In 2006, with work on a much-anticipated new Roxy Music LP on hiatus, BRYAN FERRY recorded a collection Bob Dylan covers – The Dylan Album. In this extract from our interview with Ferry in Uncut’s March 2007 issue (Take 118), Stephen Troussé meets the Geordie Jay Gatsby to discuss soul boys, jazz clubs, Dylan and more…
I’m sitting down in Bryan Ferry’s west London studios, checking back through my notes one last time before we begin to talk about his new album, when the man himself appears – still that distractedly dashing mix of minor Royal, dreamy academic and doomed romantic: the Geordie Jay Gatsby. Ever the stickler for accessories and minor details, he comments approvingly on my chunky new notebook. Oh, I tell him, it’s one of those stupidly overpriced ones that try and con you out of believing that you’re joining the ranks of Picasso and Hemingway simply by owning one. “Ah yes,” he says, taking out his own. “I have to use these slim things. They fit into my jacket pocket, but there’s not much room for many details…”
You could take this as a classic Ferry comment – the dapper poet, unwilling to spoil the line of his suit for the sake of his muse. And indeed, while Bryan has been busy modelling the latest range of menswear for M&S, the new Roxy Music LP – so keenly anticipated since Ferry, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera reunited in 2001 – seems to have temporarily run aground on his writer’s block.
In the meantime, Ferry has kept himself busy and tried to jumpstart his writing, by recording an album of Bob Dylan covers called, simply, The Dylan Album. Recorded in just three days in 2006 on the back of last summer’s Roxy gigs, it’s a surprisingly straight rendition of some of Dylan’s greatest hits, from “The Times They Are A-Changing” to “All Along The Watchtower”. In a sense Ferry performs them as surreal 20th century torch songs – a kind of missing link between Leadbelly and Cole Porter.
I tell him that I came across an old interview where he talked about doing an album of Dylan covers way back in 1973. “You shouldn’t believe my interviews,” he sighs wistfully. “They’re all wrong. They’re all made up…”
UNCUT: You first mentioned your intention to make an album of Dylan songs way back in 1973 – what finally spurred you into getting round to it?
FERRY: You’ve got to remember that the first hit, the first single I did as a solo artist, was “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, and I recall commenting at the time that I’d like to do a whole album of songs by him, just as I’d like to do an album of songs by Cole Porter. There are just certain writers who have a huge body of work of very high standard. As a singer you’re always looking for quality material, and I’ve never been able to write fast enough to fulfil my needs as a singer. But why it took so long to do a Dylan record, I don’t know. I’d been on tour, and when you come off tour you often feel in the mood for recording. Earlier in the year I’d been working on some Roxy tracks with Andy and Phil and I wasn’t getting very far. I thought, ‘Let’s book a week in the studio with Rhett Davies and do some Dylan songs.’
Was it a way of getting out of the impasse you’ve reached with the new Roxy material? Like when you did the Taxi covers when you stalled on Mamouna?
Yeah, quite possibly. You get fed up of the writing and you want to perform and get some “product” out there. Horrible word. To add to the repertoire. Because I’ve been doing quite a lot of live work in the past few years – more than ever before, it seems to me. And sometimes you’re on stage and you think, ‘Ah – I wish I had a couple of new things, some songs that I haven’t done before.’ And these would be great to play live, which is why I’m going to be touring in March.
Can you recall when you first became aware of Dylan?
It must have been around ‘64/’65. I certainly remember not liking him then! I didn’t really get into him. When Dylan first came out, he was too folky for me.
You were a soul boy…
Yes, a soul boy. Mohair suits, you know. The folk people wore jumpers, duffle coats, sandals. And pipes. And beards. None of which was part of my act at the time! I was a Northern Soul boy. But I did rub shoulders with bearded people. Before I went to university, I used to go to the New Orleans Jazz Club. They played bebop music and Eric Burden would appear. It was a great atmosphere: a mixture of drinking, smoking and music. I was quite overawed. Because I love jazz. The guy who played trumped there became John Peel’s producer. John Walters – great trumpeter. He was also an abstract expressionist painter…
FIND THE FULL INTERVIEW FROM UNCUT MARCH 2007/TAKE 113 IN THE ARCHIVE
