Despite a decades-long stage performance career that has taken him from Jamestown to New York City to London, Tony Zanetta just might consider his time spent as David Bowie’s tour manager to be his most enduring legacy.

Following Bowie’s death week ago Sunday from cancer at the age of 69, Zanetta recalls fondly the years in which he was afforded the opportunity to have established a working relationship and personal friendship with one of the music industry’s all-time greatest icons.

“It was a whirlwind,” said Zanetta, who worked with Bowie throughout the early to mid-1970s. “When you’ve been thrust into that kind of high-profile rock and roll lifestyle at the age of 25, and your friend is becoming a superstar right before your very eyes, it’s a very exciting time.”

A Jamestown native and 1964 graduate of Jamestown High School, Zanetta initially met Bowie in London in the summer of 1971 following a Roundhouse Theater performance of the Andy Warhol-penned play “Pork,” in which Zanetta portrayed Warhol. The two met backstage and quickly struck up a friendship as Bowie was a fan of Warhol’s and was complimentary of Zanetta’s portrayal of the artist.

Additionally, Zanetta had already established himself as a New York City resident at that time, and when Bowie, along with his then manager, Tony Defries, arrived in the city later in 1971 to strike up a new record deal with RCA Records, Zanetta became Bowie’s “inside man.”

At the time, Bowie had found moderate success in Britain with his 1969 and 1970 singles “Space Oddity” and “The Man Who Sold the World,” but had yet to make a large impact in the United States and global markets. As such, Zanetta found himself giving Defries, Bowie and Bowie’s wife of the time, Angie, tours of the city and acting as a liaison of sorts between the artist and the record company.

From there, he began performing more and more business-related tasks for Bowie’s team. He gathered a team of his own, and this would form the nucleus of Bowie’s management team, MainMan Ltd. – of which Zanetta was president until 1976.

“We were really excited about what David was doing and what he wanted to do,” Zanetta said. “He was just beginning to percolate his ideas for the ‘Ziggy Stardust’ character, and it was just so new and different from what anybody else was doing. He was a very focused artist, and knew exactly what he wanted; so that instilled in us a confidence that helped us to accomplish things that we never would have dreamt of doing on our own.”

Zanetta’s stint as Bowie’s management team president and tour manager continued through 1976, a time period which overlapped with the release of Bowie’s 1972 breakout album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars,” as well as the albums “Aladdin Sane,” “Pin Ups,” “Diamond Dogs,” “Young Americans” and “Station to Station.” He served as tour manager for the “Ziggy Stardust” and “Diamond Dogs” tours.

Zanetta said his relationship with Bowie ended naturally in 1976, when Bowie had lived out his role as “Ziggy Stardust.” He said one of Bowie’s most defining characteristics as an artist was his fierce determination and tenacity in forging ahead in spite of adversity.

“In those days record companies were much more willing to take chances on young artists they believed in, and though most people would find a niche and stick with it (Bowie) didn’t do that because he truly was an artist,” Zanetta said. “To him, the most important thing was the process and he was never deterred or defeated by failure; he just kept moving forward and creating the art he wanted to create in his own way.”

Zanetta is also the co-author of a book released in 1986 entitled “Stardust: The David Bowie Story” — which contains 402 pages of text, 32 pages of photos, a bibliography and a listing of Bowie’s records up until that point. The book focuses on Bowie’s early career, specifically the “Ziggy Stardust” era. The book can be found through online retailers, including Amazon.