At 59-years old and after 40 years as artiste, David Bowie - despite emergency heart surgery two years ago - continues to weave a restless web between contemporary music, performance, club culture, the visual arts, the digital world, and film.

Last week Bowie announced ambitious plans for the May 2007 debut of an annual 10-day arts and music extravaganza in New York City, "The High Line Festival," which will blend emerging and star talent and be shaped by a different "iconic visionary curator" each year. Bowie himself will orchestrate next year's show and perform a large outdoor concert at the finale of the event - his first show in NYC since December 2003.

"The High Line Festival" will take place on the street and in neighboring venues alongside the High Line, a public park being created along 1.5 miles of abandoned elevated train tracks on New York City's West Side.

Bowie - who was just voted the eighth Greatest Rock Hero by NME - said, "I've been particularly excited about seeking out emerging artists and giving them a place in a Festival that will also feature some very well-known names. That will be an ongoing mission of The High Line Festival - to offer performances and exhibitions that are unique and original to New York."

So Bowie has something interesting to work on for the next year - I am pleased. As varied and creative as his work has been over his entire career, Bowie's irreducible icon status derives from a protean six-year period 1970-1976 (in addition, Low, Heroes, Scary Monsters, and Let's Dance are all touched with greatness) where the stakes were highest and he delivered the most.

Man Who Sold the World - Station to Station

Guitarist Mick Ronson was summoned to London in 1970 to work with David Bowie on the follow-up to his first hit single, "Space Oddity." Bowie and bassist/producer Tony Visconti were assembling a hard rock band to blow away Bowie's frouffy, flower power image. With the addition of ex-Rat Woody Woodmansey on drums, The Man Who Sold the World lineup was complete.

Man rocks with an authority that startles, even today. While the material is uneven and Visconti's production is somewhat pinched, Man is Bowie's first classic album. Ronson's guitar propels the opus "Width of a Circle"; he riffs viciously like Jimmy Page and solos on the twang bar with a Jeff Beck-like intensity. "All the Madmen" is one of the most successful examples of Bowie's career-long fascination with the Outsider. The title track is driven by Ronson's melodic lines and a spunky Latin beat.

After Man, Bowie returned to songwriting; when he was through writing Hunky Dory, Ronson, Woodmansey and another ex-Rat, bassist Trevor Bolder, answered the call to London.