Television: Original chameleon's ch-ch-ch-changes

It's Modern Love for Lin Ferguson and David Bowie, here as relevant as ever with Tilda Swinton and Lorde. Photo/File

David Bowie will always be a source of fascination for classical and rock music aficionados.

Prime Rocks was a documentary of Bowie's first five years.

The programme on Wednesday was the journey through his early years, but comments from Bowie himself were weirdly not there.

At first I dithered about switching off because I wanted to hear him tell his story.

However, though it was a sort of faceless documentary, Bowie's voice was ever present.

The footage was frank and uncompromising and showed us a chameleon-like musician who lived several different lives.

The five years we were shown were laced with the rock-star necessities of booze and drugs, endless infighting and seamy excesses of the physical kind.

Bowie's composing is legendary - he would suddenly hear a bar or two in his head then haul in a collaborator to work with him .

Even though the music was then literally ripped up, turned on its head or played backwards the end result was always mind-blowing.

Bowie is the original avant-garde pop and rock king.

From the late 60s and early 70s when this lean, practically emaciated chap with marmalade-coloured, slightly bouffant hair, cheekbones to kill for, odd-coloured eyes and crowded crooked teeth opened his throat the sound was genius.

But he didn't really see himself as a singer. He said he just got on the stage and performed a role.

Whatever his formula it was always exciting, original and always hit extraordinary notes.

His career from Ziggy Stardust in 1971 took incredible twists and turns. You could never second-guess this performer and were awash in glorious visuals and sounds. A few centuries back he would have been right up there with composers and performers of the day in the leading courts and royal music chambers of Europe.

We saw how the then-unknown, very young Luther Vandross helped shape the Young Americans album. Tony Visconti, the producer of Heroes, talked candidly about when he was snogging one of the girls from the studio outside in a grim concrete yard near the Berlin wall, when Bowie looked out the window and the couple's lingering passion inspired some of that song's lyrics.

You realise very quickly that Bowie's penchant for collaboration has earned him huge respect as a musician from his peers.

A clip of Rick Wakeman playing his piano score from Life On Mars saw Wakeman commenting that while it was 40 years ago it could well be yesterday. He thought he should go home and learn it again.

For me, Let's Dance and China Girl will be forever favourites ... forever Bowie. He's the man.