Bryan Ferry

Roxy Music's leader Bryan Ferry's solo career has woven in an out of the various Roxy Music incarnations. It would be untrue to say that his solo work has been anywhere near as influential as his Roxy output but there have been some glorious moments...

Albums:

These Foolish Things

Suave, sophisticated...and oh so tasteful might be the image that many people around the world have of Bryan Ferry...but the Roxy Music leader started his solo career with his tongue firmly placed in his cheek with the delicious, sometimes ridiculous:

Scanning 40 years of popular music, These Foolish Things remains a favorite of many, including me! It's often funny, more than a little irreverent...and sometimes camp! It's strongly recommended. 

For his second solo album a year later...

Another Time, Another Place

...Ferry had already started the transition to his present image. Gone is the grinning t-shirted Ferry of the first solo album, now he presents himself as The Great Gatsby staring moodily. Another Time, Another Place was darker than its predecessor and promoted by several concerts at The Royal Albert Hall backed by most of Roxy Music...and an orchestra.

When Roxy took a break in 1975 after five albums in 3½ years, Ferry pursued his solo career once more. His third album...

Let's Stick Together 

...Let's Stick Together was the album that broke him in Australia, which was probably Ferry's biggest market during the reasonably lean Roxy hiatus years of 1976-1977.

The basic boogie title track was brilliantly promoted through a music video that featured a femme-fatale cameo by a then-young Jerry Hall, which captured the minds of the folks downunder.

In Your Mind

In 1977, Ferry's designed-for-America album In Your Mind is lightweight but not too bad. Unfortunately, it bombed virtually everywhere...but it remains Ferry's only concerted stab at Rock'n'Roll.   

His next album was 1978's...

The Bride Stripped Bare 

Having just been jilted by Jerry Hall, who'd left him for Mick Jagger, Ferry holed himself up in Switzerland to record The Bride Stripped Bare, which also bombed...but to this day, it contains some of Ferry's best SOLO work.

Ferry returned to Roxy Music for 5 years, going solo once more at the height of their fame after the huge success of Avalon...

Boys & Girls

Boys & Girls was meant to be Avalon 2, and it almost is, there's no doubt about it. However, there's one main difference, which is that the compromises Ferry made as a group member brought a certain warmth to his work. Boys & Girls is cold...that's it's beauty...and its downfall. 

Bete Noire

If Boys & Girls was cold, Bete Noire was freezing. Recorded with dance producer, Patrick Leonard, Bete Noire funkily captures the aesthetics of atrophied emotion, conveying little other than its own mirror-gazing narcissism. Other than that, it's damn fine!

Ferry also contributed a song to Ridley Scott's movie, Legend, starring Tom Cruise.

Taxi

After 5 years of remaining unfinished, Ferry's next projected album Horoscope, hit serious writer's block...and trying to reverse the situation Ferry turned his mind to quickly recording a covers album, Taxi. 

Apparently, Robin Trower, ex-reasonably famous 70's guitar hero turned up as a guest guitarist...and stayed on, eventually performing an extraordinary job as co-producer. He somehow recorded multi-layered guitars to amazingly all sound distinct...and, well, exquisite.

Ferry, too was surprisingly at the top of his game...and Taxi boasts some brave and bold interpretations of known and hardly-known songs. It's very much a favorite of mine.

Mamouna

Finding that his working relationship with Trower had been so productive, Ferry kept half of Horoscope...and recorded new tracks, the album somehow osmosing into Mamouna...when Ferry realised it had become a different entity. 

• If Boys & Girls was cold
• Bete Noire was freezing, then...
• ...Mamouna is...bloody arctic. Calling Dr. House.

As Time Goes By

As Time Goes By is an album of  elegant and respectful covers from the 1930s & 1940s, released in 1999, before both Joni Mitchell with Both Sides Now (2000) and Rod Stewart with Great American Songbook series had considerably more success with the same concept.

So put on your tux and take a trip back in time with Bryan Ferry who truly understands the Age of Elegance. Hardly a crooner, and with his voice nowhere near as strong as it once was, Ferry doesn't so much sing these songs as present them, remnants of another era to be treated with respect.

Don't expect anything modern, these songs are played straight...and I mean straight...these chestnuts are what your granny used to sing...but when presented by such a presentable young man...well, one can't but let one's heart flutter...just a little.

Frantic

Frantic is half originals, half covers, which I've yet to hear.

Dylanesque

Bryan Ferry's Greatest Hits.

There have been several collections issued over the years but the best is the combined Ferry/Roxy set.

DVDs:

A fairly comprehensive collection of the music videos for Ferry's more successful singles...with a few of the later Roxy Music hits thrown in.

LIVE In Paris 2000

see also:

• wikipedia Bryan Ferry