Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story

Documentary on Mick Ronson, most famously known as being the guitarist in David Bowie's early-career backing band, The Spiders From Mars. He was also a producer and arranger of note, working with a wide variety of artists.

Good documentary on one of rock music's most underrated artists. Most people will only know him from his Bowie years, and then the focus is on Bowie, naturally. However, he was an incredibly talented and accomplished artist in his own right, contributing much to Bowie's songs, including writing and arranging some of the music. Musically and presence-wise he was the perfect complement to Bowie.

Moreover, he had an incredibly successful and prolific career after Bowie, playing in several bands and backing bands plus producing tracks and albums by artists as diverse as John Cougar Mellencamp, Lou Reid and Morrisey.

The documentary highlights these successes well and also shows how modest he was in achieving these successes. Good range of interviewees.

On the negative side, it does gloss over some of the detail, just giving an almost bullet-pointed, blow-by-blow history, rather than getting to the reasons for certain things happening.

The main thrust of this film biography is to attempt to drag Mick Ronson (Ronno to everyone here) out of the massive shadow of David Bowie to whom he was right hand man in the latter's breakthrough years from 1969 - 1974, my own favourite era for Bowie's music. He even has a go himself at one point, referencing Jagger and Richards and Lennon and McCartney putting the argument that one of the two couldn't have made it without the other. It might be heresy to his fans but I have to disagree. One way or another I'm pretty certain that Mick, Keith, John, Paul and of course David would have made it anyway but talented as he was, besides being a great guitarist he could read and write music and score string arrangements (listen to Lou Reed, no less, purr over the strings he set to his "Perfect Day"), but the overriding feeling I came away with was that while he was a good side-man and foil, without any great songwriting talent, imagination or self-promotion, he was never really going to make it long term as a solo artist.

That's not to say he wasn't a nice guy. The usual coterie of family, friends and fellow-travellers (and yes, Rick Wakeman is amongst the latter) line up to pay tribute to a modest, diffident lad from Hull, where he started out as a working-class ground-worker, but who went on to become the golden-haired, platform-booted foil to Bowie's androgynous excess as the latter careered through his ground-breaking Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane periods. It's outrageous to learn that he and the other Spiders From Mars, fellow Hull-ites Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey were paid only £30 per week even at the height of Bowiemania.

I was pleased to be reminded of his irregular but significant after-Bowie jobs such as playing in Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review, producing the Rich Kids and more significantly Morrissey's successful "Your Arsenal" album before he succumbed to cancer at only 46. Nice to see his old mate and supporter Ian Hunter speak so well of him too (go check out his beautiful tribute number to Ronson "Michael Picasso"), plus of course there was a sort of reconciliation with Bowie even if it only amounted to Mick contributing to one track on the "Black Tie White Noise" album and a couple of high profile multi-star tribute concerts.

My main problem with this no doubt well-meaning film was that it too couldn't seem to get out of the shadow of Bowie. It takes ten minutes before really turning to Ronson's story and similarly fails to really focus on him until the last half hour or so. There was next to nothing about his childhood plus I felt we never really learned why Bowie abandoned him in 1974.

Still I was impressed by the archive footage and the filmed interviews with Ronson himself which intersperse the narrative, but I just felt this film got its focus wrong from the title on down at the expense of its main subject.

Story of Mick's life really.

Even the title of this documentary is an indication of the poor faith that the filmmakers had in their subject. Mick Ronson was so much more than David Bowie's guitarist - though in his humility, Ronson reduced himself to such in an interview from this messy film.

Ronson was one of the greatest rock guitarists who ever lived, yes, but he was also an iconic arranger, producer, and even occasional songwriter. Another reviewer pointed out that this film attacks David Bowie and centers on him far too much, and I have to agree. Ronson made three solo albums in his own right in addition to many other musical achievements. Five of his singles were released in his lifetime, and he worked with other artists that I would've loved to have heard more from in this film. I wanted to know so much more about Ronson's guitar technique, creative processes, inspirations; instead, I heard the same people talk over and over about how David Bowie still would've been famous without him - but Ronson's contributions certainly helped, somehow? There were so many parts of this film that I'm glad Ronson didn't see. This was downright offensive.

That said, I still learned about the artist because a movie about Mick Ronson has to include at least something of Mick Ronson. I would not recommend it in the slightest, though, even for that. I'd advise that anyone with even a fleeting interest in glam rock look up some interviews with the massive talent that garnered the respect of Lou Reed, Mott the Hoople, Bob Dylan, Morrissey, and Elton John. Mick Ronson changed rock music as we know it, and things were never the same.

Two things would have made this documentary way better, (1) Remove every comment by Angie Bowie, a talentless, bitter person, who is so irritating and annoying it makes the whole documentary almost impossible to watch, and (2) more information on Mick Ronson, the entire purpose of the documentary.

Mick Ronson was a brilliant guitarist and a very talented musician, there is no doubt about that, he should be remembered as such. The biggest problem with this documentary is the constant attacks on Bowie, from the repugnant Angie, to the utter waste of space and time that is Joe Elliott, Bowie had more artistry, genius, and sheer talent in the toenail of his little toe than Elliott could ever dream of having if he lived to be 500, he had the nerve to call The Velvet Underground s#^t, a man who was in Def Leppard calling the Velvet Underground S#*t is obviously tone deaf. This is a rewriting of history, it is in praise of Ronson at the cost of Bowie's reputation and songwriting, Bowie went on to write songs/albums that were genius, he proved himself. Ronson could not write songs, the focus therefore should have been the enormous talent Ronson had, surely that would have been enough?

It would have been entirely demonstrable to focus on the musicality of Mick Ronson, how he has been largely forgotten in the cannon of musical pioneers, how he really should be remembered as a brilliant producer, arranger, and musician, without playing into Angie Bowies obvious egregious bitterness and rancour and very obvious agenda.

I had to wait three years to rewatch this to see if I would have a different opinion on this doc, originally I had really looked forward to this, on 2nd viewing I still feel it was a wasted opportunity. It was cowardly and despicable on the part of the film makers to wait until Bowie was dead to attack him in this manner.

Enjoyed it but this should have been Mick Ronson's story. There's just not enough of Ronno, feel like they missed the point of the show. The Sky TV programme, Passions, with Gary Kemp, was better.