‘Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story’ Profiles Glam Rock Guitar Hero

In the already crowded filed of rock docs, producers are always looking for new ways to approach musicians whose stories are already well known, sometimes focusing on a particular album or era in an artist’s career. In the two years since David Bowie left the Earth for the stars up above there have been at least two documentaries made about him. I should know. I reviewed them. The 2017 documentary Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story, currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime and Hulu adds a new angle; chronicling the life of guitarist Mick Ronson, who played on Bowie’s career making albums in the early ’70s.

Mick Ronson, known to friends as “Ronno,” makes for an interesting case study. As a guitarist, his stature has only grown since his untimely death from liver cancer at the age of 46 in 1993. With his singular tone and memorable playing style, equal parts melody and muscle, he is a guitarist’s guitarist; admired by other players, but not widely known to the public at large. The funny thing is, Ronno was a star and played on some of the biggest and most important rock albums of all-time.

As the title indicates, Beside Bowie is less an in-depth documentary on Mick Ronson, and more specifically about those years he acted as David Bowie’s musical foil, both on-stage and in the recording studio. From 1970 to 1973, Ronson’s blistering guitar work and musical arrangements anchored Bowie’s albums, helping him transition from arty folk-rock to hard rock and, eventually, full on glam. Ronson’s braying, nasally guitar sound defined not just Bowie’s sound but came to be one of glam’s sonic signifiers, influencing the likes of heavy metal hero Randy Rhoads to alternative rocker Billy Duffy of The Cult.

Ronson grew up working class in the northeastern English port city of Hull. He was a classically trained pianist and violin player but began playing lead guitar as a teenager. In 1970 he was recruited into The Hype, a short lived group that included David Bowie on vocals, future Bowie-producer Tony Visconti on bass and drummer Mick “Woody” Woodmansey. Bowie was immediately impressed with Ronson’s “energy and grit,” and though the group wouldn’t last, the three musicians would back the singer-songwriter on his 1970 album, The Man Who Sold the World.

With a genuine guitar hero by his side, Bowie could now present himself as a legitimate rock musician, not just a one-hit wonder with a penchant for the theatrical. “He rocked David up,” says friend and BBC DJ Bob Harris. Along with bassist Trevor Bolder, Ronson and Woodmansey made up The Spiders From Mars, Bowie’s famed backing band who played on his breakthrough albums; Honky Dory (1971), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) and Aladdin Sane (1973).

Not only was Ronson’s guitar prominent on the albums, he contributed string arrangements, piano parts and backing vocals. Performing together on stage, Bowie and Ronson were a classic lead singer / lead guitar duo, in the mold of The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards or Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, the effeminate frontman and the macho musician. The stereotype had some truth to it. While Bowie was cultured and sophisticated, he described Ronson as, “a self contained man,” who didn’t need much besides, “his cigarettes, his guitar and a sturdy pair of shoes.” Bowie struck provocative poses next to the guitarist, mock-fellating him during guitar solos or throwing an affectionate arm over the shoulder. To many, the pair seemed natural collaborators; however, for all his influence and arrangements, Ronson never received a co-writing credit on any David Bowie song.

Though The Spiders From Mars helped create the foundation of David Bowie’s success, they never received more than 50 pounds per week, even after breaking big in the United States. After asking for a raise, Bolder, and Woodmansey were sacked while Ronson was groomed to become a solo star by Bowie and his management team. Unfortunately, Ronson’s gifts were as a sideman, not as a frontman, and his solo career quickly faltered. He played with Mott The Hoople, Bob Dylan, and Ian Hunter over the years, and helped arrange the John Mellencamp hit “Jack and Diane,” but generally lived gig to gig, paycheck to paycheck.

Bowie and Ronson reunited at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992. By then, Ronson had been diagnosed with liver cancer and told he had three months to live. In the end it was 20, and while his production work on Morrissey’s Your Arsenal album provided some degree of financial security, it was too little too late. As Earl Slick, who replaced him in Bowie’s band says, “He didn’t get his due, he didn’t get credited.”

Ironically, while Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story intends to set the record straight about the guitarist’s important musical contributions, in the end it seems as much a Bowie documentary as a Ronson one. Though well done, with new interviews with Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and Ian Hunter alongside archival ones with Lou Reed, Ronson and Bowie, it seems too niche a subject for anyone but Bowie fans. Perhaps it works best as a cautionary tale. Rock n’ roll is a dirty game, and the plight of Mick Ronson is just one of many hard luck stories to befall talented musicians over the years.

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter:@BHSmithNYC.

Watch Beside Bowie on Hulu

Watch Beside Bowie on Amazon Prime Video