“I sort of hoodwinked him”: The guitarist David Bowie called “my Jeff Beck”
Every generation has its fair share of guitar heroes from which to draw. Any novice guitar player coming up around the late 1970s knows the moment their DNA was changed when Eddie Van Halen played ‘Eruption’ for the first time, and even if they weren’t the greatest guitarists in the world, the same could be said for grunge guitarists who made the entire rock scene sound a lot different when using different effects and a punk rock approach to the instrument. While the rest of the world was still in blues land by the time David Bowie got started, he already had his own feelings about where the true classic guitarists were.
Then again, Bowie’s upbringing before he even started playing music already promised his career to be left-of-centre. He never claimed to be tied to one singular form of music, and when listening to his first album in the midst of the Summer of Love, it took a lot of courage for one of the most forward-thinking artists in the world to try and convince everyone that he was a vaudeville star.
It was a nice experiment, but it was clear that he hit on something more promising on ‘Space Oddity’. In fact, Bowie’s second outing could practically be considered a creative mulligan of sorts, as if he was trying out things that didn’t work and found out that he was better off trying to be some warped rock and roll space cadet than trying to be someone aping their craft from The Monkees.
If he sculpted himself as someone looking for new lands, though, getting to the Ziggy Stardust character was a walk in the park. His musical choices were already avant-garde, but it was better to have a band behind him that could give him the muscle that he needed. And while people like Rick Wakeman and Tim Renwick did some great things for him, everything seemed to fall into place when Mick Ronson got behind the fretboard.
“When I first heard him play, I thought, ‘That’s my Jeff Beck. This kid is great.’ So I sort of hoodwinked him into working with me.”
David Bowie
Bowie was still the main attraction, but now he had a partner in crime both in and out of the studio. From the strange bends in the middle of ‘Suffragette City’ to the chunky power chords that kick off ‘Moonage Daydream’, everything from Ronson’s tone to his technique was everything the glam rock scene was supposed to be, being equal parts sleazy, otherworldly, and hooky at the exact same time.
Although most people were fawning over guitar heroes like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck at the time, Bowie figured he didn’t need to worry about having a big name in his band any more, saying, “When I first heard him play, I thought ‘That’s my Jeff Beck. This kid is great.’ So I sort of hoodwinked him into working with me. I didn’t actually have to tell him in the beginning that we’d have to wear makeup.”
Even with the accessories that came with being Bowie’s lead guitarist, there wasn’t anything off the table for Ronson. Compared to other collaborators on ‘The Starman’s records, Ronson was the first confidante Bowie had that was on the same level as someone like Brian Eno or Nile Rodgers later, eventually coming up with the brilliant arrangements on many of his finest rock and roll records.
At the same time, his talent wasn’t one that everyone realised was needed until it was gone. On Diamond Dogs, Bowie ended up playing most of the lead guitar, and while he’s far from bad, it’s a shame knowing what Ronson could have brought to the table. However, like all of the other characters he came up with before, Bowie was simply trying to find new areas as an artist, and that meant never staying with the same people for too long.
