SOUL LOVE

FOR YEARS AFTER Mick Ronson’s death, the whereabouts of his stripped 1968 Gibson Les Paul Custom — the Ziggy Stardust guitar — were a mystery even to those who had been closest to him. When Rick Tedesco asked Ronson’s friend and fellow performer Ian Hunter about it, the former Mott the Hoople frontman shrugged. “God only knows where that went,” he replied. “Mick probably gave it to some guy walking across the street. He didn’t care about gear. It was just a tool to him.”

For Tedesco, finding the guitar became a mission. A guitarist, producer and engineer whose credits include work with Hunter, Alice Cooper and former Cooper band members Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith, Tedesco had become a Bowie fanatic through the artist’s 1974. “I was a 13-year-old kid who was just obsessed with horror movies,” he recalls. “And then I saw that album cover. I just absolutely loved that album. I was like, ‘I’m done. That’s what I want to do.’” Working his way backward through Bowie’s catalog, he soon discovered Ronson’s signature performances on the albums , , and . Eventually he caught D.A. Pennebaker’s 1973 concert film on television. “There was Mick,” he recalls. “And that’s what I wanted to be — David Bowie’s guitarist.”