Mick Ronson

Michael Ronson was born in Kingston upon Hull in 1946. He was the first son of George and Minnie Ronson and had two younger siblings, Maggi and David.[8] As a child he was trained classically to play piano, recorder, violin, and (later) the harmonium. He initially wanted to be a cellist, but moved to guitar upon discovering the music of Duane Eddy, whose sound on the bass notes of his guitar sounded to Ronson similar to that of the cello.[9] He joined his first band, The Mariners, in November 1963, when he was 17. His stage debut with The Mariners was in support of the Keith Herd Band at Brough Village Hall, a gig for which the band travelled 35 miles and got paid 10 shillings (50p). While Ronson was working with The Mariners, another local Hull group – The Crestas – recruited him on the advice of The Mariners' bassist John Griffiths. With Ronson on board the Crestas gained a solid reputation, making regular appearances at local halls: Mondays at the Halfway House in Hull, Thursdays at the Ferryboat Hotel, Fridays at the Regal Ballroom in Beverley, and Sundays at the Duke of Cumberland in North Ferriby.

In 1965, Ronson left The Crestas, moving to London to seek work. He took a part-time job as a mechanic, and joined a band called The Voice, replacing Miller Anderson. Soon afterwards, Crestas' drummer Dave Bradfield travelled to London, replacing the Voice's previous drummer. After playing a few dates with the group, Ronson and Bradfield returned from a weekend in Hull to find their gear piled at their flat and a note explaining that the rest of the group had gone to The Bahamas. Ronson stayed in London and teamed up briefly with a soul band called The Wanted, before eventually returning to Hull. In 1966, he joined Hull's top local band, The Rats, joining singer Benny Marshall, bassist Geoff Appleby, and drummer Jim Simpson (who was subsequently replaced by Clive Taylor and then John Cambridge). The group played the local circuit, and made a few unsuccessful trips to London and Paris.[10]

In 1967 The Rats recorded the one-off psychedelic track, "The Rise and Fall of Bernie Gripplestone"[11] at Fairview Studios in Willerby, East Riding of Yorkshire and can be heard on the 2008 release, Front Room Masters – Fairview Studios 1966–1973.[12] 1968 saw the band change their name briefly to Treacle and book another recording session at Fairview Studios in 1969, before reverting to their original name. Around this time, Ronson was recommended by Rick Kemp to play guitar on Michael Chapman's Fully Qualified Survivor album.[11]

In 1968 Keith 'Ched' Cheesman joined The Rats replacing Geoff Appleby on bass and the line up of Ronson, Marshall, Cheesman and Cambridge entered Fairview studio to record "Guitar Boogie", "Stop and Get A Hold of Myself" and "Morning Dew".

When John Cambridge left The Rats to join his former Hullaballoos bandmate Mick Wayne in Junior's Eyes, he was replaced by Mick "Woody" Woodmansey. In November 1969, the band recorded a final session at Fairview, taping "Telephone Blues" and "Early in Spring".

In March 1970, during the recording sessions for Elton John's album Tumbleweed Connection, Ronson played guitar on the track "Madman Across the Water". This song, however, was not included in the original release. The recording featuring Ronson was released on the 1992 compilation album, Rare Masters, as well as the 1995 reissue and 2008 deluxe edition of Tumbleweed Connection.[13]

Early in 1970, John Cambridge came back to Hull in search of Ronson, intent upon recruiting him for a new David Bowie backing band called The Hype. He found Ronson marking out a rugby pitch, one of his duties as a Parks Department gardener for Hull City Council. Having failed in his earlier attempts in London, Ronson was reluctant, but eventually agreed to accompany Cambridge to a meeting with Bowie. Two days later, on 5 February, Ronson made his debut with Bowie on John Peel's national BBC Radio 1 show.

