h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Mick Ronson - A2501173
Author: Sonic Salamander - U183918

A2501173 - 'Mick Ronson'

Any chance of splitting up the paragraphs on this a bit? Or maybe some section headers?

I have to admit I'd never heard of him.

Perhaps you could change the title to Mick Ronson - musician?

sprout

Thank you for reading it. I've split it up into paragraphs which should hopefully make it a bit easier to read. I couldn't think of any section headings. Any further suggestions would be welcome.

Hi Sonic,

Good article. I think one thing I would have liked more is a discussion about the man himself - maybe quotes from him, how he liked to relax, what put him on a level above his peers, any interesting trivia. It reads a bit like a CV, as opposed to a discussion about the man himself. This is just my personal view, so please take it or leave it.

Also "Gardner" should be spelt "gardener", and maybe a bit of GuideML and headings might work.

Otherwise, its looking good!

Woodpigeon

"I have to admit I'd never heard of him.

Perhaps you could change the title to Mick Ronson - musician?

sprout
"
Today's youth....

Perhaps you should mention that Mick Ronson is the guy alongside Bowie on the video of Ziggy, so people know who he was... I didn't know he was dead

I've changed it to include a mention of the TOTP performance of Starman where Bowie puts his arm around Ronson. Should hopefully jog a few memories. Also added the date of the last Ziggy performance.

I can't believe so few people have heard of him as well. I'm only 19 and writing this article has been a little difficult due to the apparent lack of information about the man himself. In fact I'm currently going on 1 website and 1 book.

Yeah he died nearly 11 years ago, a great loss to the music world.

Well, I can definitely say that I've heard of him - who of my age, and who grew up with glam, can say that they haven't - but I had no idea that he produced Your Arsenal and worked with T-Bone Burnett (if you want to add a footnote or two to the entry, you could mention that T-Bone produced the 'O Brother Where Art Thou' soundtrack album).

Here's another website which is a goldmine for researching music-related entries http://www.allmusic.com/

Some typos:

(19680 - (1968)

"work began on the album ' The Man Who Sold the World' when the"
Needs a full stop after 'World'

barley - barely

TOTP - better call it Top of The Pops for all those who've never seen it

Do you know if Slaughter on 10th Avenue is anything to do with the Richard Rodgers ballet of the same name?


Scout

I've expanded TOTP to Top of the Pops but I'm sure I didn't really need to do that.

I think the title track of the Album 'Slaughter on 10th Avenue' is written by Richard Rogers. It's an instrumental track but I'm not entirely sure whether it has anything to do with the ballet of the same name. As to be honest I never knew there was a ballet called Slaughter on 10th Avenue.

I went to a couple of websites such as Amazon to see if I could hear the track, and none of them have sound clips of it But if it's credited as being written by Richard Rogers (Rodgers?) then I reckon we can assume that it's the same piece of music.

Probably Richard Rodgers... RIchard Rogers is the architect, I think - Lord Rogers of Bankside.

.. and Roy Rodgers is a cowboy.

Whereas Trigger plays up front for Plymouth Argyle...

and bullet ?

18 with a bullet? Pete Wingfield

I think this topic drift is getting out of control

just slightly. If you want a copy of the track on mp3 I might be able to help you out.

Getting back to the point...

Excellent idea for an entry.

I think some clarification is required on the subject of The Rats and Ronson’s early career, since at the moment it reads as though Bowie nicked the ‘Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust’ concept from The Rats. Not true, because their ‘Rise And Fall Of Bernie Gripplestone’ album was released more than 20 years after ‘Ziggy’!

According to an excellent I own – ‘The Complete David Bowie’ by Nicholas Pegg – Ronson joined The Rats in 1966, *after* they’d made their singles. Mick thus played no part in those singles. The Rats' album is a compilation of the early singles and some later recordings, including some that *do* feature Ronson. It also features two live tracks recorded by the re-formed Rats at the Mick Ronson Memorial Concert at Hammersmith Apollo on April 29, 1994. The album was first released on vinyl only in 1995. A CD version appeared in 1998, with three newly recorded tracks by the reunited surviving Rats added. Details may be found here: http://www.hunter-mott.connectfree.co.uk/discography/bernie_gripplestone.html

Ronson was also in a band called The King Bees in Hull in the Sixties. Oddly enough, one of Bowie’s early bands was called Davie Jones And The King Bees, but there was no connection between the two bands other than their choice of name. The coincidence may be explained by the existence of an old blues song called ‘I’m A King Bee’. Originally by Slim Harpo, the song reached a wider audience when it was covered by The Rolling Stones on their debut album.

I've added that the album was not released until 1994. This is the earliest release date I have for the album as it came out on vinyl that year. Hopefully this should clear up some of the confusion.

As for Micks involvement with the singles, I wasn't sure on this but hopefully the entry is not misleading.

I didn't know Mick was involved with the King Bees, I think he was briefly associated with the crestas but I wasn't sure how to put this across so I left it out, as at the time of writing it didn't seem that important.

By the way thanks for the support and any more information you have will be greatly appreciated.

That's actually quite difficult as the information I've got is very limited. I know it sounds a bit like a CV but I don't have many suitable quotes from the man himself and I'm struggling to find any that would fit in the article.

Here's a Ronson quote from the aforementioned Nicholas Pegg Bowie book, in which Mick looks back on his partnership with Bowie and modestly assesses his own strengths and weaknesses:

'I was never really a writer, I was always more of a performer. David [Bowie] was a writer and performer. What I'm good at is putting riffs to things, and hook-lines: making things up so songs sound more memorable.'

How's this going?