Things You'll Need:
- Colorsound fuzz and wah-wah pedals Crybaby pedal Fender Telecaster Gibson J-200 acoustic Gibson Les Paul Marshall Major amplifier Marshall amplifier stack Music Man amplifier Mesa Boogie combo amplifiers Vox Tonebender wah-wah pedal
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Step 1
Keep your setup simple, which is the key to understanding Ronson's style. Like many '60s- and '70s-era guitarists, Ronson worked his magic with few gimmicks or add-ons. Start with a Gibson Les Paul custom model routed through a Crybay or Vox wah-wah pedal to control the tone, which should be kept at midrange. For laid-back moods, whip out the Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar--now known by its original name, the SJ-200, or "Super Jumbo," as it was nicknamed in Ronson's era.
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Step 2
Route a 200-watt Marshall Major head through a 4 x 12 Marshall speaker cabinet (a setup that Ronson affectionately nicknamed "The Pig") to get the overdriven intensity he desired--loud but clean, with less of the distortion that characterized so much '70s rock. As Ronson himself commented, in remarks posted on Gibson's memorial site, "The best guitar sound is straight into the amp. People who have a rack full of gear have so much compression on the sound, by the time it goes through the rack it doesn't matter what they're playing. It all sounds the same."
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Step 3
Seek out varied guitar/amplifier textures, as Ronson did toward the late 1980s, when he gave away the famed 1968 Gibson Les Paul custom he had favored during the Bowie era and began using a Fender Telecaster. As ever, his rationale for the switch came down to practicality. The Telecaster offered greater flexibility for fingerpicking, although he stuck with Les Pauls for slide-guitar work. Similarly, as the '80s progressed, Ronson began using Music Man amplifiers and a Mesa Boogie head attached to his trusty Marshall stack.
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Step 4
Broaden your multi-instrumental horizons to lend depth and color to the music you're tackling. As a child growing up in the British industrial city of Hull, Ronson studied accordion, harmonium, piano and violin, with an eye toward being a classical concert pianist--a desire he abruptly abandoned following the rise of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. However, Ronson's classical training proved to be an asset in the studio, particularly when it came to arranging the strings on classic Bowie songs like "Changes" or Mott The Hoople's own epic ballad, "Sea Diver."
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Step 5
Adopt an unselfish attitude of serving the song. Disciples of screaming, high-end lead guitar will find more than enough to satisfy them on Bowie albums like "The Man Who Sold The World" (1970) or Ian Hunter's rocking masterpiece, "You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic" (1979). Yet it's worth noting that Ronson considered himself an accompanist first and foremost. Of his 1970-73 peak with Bowie, he would later maintain, "I wasn't trying to be clever. I played a lot of simple things in the interest of being direct. If you get sort of fancy and cluttered, you're just baffling people with science."
