Entertainment

Heart Surgery For Rocker Bowie

July 8, 2004 / 7:57 PM EDT / AP

Musician David Bowie underwent emergency heart surgery after a concert in Germany and is recovering in New York, his spokesman said Friday.

The spokesman, Julian Stockton, said doctors examining Bowie because he had suffered a pinched nerve in his shoulder discovered "an acutely blocked artery" in his heart and performed an emergency angioplasty procedure to clear it.

The blockage was discovered after Bowie, 57, played a show in the town of Scheessel on June 25. He canceled the next day's concert — and subsequently, the rest of his European tour — citing the shoulder problem.

"I'm so p'd off because the last 10 months of this tour have been so ... fantastic," Stockton quoted Bowie as saying. "Can't wait to be fully recovered and get back to work again. I tell you what, though, I won't be writing a song about this one."

Stockton did not specify the date of the surgery but said it had occurred after the June 25 show and that he was able to leave the clinic in Germany early this week. He did not specify where in Germany the procedure was done.

The spokesman said Bowie was "is now convalescing with his family and hopes to start work next month."

Bowie cut short his concert in Prague on June 23 because of pain in his shoulder, taking a 10-minute time-out about halfway through, but then singing only two more songs.

He canceled the rest of his European tour a few days later because of what an announcement on his Web site called "continuing pain and extreme discomfort from a trapped/pinched nerve"