re moved by the music, that’s what actually empowers them to cause the social movements.”
For Billheimer, the late singer-songwriter evokes both nostalgia — but also empowerment, through his ever-shifting styles and personas. “He was a person who was fluid and kind of traveled through different social norms and sort of represents all of us,” he said, alluding to how the singer elided the boundaries of gender during the 1970s.
Brett, for her part, couldn’t be happier to pair the Bowie Week kickoff with the “Amplified” exhibit, which runs through April 8. “I think it’s a perfect match … I think he would be blown away by it,” she said.
“He’s been so influential to so many people with, you know, being who you are, don’t care about what people think, do what you want to do.”
Or as Bowie himself — as Ziggy Stardust — summed it up, “Let all the children boogie.”