STACK #124 Feb 2016

MUSIC

visit www.stack.net.au

M ark Ronson is a rare beast. Lionised by serious music fans, his singles still shoot up the charts. The man who played a key role in the career the late Amy Winehouse was born in the UK but grew up in his beloved New York City. He grew up around music – his stepfather was Mick Jones of the band Foreigner – and his collaborations have been steeped in a love of music, making very little distinction between the worlds of so-called ‘indie’ and so-called ‘mainstream’. Who else but Ronson would cover The Smiths and The Jam on an album called Version, then go on to work with Robbie Williams and play live with Duran Duran? He’s also the only producer in history to have been allowed to remix Bob Dylan. Mark Ronson, in short, isn’t just a music- head, he’s King Music Head, and his new album Uptown Special could only be the work of such a man. It’s a love letter to his formative years in New York, the town that spawned hip-hop culture, and unceasingly distilled other key American music influences into its own tough, edgy blender all through the last six decades of the modern music era. It happened on the streets (see: Grandmaster Flash in The Bronx), it happened in the bars (see: CBGBS in the mid ’70s), but for Ronson, it all happened in the clubs. “No matter how my taste in music and DJ-ing veers over the years, I always find myself coming back to that music I would play out in hip-hop clubs in NY in the late 90s/early 2000s,” he said when launching the album earlier this year. ”Biggie (Smalls), Chaka Khan… Missy, Earth Wind & Fire … The NY club scene was filled with girls, boys, dancers, drug dealers, rappers, models and skateboarders who came mostly for one reason: to dance. And regardless of genre or era, if it had dope drums, if it had soul to it, they danced.” It’s this tightrope walk – between the purist and the unabashed fan – that Ronson walks with effortless ease, and his ability to make great sounding records that also push boundaries attracts genuine talent to work with him. Uptown Special features a collaboration with Stevie Wonder, and Australian Kevin Parker, the lead singer/ songwriter guitarist in Tame Impala, has also played a huge role in shaping the album,

COVER FEATURE

Mark Ronson’s new album Uptown Special is a love letter to the NYC clubs of his youth. It also stars a Motown music legend, an Australian, and a Pulitizer Prize-winning novelist. Jonathan Alley unravels it all.

FEBRUARY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au/music

08