THE world grieved when John Lennon was murdered by Mark Chapman on December 8, 1980.

But imagine if another of the 20th century’s greatest rock performers, David Bowie, had been killed by the same assassin at the same time.

It could have so easily happened, according to an Australian expert on Bowie, Roger Griffin, who has written a new book, David Bowie: The Golden Years.

media_camera David Bowie performing in Adelaide Oval in 1978

Bowie, who died of liver cancer in January, aged 69, said in 2010 that 30 years earlier, when he was performing the stage production of The Elephant Man in New York, that he was marked for death; he was “second on his (Chapman’s) list”.

Griffin says: “It was said that Chapman had been to one of Bowie’s Elephant Man performances at the Booth Theatre and had photographed him at the stage door. He’d bragged that he could have killed either of them. And police searched Chapman’s hotel room and supposedly found a Booth Theatre program with Bowie’s name ringed in black.

“It’s plausible because Chapman wanted notoriety. He felt indignant about pop stars getting that buzz themselves and that notoriety.”

media_camera Bowie performs on Dutch TV show TopPop. Photo: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns

In another twist, Bowie is quoted in The Golden Years as saying in 2010 that Chapman had booked a front-row ticket to The Elephant Man on December 9, 1980.

“John and (wife) Yoko (Ono) were supposed to sit front-row for that show, too,” Bowie says.

“So the night after John was killed, there were three empty seats in the front row.

“I can’t tell you how difficult that was to go on. I almost didn’t make it through the performance.”

Griffin’s book, sure to be essential reading for Bowie completists around the world, focuses on the singer-songwriter’s most creative period, from 1970 to 1980.

media_camera David Bowie: The Golden Years by Roger Griffin

In that decade, Bowie recorded 12 studio albums, beginning with The Man Who Sold The World, and finishing with Scary Monsters. Griffin, 53, a Sydney graphic designer, chronicles almost every day in the life of those 11 years of the chameleon performer. It includes more than 500 rare pictures, some of which have never been published.

The genesis of the book is intriguing, going well back before the star’s death almost a year ago. In 2000, Griffin created a website, bowiegoldenyears.com, to chart the star’s post-glam 1974-80 era. Bowie’s own website described the site as “superb” and after a British newspaper named it the site of the week six years ago, Griffin was commissioned to adapt the site as a book and asked to embrace the whole decade.

media_camera David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust

The author, who first saw Bowie perform in Sydney in November 1978 – “my first rock concert” – says the start of Bowie’s purple patch was born of a “fear of boring people”.

The singer’s Ziggy Stardust persona, which saw him become a fictional rock singer with alien overtones, shook up the music scene in 1972.

“The context of Ziggy Stardust at the time was that music then was blue jeans and the blues and interminable solos,” Griffin says.

“There wasn’t much interplay between band and audience or bringing some spectacle for the crowd. He set the benchmark for giving something more to audiences”

David Bowie: The Golden Years, Roger Griffin, Omnibus Press, $120