Suzi Ronson Recalls Traveling with Mick Ronson on the Rolling Thunder Revue

"Bob whips out his guitar, and he plays the whole of the Desire album"

Flagging Down the Double E’s is an email newsletter exploring Bob Dylan concerts throughout history. Some installments are free, some are for paid subscribers only. Sign up here:

In 1975, Bob Dylan hired Mick Ronson to play lead guitar for the Rolling Thunder Revue, which kicked off on today’s date in 1975. Ronson had recently come off an iconic tour with David Bowie promoting Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and brought over some of that glam-rock energy to what was otherwise a fairly folky outfit. When I talked to bandleader Rob Stoner about the “army of guitar players” onstage during Rolling Thunder, he said of Mick:

He definitely had the most chops there of anybody. Maybe Mansfield, technically, was his match, but Mick being a star guitar player already, he really knew how to sell a guitar part. He had that whole English guitar hero look going on, right out of Spinal Tap. He was the real deal.

Sadly, Mick Ronson passed away in 1993, only 46 years old. But his wife Suzi—who Mick met where she was the only working woman in Bowie’s touring party, the stylist who came up his iconic Ziggy hairdo—recently wrote a book. It’s called Me and Mr. Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars.

Suzi and Mick

I didn’t call her up to talk Bowie though. I called her up to talk Dylan. She and Mick were already dating during the Rolling Thunder tour, and in fact she travelled along with the tour during the 1976 half.

Below, she tells her story of being on the road with Rolling Thunder and offers her insights into what Mick brought to the music.

Ronson and Bowie on the Spiders from Mars tour, 1973

Just to put us in context here, am I right that the Spiders from Mars had ended a little over a year before Rolling Thunder?

Spiders ended in July '73, and then this first thing was in autumn of 1975. In between that, Mick had done two solo records and had been working with Mott The Hoople. That was a tragic mistake. Mind you, I suppose it might have been fortuitous, because Mick and Ian [Hunter], they had a fabulous band, they'd done a great album [1975’s Ian Hunter]. But it went kaput.

Mick and I went down to New York. We had a Cadillac DeVille. We stuck all our stuff into this old boat and drove down. Tony [Defries, Mick’s manager] said we could live in the offices. People were everywhere with tin cans and fires in them, dragging greasy rags across our windows, begging for money, and who would dare even open the damn window? It was terrifying.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Ian called us and said, “Hey, Bob Dylan is in town. I'm coming in.” We met Ian down at The Other End. He was sitting at the bar having a drink. It was empty, in the afternoon. Down the street, here comes Bob Dylan with his guitar and two or three friends. They come in and sit at the table next to us. He whips out his guitar, and he plays the whole of the Desire album.

Now, I'd never heard Bob Dylan before. Mick and I were rockers, so we weren't really Bob Dylan fans. After that, we were though. Just seeing him just do it by himself. No glam, no glitter.

So I can picture it, is he on stage? At the table? Who's he playing for?

He's sitting at the table, playing for the two or three friends he's with. Bob Neuwirth was one; I don't remember the other two. There was me, Mick, and Ian sitting next to them. We couldn't believe our eyes or ears.

Does Ian know Bob at this point? I know you and Mick don't.

No, he doesn't know him, but he's always been a massive fan of his. Ian was very much influenced by Bob Dylan. Mick and I would go, “Bloody Bob Dylan, here we go again.” Mick never liked him that much. He used to say that Bob Dylan sounds like Yogi Bear. After he saw him that afternoon, it was a different kettle of fish.

My God, he's so good. His charisma, overpowering. We heard the whole of the Desire album. It was very moving.

So Bob sits there, plays songs from Desire. You, Mick, and Ian sitting at an adjacent table. What happens next?

Next, of course, everybody on the street is looking in the windows. You can see people nudging each other and running off down the street.

The word has gotten out?

The word has gotten out. Bob and his friends leave the table and go towards the back of the club. I said to Mick and Ian, “Come on, come on, let's move on back.” We moved back and sat next to them again. I mean, I was with the great Mick Ronson and Ian Hunter. I had no compunction about sitting there.

The club is full in a second. Now this poor band scheduled to play that night walk in. They look around and they can't believe how many people are there. There's a little spring in their step. They think they've got a big audience. Then suddenly, they catch sight of Bob Dylan, and they all deflate. They realize that people aren't there to see them; they're there to see Bob. You can see almost fear coming over their faces, because now not only are they playing to Bob's audience, they've got to play in front of Bob Dylan.

