TRANSFORMER

Sure, he made a massive imprint on David Bowie's classic early Seventies albums. But Mick Ronson also worked with Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, Elton John, Roger McGuinn, Morrissey, Ian Hunter and many others. GW profiles the post-Bowie career of rock 'n' roll's most quietly spoken guitar hero. Starring Def Leppard's Joe Elliott, Slaughter and the Dogs' Mick Rossi and the Cult's Billy Duffy

- MARK McSTEA

ALTHOUGH FOREVER LINKED to David Bowie's breakthrough success - and what is, for many, Bowie's golden era in the early Seventies - Mick Ronson's career continued long after his departure from Bowie's band, the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's announcement from the stage of the London Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, when he unexpectedly declared that the Spiders had played their final show together, came as a huge shock to the rest of the band. Ronson had carved out a reputation for himself as not only one of the premier guitar heroes of the glam age, but also as a gifted producer and arranger. While the band were understandably dismayed and disappointed at Bowie's decision, plans were afoot to turn Ronson into a solo star in his own right. Unfortunately for Ronson, he never seemed as comfortable in the spotlight as he was when acting as a visual and sonic foil for the extravagance of Bowie.

Ronson’s first band, the Rats, were a blues/rock band who made a handful of singles in the late Sixties. Hailing from Hull, in the northeast of England, the band undoubtedly suffered from being based outside the extremely London-centric scene that was the British music business at that time. The Rats were an excellent band, with a sound not unlike that of the Jeff Beck Group, and Ronno could carry off the extended blues soloing that was becoming de rigueur in the age of Jimi Hendrix et al. with considerable aplomb. Ronson’s playing was a cut above the clichéd blues rock excesses that so many mediocre Hendrix wannabes resorted to. Check out the Rats’ “Telephone Blues” from 1969 — no wonder that Bowie told Tony Visconti that he’d “found his Jeff Beck” when Ronson was recruited for Bowie’s band in 1970.