The Hype played their first gig at The Roundhouse on 22 February with a line-up that included Bowie, Ronson, Cambridge, and producer/bassist Tony Visconti. The group dressed up in superhero costumes, with Bowie as Rainbowman, Visconti as Hypeman, Ronson as Gangsterman, and Cambridge as Cowboyman. Also on the bill that day were Bachdenkel, The Groundhogs and Caravan. The following day they performed at the Streatham Arms in London under the pseudonym of 'Harry The Butcher'. They also performed on 28 February at the Basildon Arts Lab experimental music club at the Basildon Arts Centre in Essex, billed as 'David Bowie's New Electric Band'. Also on the bill were High Tide, Overson and Iron Butterfly. Strawbs were due to perform but were replaced by Bowie's New Electric Band. John Cambridge left in March, again replaced by Woody Woodmansey.[14] In April 1970, Ronson, Woodmansey, and Visconti started recording Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World album.[15]

During the sessions for The Man Who Sold the World, the trio of Ronson, Visconti, and Woodmansey – still under The Hype moniker – signed to Vertigo Records. The group recruited Benny Marshall from The Rats as vocalist, and entered the studio to record an album. By the time a single appeared, The Hype had been renamed Ronno. "4th Hour of My Sleep" was released on Vertigo to an indifferent reception in January 1971.[11] The song was written by Tucker Zimmerman.[16] The B-side was a Ronson/Marshall composition called "Powers of Darkness". The Ronno album was never completed.

Bowie's backing ensemble, which now included Trevor Bolder, who had replaced Visconti on bass guitar, and keyboardist Rick Wakeman, were used in the recording of Hunky Dory. The departure of Visconti also meant that Ronson, with Bowie, took over the arrangements, while Ken Scott co-produced with Bowie. Hunky Dory featured Ronson's string arrangements on several tracks, including "Life On Mars?".[17]

It was this band, minus Wakeman, that became known as The Spiders from Mars from the title of the next Bowie album.[11] Again, Ronson was a key part of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, providing string arrangements and various instrumentation, as well as playing lead guitar. Ronson and Bowie achieved some notoriety over the concerts promoting this album, when Bowie would simulate fellatio on Ronson's guitar as he played. Ronson's guitar and arranging during the Spiders from Mars era provided much of the underpinning for later punk rock musicians.[18] In 1972 Ronson provided a strings-and-brass arrangement for the song "Sea Diver" on the Bowie-produced All the Young Dudes album for Mott the Hoople. Ronson co-produced Lou Reed's album Transformer with Bowie, playing lead guitar and piano on the songs "Perfect Day" and "Satellite of Love". Again with Bowie, he re-recorded and produced the track "The Man Who Sold the World" for Lulu,[19] released as a single in the UK, and played on a few tracks on the Dana Gillespie album Weren't Born a Man. Ronson appeared on the 1972 country rock album Bustin' Out by Pure Prairie League, where he undertook string ensemble arrangements. Ronson recorded "Angel #9" for his second solo LP Play Don't Worry), and string arrangements on "Boulder Skies" and "Call Me, Tell Me" .

His guitar work was next heard on Bowie's Aladdin Sane and 1973 covers album Pin Ups.[20][21] However, he was absent from the subsequent Diamond Dogs album. In September 1983 he was a special guest at the Toronto leg of the Serious Moonlight Tour, playing lead guitar during the performance of "The Jean Genie". He had only been asked to play the day before, and later recalled:

I was playing [Earl] Slick's guitar ... I had heard Slick play solos all night so I decided not to play solos and I just went out and thrashed the guitar. I really thrashed the guitar, I was waving the guitar above my head and all sorts of things. It was funny afterwards because David said, 'You should have seen [Earl Slick's] face...' meaning he looked petrified. I had his prize guitar and I was swinging it around my head and Slick's going 'Waaaa... watch my guitar', you know. I was banging into it and it was going round my head. Poor Slick. I mean, I didn't know it was his special guitar, I just thought it was a guitar, a lump of wood with six strings.[22]

Bowie said in a 1994 interview that "Mick was the perfect foil for the Ziggy character. He was very much a salt-of-the-earth type, the blunt northerner with a defiantly masculine personality, so that what you got was the old-fashioned Yin and Yang thing. As a rock duo, I thought we were every bit as good as Mick and Keith or Axl and Slash. Ziggy and Mick were the personification of that rock n roll dualism."[23]

