David Byrne (musician)

David Byrne (born May 14, 1952 in Dumbarton, Scotland) is a musician best known as a founding member and the principal songwriter of the New Wave band Talking Heads. He was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended the Rhode Island School of Design for one year before dropping out and forming Talking Heads in 1974. His collaboration with Brian Eno in 1981 on the ground-breaking album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts attracted considerable critical acclaim, and represented a significant step forward in the evolution of sampling as a legitimate musical endeavour.

His work has been extensively used in movie soundtracks, most notably in collaboration with Cong Su on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won an Oscar for Best Original Score. Byrne also directed True Stories, a collage of quirky Americana, as well as the films Île Aiye and Between the Teeth''

Byrne releases his own works on his label Luaka Bop, a world music label which also releases the work of artists Cornershop, Os Mutantes, Los De Abajo, and others.

In late 2003, David Byrne released a book/DVD, called Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information, of artwork composed entirely in Microsoft PowerPoint. It includes such images as one that depicts, according to Byrne, "Dan Rather's profile. Expanded to the nth degree. Taken to infinity. Overlayed on the back of Patrick Stewart's head." [1]

On Nov. 16, 2004 Byrne released his latest solo album, titled Growing Backwards. This album is most noticable for its use of orchestral string arrangements, and even includes two operatic arias.

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Another David Byrne is a politician.