MICK RONSON: From Rats To Riches

"I first started playing guitar by holding my violin like a guitar and plucking it," Mick Ronson, ex-bow wizard tells me, "then I thought, sod it, I'm more interested in what a guitar sounds like than playing a violin. Coz violin was always slow—I learnt it at school and I always had this problem of waiting for other people to catch up, and I used to get frustrated, bored by all that hanging around. And my hand would start sagging and then it would be-^slap! slap! slap!—"Up! Up!" After awhilb I began to get interested in the guitar, because there'd be no teacher to tell you you gotta hold your hand like that and this, and I guess I wanted to play what/wanted to play, rather than have somebody tell me exactly what to play."