Michael Ronson (26 May 1946 – 29 April 1993) was an English musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer. He achieved critical and commercial success working with David Bowie as the guitarist of the Spiders from Mars. He was a session musician who recorded five studio albums with Bowie followed by four with Ian Hunter, and also played in touring bands with Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. A classically trained musician, Ronson was known for his melodic approach to guitar playing.
Ronson and Bowie produced Lou Reed's Transformer with Ronson playing guitar and piano and writing string arrangements, which brought him mainstream recognition. The album is considered an influential landmark of the glam rock genre, anchored by Reed's most successful single, "Walk on the Wild Side". In 2008, John Cougar Mellencamp credited Ronson for helping to arrange his most successful hit single, "Jack & Diane".
Ronson recorded three solo studio albums, the most popular being Slaughter on 10th Avenue, which reached No. 9 on the UK Albums Chart. He played with various bands after his time with Bowie. He was named the 64th-greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone in 2003 and 41st in 2012 by the same magazine.
Early life
Michael Ronson was born in Kingston upon Hull in East Riding. He was the first son of George and Minnie Ronson and had two younger siblings, Maggi and David. As a child, he was trained classically to play piano, recorder, violin, and (later) the harmonium. He initially wanted to be a cellist, but switched to guitar after discovering the music of Duane Eddy, whose bass notes on the guitar sounded to Ronson much like the cello.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: 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 were 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 went 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 briefly teamed 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 then replaced by Clive Taylor and later John Cambridge). The group played the local circuit, and made a few unsuccessful trips to London and Paris."Geoff Appleby – Biography", "Just a Buzz".
In 1967 The Rats recorded the one-off psychedelic track "The Rise and Fall of Bernie Gripplestone" at Fairview Studios in Willerby, East Riding and can be heard on the 2008 release, Front Room Masters – Fairview Studios 1966–1973. In 1968, the band changed their name briefly to Treacle and booked another recording session at Fairview Studios in 1969, before reverting to their original name. Around that time, Ronson was recommended by Rick Kemp to play guitar on Michael Chapman's Fully Qualified Survivor album. In 1968 Keith 'Ched' Cheesman joined The Rats replacing Geoff Appleby on bass and the line up of Ronson, Marshall, Cheesman, and Cambridge recorded "Guitar Boogie", "Stop and Get A Hold of Myself", and "Morning Dew" at Fairview Studios. 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". The 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.
Bowie era Early in 1970, John Cambridge went 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 next 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. In April 1970, Ronson, Woodmansey, and Visconti started recording Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World album.
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 recorded 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. The song was written by Tucker Zimmerman. The B-side was a Ronson/Marshall song 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 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?".
That band, minus Wakeman, became known as the Spiders from Mars from the title of the next Bowie album. 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's guitar and arranging during the Spiders from Mars era provided much of the underpinning for later punk rock musicians. 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, Ronson re-recorded and produced the track "The Man Who Sold the World" for Lulu, 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. However, he was absent from the Diamond Dogs album released later. In September 1983 he was a special guest for 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:
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."
Later work After leaving Bowie's entourage after the "Farewell Concert" in 1973, 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". 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. Ronson then became a long-time collaborator with Mott's former leader Ian Hunter, commencing with the album Ian Hunter (UK No. 21) and featuring the UK Singles Chart No. 14 hit "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", including a spell touring as the Hunter Ronson Band.
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 song. In 1974, Ronson secured the No. 2 spot from a reader's poll in Creem magazine of the best guitarists that year, with Jimmy Page taking first place and Eric Clapton in third place after Ronson. After having recorded, on his Slaughter on Tenth Avenue album, Annette Peacock's song I'm The One from her album of the same name, he played on tracks on her X-Dreams album. 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. Ronson played guitar on two tracks on the Slaughter & The Dogs album Do It Dog Style in 1978. 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 not released until 2019, after the master tapes were acquired from the family of the original rights owners. The label Big Sound, based in Wallingford, Connecticut, had gone bust and the album remained unreleased for forty years.