Taxi

I really like Taxi!

No, I don't just like, I love  it!

And do you know why?

It's because Taxi helped me work out what I really liked about Bryan Ferry, after close to 30 years of being a fan of his. 

Bryan Ferry: Taxi

You see, Ferry's like one of those eccentric middle-aged guys who have a shed... and in that shed, they've got every spare part, nut, bolt and screw known to Man, past and present. What's more, it's not just that he can fix whatever you take to him...it's that his real hobby is to:

• get hold of a piece of junk
• rip its guts out,
• clean, oil & polish, every little piece...and then...
• reconstruct it along new lines...and that improvement could be minor, so that it just runs more smoothly...or major, in which case, what he creates is almost, perhaps, even completely unrecognisable

On Taxi, Ferry is aided and abetted by one Robin Trower, ex-Procol Harum member & guitar hero from the 1970s, who co-produced the album and seems to have "got" Ferry's method perfectly...while adding his guitar expertise to astonishing effect.

Trower has somehow managed to weave, usually several guitarists, subtly in and out of the mix, frequently creating an eerie, melancholy that haunts these tracks, making Taxi perfect late-night-listening with a glass of wine. He's primarily used:

• himself
• renowned experimental guitarist Michael Brook &
• Ferry stalwart, Neil Hubbard

...though there are others...and how he's done it is beyond me, because they're all playing at the same time but somehow Taxi never sounds cluttered. Yes, there's a lot going on but it's all so subtle, that and I find it a truly masterful production. Incidentally, Ferry co-produced the album, so I don't mean to imply that it was all Trower but no Ferry album had ever sounded like this!

Ferry does a superb job on the interpretation of the tracks, too, so well that many sound as if he's written them himself. He's reworked:

• Aretha Franklin's Rescue Me  
• a funkified Amazing Grace into a place I'd never have dreamed it could go
• ditto for The Hollies' Just One Look
• Elvis Presley's (written by Ross & Bobrick's) The Girl Of My Best Friend 
• chilled Screaming Jay Hawkins I Put A Spell On You into an ice-cold threat & 
• turned The Shirelles teenage ode (by Gerry Goffin-Carole King) Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow from a virgin's fear into an adult lament

Bryan Ferry: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow 

Perhaps the only track I don't take to is Lou Reed's  All Tomorrow's Parties, but Ferry more than makes up for it with a superb, absolutely superb title track, Taxi, which packs all the desperation of l'amour into a few short minutes. 

Bryan Ferry: Taxi

"...A return to form, and a return to covers for the great master. How can Bryan Ferry produce an album of cover songs and make it feel like an album of original compositions?...Maybe a 6-year solo hiatus?...Maybe the change of decades? I dunno. All I know is, this one does the job and does it right!..." Amazon reviewer Phillip Thomas Powell

"...With ex-Procol Harum guitarist and Hendrix acolyte Robin Trower on board as the main supplier of instrumental atmospherics, Ferry manages to completely de-nature R&B classics such as Rescue Me and I Put a Spell On You, an intriguing, if possibly dubious, accomplishment. The most romantic record around? I'm not sure about that, but, hey, whatever floats your boat..." Amazon reviewer m_noland

"...Buy this used for less than dollar - how can you lose? Dreamy reworkings of 50's standards produced by Robin Trower. I had this CD for over a year before I "got" it. When I listened to it the 5th time it's brillance hit me. Now it is always in the changer in my bedroom..." Amazon reviewer GarBearSJ

Taxi is a hardly known and little appreciated album...and I really suggest you pop over to Amazon and listen to some samples. This is Bryan Ferry at his SOLO best, re-interpreting other people's feelings...not grappling to express his own, while those exquisite multiple guitars create their own intricate patterns of emotion. I wonder what else he's got in that shed?