Anyway, Bobby Neuwirth— what a character, what a great bloke he was, he was really the catalyst as spinning this whole thing together—he gets up to go talk to the owner, Paul Colby. I get up to walk by and have a listen. Bobby's saying to him, “Come on, Paul, we want to play tonight.” [Paul says,] “I've already got a band. I've paid them.” “We'll play for drinks." That was a mistake.

After this poor band ended up getting off, Bobby set up with some friends of his. I think Rob Stoner was there, Howie Wyeth maybe. As I'd gone past, Bobby was looking at me. I'm a flirt; he's a flirt. We get to chatting. I lay on the English accent thick as butter. Why not?

He says to me, “What are you doing down there?” I said, “I'm with Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson.” “Who?” “Mick Ronson, used to play with David Bowie in the Spiders from Mars. Ian Hunter, he's a big star. He's got ‘All the Way from Memphis,’ ‘All the Young Dudes’.” He began to remember who it was.

Someone gets up and does a song. Bobby says, “Bottle of tequila to the stage, please.” This bottle of tequila comes around. He starts drinking the tequila, passes it to the band, and then sends it out to the audience. [laughs] “Another bottle of tequila to the stage please.” By now everyone's had a few swigs of this tequila, my husband included.

Neuwirth says, “Is there a spider in the house?” Someone says, “A spider?” “A spider from Mars?” Ian and I are going, “Go on Mick, get up there.” He doesn't want to. “No, I haven't got my guitar.” Neuwirth comes over and says, “Are you coming?” Mick says, “Uh…” Anyway, he gets up and what he brings to it, it's magic. Bobby's songs are simple for the most part but Mick plays lines over them and people start cheering.

Bob Dylan is still in the audience at this point?

He's in the audience, along with, I think, Allen Ginsberg and a lot of other people that I don't know.

Well, Mick had too much to drink, as he does. He gets thrown out. He comes back in, nostrils flaring, and he gets another drink. Then he gets thrown out again. He says to the bouncer, who's about 6 foot 3 and really built, “If you throw me out one more fookin’ time, I'm coming in through that fookin’ window.”

As he's saying this, I'm saying to Ian, “Oh my God, what are we going to do?” Ian says, “Don't worry, this usually passes.” You know, he's been on the road with him.

Out walked Bob Neuwirth and Bob Dylan. They stand there staring at Mick shouting the odds at this bouncer. Bob Neuwirth says, “What are you doing?” “He won't let me come back in.” “Come with us.” So it's Bob and Bob and most of the band and half the audience all walking down Bleecker Street. It's got to be 1:00, 2:00 in the morning. Suddenly we turn left, go down some steps. There's one of Bob's guys on the door. We walk into this underground bar.

The guy there is just trying to close up; he's going, “Oh no.” Then he sees who it is, of course. Rushes to get drinks and the like. Mick's talking to Rob Stoner. I'm just keeping myself out of the way, sitting at the bar. I see Bob Dylan and Bob Neuwirth go over and talk to Mick. They're all laughing. He comes over and says, “They've just asked me to go on the road with them.”

Dylan, Ronson, Neuwirth

That whole week [at The Other End] was incredible. Patti Smith came down, Bette Midler, Roger McGuinn.

Do you remember anything about Patti Smith? I'm a big Patti Smith fan.

She came in and sang a Rolling Stones song. But she didn't sing it; she just shouted it. You couldn't stop looking at her. Short hair sticking out a little bit. A black man's tuxedo jacket, black skinny pants and boots. She looked like a bloke, and I instantly wanted to look like her. I knew, that day, glam was really done. I wish she'd come on the tour.

Some amazing people came in. I realized after, it was more like an audition for the Rolling Thunder Revue than anything else. Mick was there the first night and he just stayed there. He brought his guitar and was up on the stage every night.

These people didn't live lives like me. I used to get up in the morning and go to bed at night. These people got up at lunchtime and didn't go to bed until the following morning. We used to go around to Larry Poons’, the fabulous artist. He had this amazing loft with green-as-grass carpet, a basketball net at the other end that his girlfriend was playing hoops in, and 40 cats. We used to go there every single night. After the Other End had finished, we'd go there and they'd keep on playing, and then we'd go home about 8:00 in the morning and sleep all day.

