Miller Anderson: “I’d formed a band with Ian Hunter called The Scenery. I took Ian along to meet Mick at a Voice gig at the Swan in Tottenham. After the show Ian said of Mick: ‘He’s good, but not as good as you!’ I think he was a little bit hasty there. He certainly changed his mind later! In the end, The Voice decided to go to Mexico to some deserted beach to continue being a bunch of cults! They dropped poor old Mick off at the side of the M1 motorway in the middle of the night, with his equipment, without any notice…”
Ian Hunter: “I asked Mick what it would cost to do me string arrangement on Sea Diver and he told me 20 quid. He wrote it on a cigarette packet. I don’t think he ever got paid”.
Ian Hunter: “Mick taking two days for the solo on Saturday Gigs shows how much he really cared and how much he wanted to make the song and Mott The Hoople work.”
Ronson now knew that his strengths lay as an important musical partner, an he energetically encouraged Hunter to make a solo record using studio time that had been booked for Mott. The Ian Hunter album remains a jewel and one of the best rock albums of the 70s. Ian confesses the project was largely driven by Mick’s enthusiasm and inspiration, as exemplified by his solo on Hunter’s song The Truth, The Whole Truth, Nuthin’ But The Truth.
Ian Hunter: “I remember just before the session [for The Truth…], Mick read scathing review of Play Don’t Worry which was vicious and personal. He went bright red. We were doing the track and he went out to do the solo. We got it in five minutes flat. If he hadn’t read that review it would have taken us about three days. Mick was positively brilliant both in the booth and the studio.”
Ian Hunter: “In between playing on the road with various people – some who paid him, some who didn’t and some who would hand him their bill at the end of a tour – Mick would go back to Woodstock to see Suzi and Lisa. You never really knew what he was up to, but the Mick Ronson Band tapes had it all – the class, the quality, the emotion and the bits of fun that embodied all of Mick’s work.”
Ian Hunter: “Ronson went on the road with T-Bone for $100 a week, sleeping on people’s floors. The alternative was $2,500 a week with Bob Seger, but Mick didn’t like the music and C, F and G. I really admired him for that. Suzi had a fit!”
Mick and Ian began recording the album Short Back ‘N’ Sides in 1981, with The Clash’s Mick Jones, a huge Mott fan, producing. Hunter Ronson recorded occasional songs for movies and produced two albums for New Jersey rockers Urgent. Feeling out of place in the 80s, at one point Ronson thought of giving up music completely and becoming a chef. He ran barbecues at Ian’s home and was affectionately known as The Great Marinator. Ronson could never relate to the technique-heavy fretboard gymnastics of the 80s, so he continued working with artists such as Steve Harley and Lisa Dalbello.
In 1987 Ian Hunter toured Canada with The Roy Young Band, and the following year Ian invited Mick to join him for live work. The duo cut the album YUI Orta, billed for the first and only time on record as Hunter Ronson. The record was notable for Mick’s tear-jerking instrumental Sweet Dreamer. Ronson’s 80s collaborations were numerous and included Slaughter And The Dogs, Dead Fingers Talk, Los Illegals, The Visible Targets, The Midge Ure Band, Kiss That, Lisa Dominique, The Melvilles, Andi Sexgang, Funhouse, The Fentons, The Phantoms, Ian Thomas, David Lynn Jones. The Тоll, Lennex and Perfect Affair. He also jammed with Duran Duran’s John and Andy Taylor.
Joe Elliot: “I received a call from Ian telling me Ronno had cancer. The two of us and David Bowie and John Mellencamp chipped in some money. The Lepps also recorded Only After Dark as the B-side of Let’s Get Rocked. We had high hopes it would sell well, and if it did Mick would get more royalties. I spoke to Mick on the phone a few times after that and he was genuinely grateful, if not a little embarrassed at the fuss this was creating. Ian Hunter told me when Mick first let it be known he was ill he said: ‘Hey, I’ve got cancer!’ as if he’d won the lotto! He was the furthest thing from a drama queen you could expect to meet”.
For his third and final solo album, Heaven And Hull, Ronson received support jrom Ian Hunter, John Mellencamp, Chrissie Hynde, Sham Morris and Joe Elliott.
Ronson also reunited one last time with Ian Hunter and David Bowie, in April 1992, at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. Mick played on All The Young Dudes and Heroes. Joe Elliott and Phil Collen of Def Leppard provided backing vocals on …Dudes. (“Phil and I were like a couple of lads that had won the pools that day,” says Elliott.)
Ian Hunter: “If Mick was sick for 23 hours a day, then the other hour he’d be on the phone telling everybody how wonderful he felt. But then when I moved in with him towards the end I saw what he was doing. The morphine would come down to a point where he’d be totally sane, and then he would pick up the phone and he was telling everybody how wonderful he felt. He wanted everyone not to worry about him. The first thing out of his mouth was: ‘How are you?’”
Ian Hunter: “Professionally it was a privilege to play with Mick, personally it was a privilege to have known him. He was a nutcase but his legacy is pure class. Guitarists will emulate him as long as rock’n’roll is around”.
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