12/18/2023
Ronson debuts with a disjointed and superficial account of her charmed life as David Bowie’s hairstylist and the wife of Spiders from Mars guitarist Mick Ronson. A hairdresser in her hometown of Bromley, England, Ronson styled hair for Bowie’s wife and mother. In 1971, she was invited to Bowie’s house to do his hair and dreamed up the red, spiky hairdo that hallmarked his Ziggy Stardust days. The following year, Bowie hired Ronson to join the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars tour, where she cut hair, fetched coffee and cigarettes, and witnessed up close the excesses of a rock and roll show—the band spent a quarter of a million dollars on the tour’s American leg and was pursued by shrieking groupies Ronson was expected to wrangle (“My new job: tour madam”). Meanwhile, her attraction to Mick Ronson, “a god on guitar,” grew, and the couple’s courtship took off as he released a solo album and did stints with Mott the Hoople and Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue. While the author’s behind-the-scenes observations hold some unvarnished appeal (“The interaction between the two of them is electrifying, so rare and sexy,” she writes of Bowie’s and Ronson’s onstage dynamic), more often her reflections drown in tiresome clichés (“inside I’m bubbling up like a champagne bottle about to burst its cork”). This misses the mark. (Apr.)
Considering the vast number of books published every year about David Bowie, a new one had better have either fresh info or fresh insights. Thankfully, Me and Mr. Jones delivers on both counts. Ronson spent just a year in Bowie’s orbit, but it was close and intense. A first-hand view of the glory and brutality that comes with a rapid rise to stardom.
A candid memoir by the stylist who helped create the singer’s Ziggy look offers a vivid snapshot of his golden years.
"Suzi Ronson was there as Bowie transitioned from suburban folkie to world superstar and genius. Few can offer such insight, and tell this fascinating story with such verve."
"Me and Mr. Jones is written in a present tense that often breathlessly recaptures the young Ronson's naïveté. Although Ronson doesn't mention the day's feminist movement, the book's through line is her awareness of how the rock scene regarded women. Me and Mr. Jones is for Bowie aficionados but also for anyone interested in the unsung women who made classic-rock stars shine brighter."
"In 1971, as a hairdresser in a suburb of London, Suzi Ronson styled one Mrs. Jones––and met the woman's son, David Bowie. Here, Ronson's memoir of creating his iconic Ziggy Stardust look, falling in love with his bandmate Mick, and life backstage."
"Captures the thrilling era when the rock 'n' roll starman took flight –– and the moment those in his orbit crashed back to Earth."
"An enjoyable insider account of Bowie’s wild Spiders from Mars years."
In Me and Mr. Jones, Suzi Ronson captures the origins of Bowie’s Ziggy persona in glittering detail. In her thoroughly engrossing memoir, Ronson shares one raucous episode after another as the globetrotting musicians and their fish-out-of-water hairdresser crisscross the globe.
03/01/2024
To the teenage fans who adopted his iconic look in the early 1970s, David Bowie, particularly his Ziggy Stardust persona, may well have seemed to arrive from outer space to bestow his innovative genius upon humankind, in accordance with the mythology he created. But that persona was assembled out of earthly components, by a human stylist, Ronson. This memoir shows how Ronson used enthusiasm, quick thinking, and luck to parlay a chance meeting with Bowie's mother, Peggy Jones, in the early '70s into a significant role in crafting and presenting Ziggy Stardust's style to the world. It's a rock and roll life as dizzyingly magical and chaotic as one would imagine. It's also abundantly clear that it wouldn't last forever. Throughout this book, Ronson shows that she is aware that thousands, perhaps millions of young people, have longed to live the life that she led. But her depictions of returning home from tours across the United States and Europe are some of the most poignant parts of the story. VERDICT There's little new here about Bowie, but this is an appealing look into a legendary era of rock. For Bowie fans and completist collections.—Genevieve Williams
2023-11-28
A memoir from the stylist who created David Bowie’s iconic Ziggy Stardust look.
“I was plucked from a suburban hairdressing salon, whipped up in the frenzy of Ziggy Stardust,” writes Ronson, and wound up “marrying the man of my dreams,” Mick Ronson, Bowie’s guitarist. The author had left school at 15 and trained to be a hairdresser in Bromley, where her client Mrs. Jones boasted, “My David is such an artistic boy.” Ronson met Angie and David Bowie, who wanted her to give him a short, spiky haircut, a women’s hairstyle. From there, she was invited to join Bowie and the Spiders From Mars on tour, helping with costumes and hair. In this glam-rock era, makeup for the boys was mascara, gold and silver eyeshadow, and glitter. Using diaries she kept on the road, Ronson recounts her experiences as the only working woman in Bowie’s touring party. “Onstage, Mick’s masculine sex appeal plays off against David’s femininity,” she writes. “It’s thrilling, irreverent, and oh-so appealing.” Throughout, the author captures the exciting adventures of pop stardom. “My life was all black and white until I met David,” she writes, “and afterwards it was glorious technicolour, as bright as the hair on his head.” On the flip side, she notes “how ruthless David [could] be,” casting off the Spiders for a solo career. Bowie blamed both his Ziggy character and cocaine for his callous disregard of his bandmates, but, Ronson insists, “It was raw, naked ambition.” The final 100 pages of the book follow the author’s life on tour and in domestic harmony with Mick, making the book’s title something of a misnomer. One particularly intriguing moment involves the Ronsons attending a Sex Pistols concert and realizing that rock music had moved on: “I feel as old as my mum!”
An entertaining glam-rock portrait that loses some verve toward the end.
