Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

you can do it, come on,’ Ronson kept repeating, and
Cambridge managed to finish the session. But
within the next fortnight, John was gone. His
replacement was Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey – who
had taken John’s place in The Rats when
Cambridge left after being asked to rehearse on
Easter Bank Holiday. A more expansive drummer,
and a more serious, forceful personality,
Woodmansey’s complex rhythm patterns and
extravagant rolls suited the band’s move to a freer,
more improvisational sound. Visconti, though,
admired Cambridge’s solid, no-frills drumming, and
was surprised to see it was Mick Ronson, rather
than David, who had instigated the sacking.
When it came to music, it seemed Ronson was
every bit as unsentimental as Bowie. And as the
album recording began, on 18 April at Trident, it was
the guitarist who commanded the sessions, moving
into the realm of recording with the same intensity
with which he’d mastered the guitar. Visconti, whose
studio experience far outstripped Ronson’s, fondly
remembers that ‘It was Mick who was our guru –
anything he told us to do, we’d do.’ It was Ronson
who worked on arrangements, persuading Visconti
to switch to a Gibson short-scale bass for a more
fluid guitar-like sound, wrote out synthesiser lines for
Ralph Mace, or even duetted on recorder with
Visconti. Mick was omnipresent, dominating the
texture and the mood of the album christened The
Man Who Sold the World – in stark contrast to
Bowie, who was at times, says Visconti, ‘just plain
difficult to nail down’.