About a week before his death, with Blackstar nearing release, David Bowie called his longtime friend and producer Tony Visconti via FaceTime, and told him he wanted to make one more album. In what turned out to have been the final weeks of his life,
Bowie wrote and demo-ed five fresh songs, and was anxious to return to the studio one last time. Bowie had known since November that his cancer was terminal, according to Visconti, but if their final conversation was any indication, he had no idea he had so little time left. "At that late stage, he was planning the follow-up to Blackstar," says Visconti, that album's producer, in an interview conducted Wednesday for a Bowie memorial package in the next issue of Rolling Stone.
"And I was thrilled," Visconti continues, "and I thought, and he thought, that he'd have a few months, at least. Obviously, if he's excited about doing his next album, he must've thought he had a few more months. So the end must've been very rapid. I'm not privy to it. I don't know exactly, but he must've taken ill very quickly after that phone call." Visconti has been working with Bowie on and off since 1969's Space Oddity, producing numerous key albums, among them 1970's The Man Who Sold the World, 1977's Low, 1980's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and 2013's surprise comeback The Next Day.
Bowie had already finished Blackstar by November. But even before then, Visconti noticed the tone of some of the lyrics and told him, "You canny bastard. You're writing a farewell album." Bowie simply laughed in response. "He was so brave and courageous," says Visconti. "And his energy was still incredible for a man who had cancer. He never showed any fear. He was just all business about making the album."
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...onths-20160113