Then suddenly Bobby Neuwirth left. They all left. They all just fucked off. It was like, “Oh…”

They all leave town, you mean?

They all go back to California.

You and Mick are back in New York thinking, “Is anything happening?"

Yes. We didn't know what happened. “Are you coming on the road?” Then nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Tony, Mick's manager, was like, “What's going on?” There was nothing we could tell him. Eventually, we had to leave the MainMan [management] offices ‘cause the lease was up. We went to stay with someone by Nyack. The phone rang at that house and it was them saying, “They're coming back to New York. Rehearsals start in a week.”

Rehearsals. L-R: Ronson, Baez, Stoner, Howie Wyeth (hidden), Dylan, Scarlet Rivera

We were all so excited, but Mick didn't know any Bob Dylan songs. He’d come back the first night. I’d say, “How’d it go?” “I don't know any of the songs!”

It's not like you go to rehearsal and they say, “This is the song, we're starting it in this key.” It's just like, Bob starts something and off you go. They kinda nod at you if they want you to take a solo. He said, “It's really hard. Everybody else knows the songs, but I don't.”

The second night, he came back with tons of records. He didn't have to just learn songs for Bob, but all the other guests: Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, all these different people who were going on the road.

Ronson and Baez at ‘Hard Rain’

L-R: Ronson, McGuinn, Stoner, Steven Soles

He had to go out and buy all their records to learn them?

Yeah. He'd come home and listen to them every night. Because we were glitter rockers. English people being brought up in the '60s, there wasn't that much American music.

Everyone else there was steeped in the American folk tradition, Greenwich Village.

Exactly. So Mick was a stranger but, my God, when he finally got a grip—and it didn't take him long. His playing on that tour, I thought it was fantastic.

I was watching the video of them doing “Hard Rain,” and Dylan's turning around to watch him as he's soloing.

When Mick lit out there the first night, just to do a few notes, Bob Dylan would look at him. I don't think he’d realized what Mick was bringing to it until he actually heard it for himself. I think he was really surprised.

I was talking with Stoner about how there were so many guitarists on that stage, it's hard for some of them to stand out. But with Mick, that was not a problem. Even with all those guitarists, he's so clearly the lead.

When I listened to the live album, I could always hear Mick, even when he was just doing a little lick in the background. He always did something distinctive. He has a great sound, Mick.

The first part of that tour was up in New England. I didn't get to go on that with him. I wanted to. When I asked him, he said, “Oh, I don't think so.” I think he wanted to experience it by himself.

Mick was a fantastic musician, but not a very good lyricist. These people were all wordsmiths: Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan. Mick was at a stage in his career where he needed to change. He really wanted to reinvent himself.

By the time they left, was he still nervous or apprehensive, being a bit of a fish out of water genre-wise?

I think he was fine. He became fast friends with Bob Neuwirth. By the time I saw them in Boston, he was well into it. He played great; he played his own song. He was doing really well. The whole band sounded fabulous.

It was such a different kind of a tour than the ones I've been used to. When I went, the second part of it [1976], the one that was down south, it was not regimented like the Bowie tours or the Mott the Hoople tours. They were so, “You better do as you're told.” This was so relaxed. It made a nice change, it really did.

I had a chat with Chris O'Dell [recently]. When I met her, I thought, “Oh, my God, a girl that's working on the road,” because there wasn't many of us. There weren't many ladies. She was the bloody road manager. I was shocked.

Interview: Rolling Thunder Tour Manager Chris O'Dell

It was also a huge tour. It was one of those tours, you take over the whole floor of a hotel. There were so many of us. There were two bus-fulls. Bob drove a lot in his own Winnebago with his dog and whoever else he invited on board. Bob didn't speak much to anybody, only the people he knew. Mick said he didn't speak to him at all.

I think it's Ronee Blakley in the Scorsese movie tells that story about asking Mick, “Don't you love Bob?” He replies, “I don't know, he's never spoken to me.”

Exactly. He just told the truth. He might have nodded to him, but I don't think that they ever had a conversation. I think Bob had got to the stage of his life, if you like, that he only spoke to people he knew. He talked to Rob Stoner a lot. He talked to Bob Neuwirth a lot. He didn't know Mick.