After leaving Bowie's entourage after the "Farewell Concert" in 1973,[24] Ronson released three solo albums. His solo debut Slaughter on 10th Avenue, featured a version of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender", as well as Ronson's most famous solo track, "Only After Dark".[11] In addition, his sister, Margaret (Maggi) Ronson, provided the backing vocals for the set. Between this and the 1975 follow-up, Ronson had a short-lived stint with Mott the Hoople.[11]

He then became a long-time collaborator with Mott's former leader Ian Hunter, commencing with the album Ian Hunter[25] (UK No. 21) and featuring the UK Singles Chart No. 14 hit "Once Bitten, Twice Shy",[26] including a spell touring as the Hunter Ronson Band.[11] In 1980, the live album Welcome to the Club was released, including a couple of Ronson contributions, although it also contained a few studio-based tracks – one of which was a Hunter/Ronson composition. In 1974, Ronson secured the No. 2 spot from a reader's poll in Creem magazine as the best guitarist that year (with Jimmy Page taking first place), and Eric Clapton in third place after Ronson.[27]

Ronson contributed guitar to the title track of the 1976 David Cassidy release Getting It in the Street. On 11 February 1977 the single "Billy Porter" (b/w "Seven Days") was released on RCA Victor Records, but did not chart. Roger Daltrey employed Ronson's guitar on his 1977 solo release One of the Boys. In 1979, Ronson and Hunter produced and played on the Ellen Foley debut album, Night Out, with "We Belong to the Night" and the hit single "What's a Matter Baby".

He also played guitar on Roger C Reale’s “Reptiles in Motion” album recorded in 1979 and only released in 2019 after the master tapes were acquired from the family of the original rights owners. The label Big Sound, based in Connecticut, had gone bust and the album remained unreleased for forty years.

In 1982, Ronson worked with John Mellencamp on his American Fool album, and in particular the song "Jack & Diane":

"I owe Mick Ronson the hit song 'Jack & Diane'. Mick was very instrumental in helping me arrange that song, as I'd thrown it on the junk heap. Ronson came down and played on three or four tracks and worked on the American Fool record for four or five weeks. All of a sudden, for 'Jack & Diane', Mick said 'Johnny, you should put baby rattles on there.' I thought, 'What the fuck does put baby rattles on the record mean? So he put the percussion on there and then he sang the part 'let it rock, let it roll' as a choir-ish-type thing, which had never occurred to me. And that is the part everybody remembers on the song. It was Ronson's idea." (John Mellencamp, Classic Rock magazine, January 2008, p.61)

Both "Jack & Diane" and American Fool topped their respective US Billboard charts.

Ronson was recruited to Midge Ure's band for Ure's Gift tour in 1985. After weeks of rehearsal, Ronson left the band due to financial disagreements and was replaced by Zal Cleminson.

Ronson with Howard Helm, 1988

In 1990, Ronson again collaborated with Hunter on the album YUI Orta, this time getting joint credit, as "Hunter/Ronson".[11] One of the backing singers on the album was Carola Westerlund. While in Sweden Ronson wrote and produced three new songs with Estelle Millburne and Westerlund as EC2: "I'm So Sorry"/"Kiss Me" (1990), then a second single as ECII: "Passion" with a B-side cover of J. Kilette and K. Brown's "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles".

In 1993, he again appeared on a Bowie album, Black Tie White Noise,[21] playing on the track "I Feel Free", originally recorded by Cream. Ronson and Bowie had already covered this track live 20 years earlier, whilst touring as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. He also played lead guitar on the Morrissey-penned "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday".

His second and third solo albums were Play Don't Worry in 1975, and Heaven and Hull in 1994. The latter set was only partly completed at the time of Ronson's death, and was released posthumously. Artists involved with the album included Bowie, John Mellencamp, Joe Elliott, Ian Hunter, Chrissie Hynde, and Martin Chambers.

Besides Bowie and Hunter, Ronson went on to work as a musician, songwriter and record producer with many other acts. He did not restrict his influence behind the recording desk to just established acts. His production work appears on albums by more obscure artists, such as Payolas, Phil Rambow and Los Illegals, The Mundanes and Italian band Moda. Ronson produced The Visible Targets, a Seattle, Washington-based group, on their 1983 five track EP, "Autistic Savant". In 1985 he produced and played on the four song EP "Stillwell Avenue" with the NYC based band XDAVIS.

