Dennis Davis

Sterling Campbell: "When I was 14 years old, Dennis Davis moved into my building, and I came across him in the lobby. He was on his way to do a show at Madison Square Garden! I told him I play drums and he invited me to the show. That show was my first introduction to David's music and to the brilliance of Dennis Davis. And I knew what I wanted to do with my life! Being on stage with him last year in New York was like coming around full circle! Dennis has had a huge influence on my playing. In fact, the way I approached this last small tour was a tribute to Dennis' style."
David Bowie: "Dennis was so open, He was almost orgiastic in his approach to trying out new stuff. He'd say, 'Yeah, let's do that new shit, man." I told him about a Charlie Mingus gig that I saw where the drummer had polythene tubes that would go into the drums, and he would suck and blow to change the pressure as he played. Dennis was out the next day buying that stuff. Dennis is crazy, an absolute loony man, but he had a lot of his own thoughts on things, and he would throw us all kinds of curve-balls." Bowie seems to take some sort of parental pride in relating that Dennis Davis was in fact Sterling Campbell's drum teacher, and likes to illustrate the relationship with a little anecdote. "This is very "Dennis." Sterling Campbell used to go over to Dennis's house to ask for lessons, and Dennis would say, 'Ah... sure. You want to clean those windows? [laughs] Sterling looked after Dennis's pad, and in return Dennis taught him. Isn't that great? Dennis, of course, came to many of the gigs we did when Sterling was around, and then in turn, Sterling has always come to all the Zach gigs. And then all three of them have turned up on some occasions. They all get on very well with each other. So it's lovely that I've got this kind of real lineage between them, going back to 1976."
Tony Visconti: "Dennis was the life of the party. He could do a mime act on the closed-circuit-tv camera and have us in stitches. He claimed he took a short cut through a highly classified hanger and saw a crashed UFO from the catwalk he was on. He stared at it for ages until a guard told him to leave because he wasn't classified to be there. He was warned not to ever mention what he saw. I don't know if this is true, but it was highly entertaining. French tv sucks, Dennis is the best we had. I suppose if I could get David, the remaining Beatles, Beck, Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, to create a super-group with Dennis Davis on drums, I'd be very happy."
- Quotes about Dennis from his colleagues