He traveled with us, but separately in his own Winnebago with a hound dog that didn't have a name. He tied up the dog at a gas station and forgot it. We're 50 miles down the road and someone on the CB says, “You got Bob's dog back there?” We're like, “No…” They had to send someone back on a motorbike for this poor dog.

I want to ask you questions about when you were on the road yourself, but before we get to that, to round out the 1975 part of the tour, what do you remember about the Madison Square Garden show?

The Garden was something else. That was the night that my husband turned back into a Spider. He stepped out on the stage, whipped his guitar. Everyone was looking at him like, what? He always played fantastic, but this time he put all the movements in. Big show, big audience. He liked big shows, Mick. He liked big audiences.

So many of those shows on the first leg were in these tiny, weird little theaters, not Madison Square Garden.

When I was with David [Bowie], I think on my birthday, we went to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. They had a couch and chairs on stage. Musicians would sit down and get up; there was no running off and running back on. Rolling Thunder Revue was exactly like that. There was even a working bar on stage. If you had a song to sit out, you could pour yourself a drink—my husband needed no encouragement—and sit and sip a drink while you're watching other people perform.

This gig went off for four or five hours. Everyone got a little song.

I've listened to all their sets, and I always get a laugh that Mick chose a song called “Is There Life on Mars”—but not the Bowie song. A different song with an extremely similar name.

When I went up to see them in Boston, so did his manager, Tony Defries. He looked at Mick singing “Life on Mars.” He was so excited because he really thought that Mick was going to sing the Bowie [song]. That might have been why Mick chose it. When he started, I thought, “This isn't--” I looked at Tony, and Tony was looking at me. It was this number by this guy called Roscoe West.

It sounds great, but I was wondering why he chose it. It must be a bit of a joke.

I think it was a joke. It's only later years when I look back, I think that Mick was sick of his manager. He didn't know how to get away from him. I think he would do things to needle him.

Mick singing “Is There Life on Mars?” with Rolling Thunder, Montreal, Dec 4 1975:

There's a very funny story about the end of that tour, which also needled his manager. At the end of the tour, Mick got a bill. He didn't get any wages. He got a bill.

Wait, he didn’t make any money from the tour?

No. He got a bill. It was for gambling debts and bar bills and goodness knows what else. We went into the offices and Defries is standing there, clearly upset. He’s saying,
”Michael, I believe I've got a bill!” “Ooh, I don't know how that happened, I'm really sorry…” I'm looking at him thinking, I'm the wife expecting him to bring home something to pay the rent with. There was nothing.

I mean, Mick was drinking heavily, he was, but nowadays—and I wish he'd been alive when I realized it—I think that Mick thought we were so far into Defries, hundreds of thousands of dollars, we were never going to pay him back. I think Mick thought to himself, “Well, I'm never going to see any of this money. Might as well spend it.” “Buy the bar a drink!” was one of his favorite things to say. Louie Kemp, he was an incorrigible gambler, and I think he took Mick [for everything he had]. So there was a big bill to settle. Tony got rid of us soon after that.

I read an interview with Ian Hunter where he was talking about they playing poker games on the road.

Ian didn't mean to. He said, “Don't gamble, Mick.” But [Ian] said, “If I wasn't going to take it, somebody was going to take it.” He'd just sit there and start gambling. The drunker he got, the more he'd gamble, and he'd end up with nothing. I wondered why we were always so broke. That's why.

You can laugh about it now. It wasn't so funny at the time.

I can imagine. How did you end up going on the road for the second half?

I was living in a cold-water flat. The flat had no heat and hot water. We burnt slats off the street to keep warm. When Mick came back from Madison Square Garden, he came to the house and, of course, it was bloody freezing, wasn't it? I had a Cadillac and a fur coat. I used to drive around New York all day in my fur coat in this Cadillac, and only go back when it was absolutely necessary. Now, people have said to me, “Why didn't you get a job?” You couldn't in those days. I didn't have a Green Card. I had a visa, but it wasn't a working visa.

My mum said, “Why don't you come home?” I thought, “If I leave Mick now--” I wasn't quite sure we'd survive the separation. I didn’t know what to do.

After Mick came back [from the first leg], I said to him, “Can I come next time?” Because when I'd gone that one time, I realized all the girls were there. They’d said, “Where have you been? Why didn't you come with us?” I was a bit hurt, to be honest. I didn't understand why I wasn't invited. That's when I've come up with: “He wanted to experience this alone.” I hope I'm right.

