Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story

Michael "Mick" Ronson was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer. He achieved critical and commercial success working with David Bowie as one of the Spiders from Mars. He was a session musician who recorded with Bowie followed by several albums with Ian Hunter, also Morrissey, as well as a sideman in touring bands with Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.

David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Born and raised in South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. “Space Oddity” became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single “Starman” and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterized as “plastic soul,” initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth and released Station to Station. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that would come to be known as the Berlin Trilogy. Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise. After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes,” its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and “Under Pressure,” a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, with its title track topping both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. Bowie also continued acting; his roles included Major Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), the Goblin King Jareth in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped concert touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with the release of The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar (2016).

Mary Angela Barnett (born September 25, 1949), also known as Angela Bowie, is a Cypriot-American model, actress, and journalist. Alongside her ex-husband David Bowie, she influenced the glam rock culture and fashion of the 1970s. She was married to Bowie (whom she assisted in conceptualizing the costumes for the Ziggy Stardust stage show) from 1970 until their divorce in 1980. They had one child, the film director Duncan Jones.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Richard Christopher Wakeman (born 18 May 1949) is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes. He is also known for his solo albums, contributing to the BBC comedy series Grumpy Old Men and for Rick's Place, his former radio show on Planet Rock that aired until December 2010. Born in west London, Wakeman purchased his first electronic keyboard at 12 years of age. In 1968, he studied the piano, clarinet, orchestration and modern music at the Royal College of Music before leaving after a year in favour of session music work. He went on to feature on songs by artists including Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie, T. Rex, Elton John and Cat Stevens. Wakeman joined the folk group Strawbs in 1969 and played on three of their albums. He first joined Yes in 1971 to replace Tony Kaye, and left the group in 1974 to work on his solo career. He returned in 1976 before leaving with lead vocalist Jon Anderson in 1980. Wakeman was part of the side project Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, a group of ex-Yes members formed in 1989, and the eight-member Yes lineup that followed until his third departure in 1992. He returned for two years in 1995 and once more in 2002, where he was part of the band's 35th anniversary tour until its end in 2004. Wakeman began his solo career during his first run with Yes. His perhaps most known records being his first three, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1973), Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1974) and The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1975). He has produced over 100 solo albums that have sold more than 50 million copies. In November 2010, Wakeman was awarded the Spirit of Prog award at the annual Marshall Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards. Description above from the Wikipedia article Rick Wakeman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.​

Joseph Thomas "Joe" Elliott (born 1 August 1959) is an English singer-songwriter, and musician, best known as the lead vocalist of the British rock band Def Leppard. He is also currently playing in the Mott the Hoople related cover band, Down 'n' Outz. He is one of the two original members of Def Leppard and one of the three to perform on every Def Leppard album. Description above from the Wikipedia article Joe Elliott, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, (born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, 3 November 1948), best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s. She is internationally identified, especially by North American audiences, with the song "To Sir with Love" from the film of the same name and with the title song to the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun. In European countries, she is also widely known for her Eurovision Song Contest winning entry "Boom Bang-a-Bang" and in the UK for her first hit "Shout", which was performed at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. From Wikipedia

Lewis Allan Reed was an American musician, singer and songwriter. He was the guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the rock band the Velvet Underground, with a solo career that spanned five decades.