Ronson was also a member of Bob Dylan's "Rolling Thunder Revue" live band,[21] and can be seen both on and off-stage in the film of the tour.[28] He made a connection with Roger McGuinn during this time, which led to his producing and contributing guitar and arrangements to McGuinn's 1976 solo album Cardiff Rose.[29]

In 1982, he participated on lead guitar in a short-lived band with Hilly Michaels on drums and Les Fradkin on bass guitar. One of their recordings from this group, "Spare Change", appeared on the Fradkin's 2006 album, Goin' Back. In 1987, Ronson made an appearance on a record by The Toll. Ronson played lead on the band's song, "Stand in Winter", from the album The Price of Progression.

In 1991, Ronson produced the Swedish cult band The Leather Nun's album, Nun Permanent, adding backing vocals and guitar overdubs on several tracks. At the end of the production, during a short visit to his sister in London, Ronson was diagnosed with cancer. In 1992 he produced Morrissey's album, Your Arsenal.[11] The same year, Ronson's final high-profile live performance was his appearance at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.[11] He played on "All the Young Dudes" with Bowie and Hunter; and "Heroes" with Bowie. Ronson's final recorded session was as a guest on the 1993 Wildhearts album Earth vs the Wildhearts, where he played the guitar solo on the song "My Baby is a Headfuck".[30] Liner notes for the Earth vs The Wildhearts album give credit to Mick Ronson for guitar on the track "My Baby Is A Headfuck" and the "album is dedicated to Mick Ronson".

Ronson was married to Suzanne Fussey, a hairdresser, who worked for David Bowie at the same time that Ronson did.[31][32] They had a daughter, Lisa, a former vocalist with The Secret History. Ronson had two sons, Nicholas (born 1971) with his girlfriend Denise, as well as Joakim (born 1990) with Carola Westerlund.[33][8]

The Mick Ronson Memorial Stage in 2007

Ronson died of liver cancer on 29 April 1993, aged 46.[34] On 6 May, his funeral was held in a Mormon chapel in London, as he had been raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[35] In his memory, the Mick Ronson Memorial Stage was constructed in Queen's Gardens, Hull.[36] In 2015, Steve Harley pledged to help raise funds for a new memorial to Ronson.[37] In April 2016, Harley played for free at the Hull City Hall to help kick start the appeal.[38][39]

A new 8-foot (2.4 m) guitar sculpture memorial to Ronson, designed by student Janis Skodins, was unveiled on 2 June 2017 in Hull's East Park, where Ronson used to work as a gardener.[40][41] As part of the Hull 2017 City Of Culture event programme, a show entitled "Turn And Face The Strange" was created to tell Ronson's story, comprising audio recordings of people who grew up with him in Hull.[42]

The show was written by Garry Burnett and Rupert Creed, and featured audio clips from friends and family, video, live narration and songs performed by a live rock band, which included ex-Rats bass player Keith 'Ched' Cheesman on guitar, Hull-born John Bentley (from Squeeze and a friend of Ronson's) on bass, plus John Cambridge, the ex-Rats and Hype drummer who introduced Ronson to Bowie, on drums. In August 2017 there were six sell-out performances,[43] at the Freedom Centre on Preston Road, close to where Ronson had grown up and is buried. There was a second run of the show, at the larger Hull Truck Theatre, which played to another six sell-out audiences, in February 2018, followed by a further ten show sell-out run in April and May 2019.[44] In August 2019, a new mural designed by artists Lydia Caprani and the Spray Creative group was completed in Bilton Grange.[45]

A 2017 feature-length biographical documentary entitled Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story [46][47] was directed by Jon Brewer produced by Cardinal Releasing. The film had a limited theatrical release and was later released to DVD.

• Weird; Gilly (2009). Mick Ronson - The Spider With The Platinum Hair. John Blake Publishing. ISBN 978-1-784-18952-5.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mick Ronson.

• Mick Ronson at Find a Grave