He did take me on the second part of the tour, and it was incredible. Clearwater, where we started, what a beautiful place. The hotel was the largest wooden structure in America. We saw parts of the States that we didn't go to with David, that's for sure. Louisiana, down in the bayou with Bobby Charles.

Bob Neuwirth said, “We're going to see a friend of mine. He wrote ‘See You Later, Alligator.’” I said, “You're kidding.” I used to sing that at school. Music goes so far, doesn't it? In the bayou to Worsley Bridge. It's so funny.

He had this gorgeous house right on the bayou; it got washed away in the big flood years ago now. A guy caught an alligator, and we ate alligator. When you go to a barbecue, you fancy a bit of chicken and some hot dogs, right? No, this was alligator tail. I thought, “Where do you pick up an alligator?” Someone said someone wrestled it and killed it. I couldn’t imagine. Too horrible to contemplate.

Mick got into trouble down there with the same guy that bloody killed the alligator. They were gambling again, and [the guy threw] this enormous knife. It whizzed right past Mick's face and stuck in the thing behind him. Then he picked up his gun and laid it across the table. I was very frightened that Mick might get killed and dumped in the bayou. It was Bob Neuwirth who saved the situation. He just rushed in and took Mick outside.

Mick was dangerous. He’d go to this bar in Texas somewhere, and he can't get a drink. He's a little bloke, Mick. 5 foot 8, maybe, and skinny. He stood there and says, “All Texans are assholes.”

Uh oh.

The bar went quiet and they all turned around. It was Bob Neuwirth again; he got him outside. He would have got killed. Him and his little blonde hair and his bit of mascara. It's funny when you think about it. He was quite a character, my husband.

It sounds like Neuwirth was really his protector.

Oh, yes. Neuwirth was great. I saw Neuwirth shortly before he died. I was so sorry to say goodbye to him. He was so much fun.

At any point on the road, are you doing anyone's hair? Obviously, on Bowie, you were there working.

I think I did a couple of odd haircuts, but nothing much. I was one of the girlfriends.

Was that a strange adjustment?

It was bloody horrible. I hated it, I don't like that role because you've not got much to do. You listen to the music, but your opinion isn't sought. You're the girlfriend of someone; they don't think you've got any knowledge about what it's meant to sound like. I mean, I’d been listening to bands for years. The sound, was it even? The lights, this and that. I was very used to that role. Now, I wasn't asked anything. My opinion was not sought after.

As I say, this is a massive tour. Everyone had a job, and the jobs were being done really well. I wish I could have fitted in somewhere and said, “Look, I'll do this.” Allen Ginsberg was moving bloody suitcases at one point.

No, there was really no space for an English girl who knew nothing about this kind of lifestyle to be involved. I just went along as the girlfriend.

Some of the jobs, I got a kick out of in your book, there's someone who's there as a tightrope walker. Other people have told me that healers and crystal people who are on this tour.

Exactly. It was really like Woodstock on acid or something. Other tours weren't like that. We set up at Bobby Charles', and then the astrologer puts his tent up, and this girl strings a wire between two trees, and girls with tulle and tanned skin, exotic dancers.

When I was on the road with David, I was the only girl. I mean, Angie might drop in, but it wasn't like this. Everyone had their husbands with them, girlfriends with them, wives with them. It was a family-type tour. Bob's kid Jesse was with him. I saw Sara a couple of times, but I didn't meet her either. It's big enough that it wasn't awkward. It's just that we traveled separately. You hung out with your own little clique.

Who else was in your clique other than Mick?

Not even really Mick that much. It was most of the other girlfriends. We'd travel together and we'd have lunch together and we'd look after our men.

Are you watching every show?

Oh, yes. All the ones on that second leg. Bloody amazing. They were amazing. I remember seeing Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing “Blowin' in the Wind.” They just came on in the dark, and a spotlight picked them up, and they started, his hat shadowing her face. The power, it was a real jolt. You could only imagine how powerful they must have been in the '60s.

How do you remember it ending? Were you and Mick just as glad to be done with it?

No! Those tours, you want them to last forever, they're just so much fun. I always liked the road, especially traveling like that. Unlike the tours I went on with David. It wasn’t like the penny-pinching, got to be careful of this and watch that, discussing the show every night, whether it was a good show or not. Oh, no, nothing like that. They'd go back from playing four hours on stage, and keep on playing at the hotel. Every room, all the doors would be open. Everyone would just be playing, walking in and out. It was magical. Really magical.

