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In 'Beside Bowie,' Sideman Mick Ronson Takes The Foreground

A new documentary argues that David Bowie might not have become the global megastar we knew were it not for his partnership with guitarist, producer and arranger Mick Ronson.
Mick Ronson onstage in 1975. Filmmaker John Brewer hopes his documentary<em> Beside Bowie </em>will earn the late guitarist a place in the rock and roll canon.

A new documentary film celebrates the life of the late guitarist Mick Ronson. Never heard of him? Starting in 1969, he was David Bowie's onstage and in-studio foil, arranger and co-producer. The film, called Beside Bowie, makes the case that Ronson deserves equal credit for Bowie's rise to superstardom — but never got it before his death from liver cancer in 1993.

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