Mark Ronson: the 'best-connected man in music'

The top button on Mark Ronson's shirt has fallen off. "I can't have my photo taken without it," he says sheepishly a few moments later. "It will look all wrong."

At first, Ronson tries using Sellotape to stick the fabric together but then it turns out that the photographer has a travel sewing kit in his bag for just such emergencies. Ronson is effusive in his thanks. "Now," he says with a lupine smile. "Can anyone sew?" The photographer obliges. The shirt is quickly fixed.

Ronson is mortified at the prospect of looking like a diva or a man whose concerns tip rather more towards style than substance. But the button tells you a couple of important things about him. One: he is a perfectionist. Two: he can persuade you to do almost anything.

It is these two qualities that have propelled the 34-year-old to the top of his game. As a music producer, he has teased the best out of artists including Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and Daniel Merriweather. Winehouse's breakthrough album Back to Black combined her smoky vocals with his retro-soul sound to such devastating effect that it won five Grammys. It was Ronson who first suggested Allen should play up her London accent on the triple-platinum album Alright, Still. And when, three years ago, he released Version, an album of covers performed by artists including Robbie Williams and Kasabian, Ronson scooped a Brit for best male solo artist.

Now on the verge of releasing his third studio album, Record Collection (which includes collaborations with everyone from Boy George to Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan), it is clear that Ronson is a man who knows exactly what he wants and who is also blessed with the abundant charm he needs to get it. He is routinely called "the best-connected man in music" because of his coterie of glamorous friends and also because his sister, DJ Samantha Ronson, once dated paparazzi favourite Lindsay Lohan. John Lennon's son Sean is one of his best friends. His stepfather, Mick Jones, was a founding member of rock band Foreigner. And his mother, Ann Dexter-Jones, used to throw star-studded parties in the family home in New York, where guests included Mick Jagger and David Bowie. Ronson remembers being tucked into bed by actor Robin Williams and having a sleepover with Michael Jackson. "Nothing weird happened," he says, with the weariness of one who has been asked the same question a thousand times before.

‘Easy to get on with'

But Ronson does not particularly like to be tarred with the socialite brush. "It's bulls**t," he says. "It's not like I'm amassing some golden Rolodex to see who can have the most famous friends. It's slightly obnoxious because it implies there are all these celebrities just patting each other on the back... I think I'm really just probably pretty easy to get on with."

Record Collection, to be released later this year, sprang from "four or five months of jamming with my favourite musicians in the world. It became like a really fun summer camp". The album gave him the opportunity to work with musicians he has long admired, such as Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes and Rose Dougall, the former singer of the Pipettes. Does he have any heroes left to meet? "I still haven't worked with Mr T," he says with a slow-breaking smile. "Batman was unavailable."

The fourth track on the album, Somebody To Love Me, is sung by Boy George and is a particular high point George's voice has got deeper, throatier and more affecting with age. "It's like when you hear Édith Piaf singing Je Ne Regrette Rien," agrees Ronson. "It's knowing someone's story as an outsider, knowing what they've been through and seeing that they've come out on top. All the weight, gravel and grit in the voice makes it so much more compelling."

Ronson himself sings the title track the first time he has done so. "It's weird listening to my own voice because with the headphones on, it sounds really awfu nasal and grating." Still, he has been taking singing lessons and he acknowledges that the end result "doesn't sound bad".

In fact, he likes his music to retain a sense of quirkiness and decries the current trend for bland pop songs, churned out on computers.

But the interesting thing about Ronson is that for all his celebrity friends, his manners are consistently impeccable, whomever he happens to be speaking to. He answers my questions in the same way that he talks to the photographer's assistant. He does not try to charm and this, in its own way, ends up being curiously charming.

He remains a curious combination of geekiness and social ease. One minute, he appears completely unfazed and relaxed to the point of somnolence. The next, his mercurial attention will have shifted and he will be frantically bashing out piano chords while simultaneously answering several texts. He works hard, jetting around the world to wherever the next job takes him.

‘I don't feel neurotic'

"I think I have an inherent modest level of stress, but I'm only super-aware of it when it goes away, when I'm on holiday and I think, ‘Oh this feels pretty good,'" he says, chewing on Nicorette gum he's trying to give up smoking and finding it a challenge. "But I don't feel neurotic."

Perhaps the experience of dislocation, of moving to the US after his parents' divorce and having to make a whole new circle of friends, also left Ronson with a particular aptitude for getting on with people. He describes record producing as a cross between "diplomacy and being a bit of a shrink, working out how to get the best out of people".

He remembers being obsessed with music from an early age, poring over copies of Smash Hits. Ronson ended up dropping out of New York University in the mid-90s to make his name as a DJ at downtown hip-hop clubs. His family were baffled, but Ronson rapidly acquired a reputation for his diverse sets and was soon being hired for celebrity parties. In 2006, he was the DJ at Tom Cruise's wedding to Katie Holmes.

Ronson admits it rankles when people assume he got his breaks because of his privileged background or that he is little more than a millionaire dilettante, playing with his electronic synths and Gucci-designed shoes whenever the fancy takes him.

"I'm proud of Version, I think it was cool," Ronson says, pointing out that neither Winehouse nor Allen had had their big breakthrough when the album was being recorded. He has since made a "hardcore" pact with himself to have "no horns or covers" on the new album.

He tells me he is proud of Record Collection but I suspect he is anxious, too, about how it will be received.

He pauses, his brow momentarily wrinkled, but then the troublesome thought clears as quickly as it appeared. His phone vibrates again and immediately you can see Ronson's mind shift gear as he concentrates on what he has to do next: the appointments he has to arrange, the pieces of music he wants to make, the flights he needs to board. He pops another square of Nicorette gum out of the packet and starts chewing furiously.

Music, check. Next: fashion!

A regular on best-dressed lists, Mark Ronson's connections extend beyond music and into fashion. The musician and producer can be credited with making the jacket-and-skinny-tie look a de rigueur for those looking to up their style ratings.

Fashion labels have also come calling. In his latest video for Bang Bang Bang (right), Ronson sports a classic tennis-inspired shoe from Lacoste, specially created for him. Last year, he designed a collection of limited-edition trainers for Gucci (below). Then, earlier in January, French fashion brand Zadig & Voltaire announced it had signed up Ronson and his girlfriend, French model Joséphine de la Baume, to be the face of its spring-summer campaign.

If Ronson's star in the music industry ever begins to wane, which we doubt will happen any time soon, then we know he's got his next career sorted out.

— Staff Report