There's all this camaraderie, all this hanging out. It's more debaucherous than most Dylan tours, I think, in terms of the drinking and the drugs. You write about this in the book too.

First time I bumped into drugs like that. Bowie tours, we were really straight. Everyone writes about David and that, but he wasn't on those tours. I think David took his dive into doing blow after. I never remember seeing anything. No sign of it, don't remember him sniffing a lot, I don't remember any of those things with David. He said he started doing coke halfway through the second American tour, but if he did, I don't remember it.

This tour, more people got clean and sober after this tour, I think— Now my husband was a big drinker, but he didn't like drugs.

You write about one of the girls hanging around the tour, Felicity, who you can’t figure out her role. Until you realize it’s to deliver cocaine.

You're thinking, “Who's she with?” She wasn't even that cute of a girl, but everyone thought she was fabulous. She kept going to every room and I'm thinking, “What are they doing?” Then I found out. She brought drugs for the tour.

Not her real name by the way. I would never give her real name. Because she's still around! It's so funny when I remembered that, I thought, “I wonder if she's still around.” I looked her up and there she is. Older but still alive. Unbelievable.

After the tour, Mick produced that Cardiff Rose album. It was originally a supergroup called Thunderbyrd, but then became a McGuinn album. It's basically like a Rolling Thunder album, just minus Dylan.

I love that record. Mick put so many beautiful little bits on that record, the ship bells and the creaking of the boat and everything. He loved producing that record, he really did. The drag of it was, after that was over, those guys went to form The Alpha Band. T Bone and David and Soles. Mick never got invited to join. I think he'd have been great in that band.

Did he stay in touch or work with any of these people after? I know him and Dylan weren't exactly close.

No, they weren't. What happened was, I got pregnant. He was going to go out with Peter Gabriel but I'm like, “Going to leave me all by myself to have a baby?” He didn't go. Then we changed managers to Barry Imhoff from that tour, who used to work for Bill Graham, and Tony was no more. Mick put his own band together and we moved to Woodstock, but nothing worked. It's a magical thing to put a really good band together. It didn't happen for Mick. I think he was always better being with someone else's band that's got it all together, and he's just there to produce and arrange and play. That was Mick's greatest forte: to play.

I’ll let you go. Is there anything else I should have asked?

It's very interesting for me to go through because [when you emailed] I thought, “Oh, Rolling Thunder, I'd better look at that again.” Because everyone, of course, has been focused on the Bowie part of my book. No one's really mentioned the Bob Dylan part, but the Bob Dylan part I thought was very, very interesting.

I know, I'm the weirdo who’s not asking about any of the Bowie stuff.

Well, I'm glad. I think it's nice to have this mentioned as well. I listened to the Desire album last night, and also the live shows that they were doing. It's so funny because, of course, I remember Mick playing these numbers, and I expect to hear him. But he's not on Desire.

I tell you what, I wasn't a big fan of Bob's, but after listening to him play that whole record live, I was hooked. Here's a man, not even the best voice in the world, but the most fabulous songs. He could hold 50,000 people, just him and a guitar. No one else can do that. David couldn't do that.

Some people I’ve spoken to on this ’76 tour, complained he wasn't very social, he's traveling by himself separately, etc. But when he got on that stage, he just would blow everyone away.

Everyone was blown away. You could be in a room and you knew when he entered. It's kind of spooky but you could tell when he was around. He had something about him, Bob.

Did you have any actual direct interactions? I know there wasn’t much.

Yes. Mick said, “Come on, get on this bus.” I didn't realize it was Bob's bus. He came and he sat opposite me. He looked at me, he's got these brilliant blue eyes. I just said, “That was a fantastic show. Thank you.” He said, “Was it good?” I said, “Yes.”

That was it. That was my complete interaction with him.

What could you say to him? When I was with David at the beginning, we were all in it together. None of us had done this kind of thing before. Bob is a seasoned professional and had been for many years. He'd lived a life, and he wasn't one for making small talk.

Thanks to Suzi Ronson for taking the time to talk! Pick up ‘Me and Mr. Jones’ wherever you get books. I only scratched the surface of it, and it’s an extremely fun read with a ton of great stories of Bowie and beyond.

And once you’ve done that, if you want a bunch more Rolling Thunder band member interviews, I know another book you can get…