I had the great pleasure of working with him for three months back in 2001 - was a genuine, gregarious and humble person. He was making an album with his old group of guys - Visconti, Earl Slick, Mike Garson etc. He had a bunch of older material he had written in the 70's/80's. It was a fantastic album but the label dropped funding of it for whatever crazy reason and the album never got released .
Oh it's on wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_(David_Bowie_album)Edit - a few favorite memories...
1) Bowie testing out mics - we set up a row of probably a dozen and he a capella went down the line singing into each of them. Was just a wow moment
2) The very first day I met him, we were all sitting around the control room discussing particulars, on sofas. I was sitting next to someone and there was a spot on the other end of (my sofa). Bowie came in and sat in that spot and then whomever was next to me got up and I was sitting there with David. So, I felt a bit too chummy ( I had not yet introduced myself) so I stood up to give him some private space.
He sort of grabbed my hand and motioned - "no no sit down, it's okay." And he lit up a cigarette as we were all sitting talking - him mostly listening. And he had the ashtray perched precariously ight near the edge of the sofa. I made a little joke: "I see you like to live on the edge" and he chuckled a bit and pushed the ashtray even further up to where it almost fell off.
3) The whole group sat and watched Wimbledon during the day. Was a funny experience - dicussing Serena vs. Venus - I think the two sisters played against each other that year.
4) Him telling me about the 'gang' of boys he used to run with when he was a teenager. He called them "Cosh" boys - not sure what that meant but he described them - sounded pretty Goth to me - and they used to have minor street fights. Simiarly, told me many of his old friends were dead/in jail and he had one particular friend who grew up to be a sort-of small-time arms dealer who moved to Panama, etc. Colorful peeps....
5) Him giving investment advice to Earl Slick.