Bryan Ferry

This is Ferry playing casual, captured live in the studio with his touring band (with a little help from Brian Eno, his old Roxy Music bandmate). While these readings are more conservative than previous Bob Dylan covers Ferry has done over the years, the two artists oddly suit each other. Dylan pretended to be a Western outlaw for so long he actually became one, while the working-class Ferry transformed himself into the type of Continental sophisticate he watched in movies as a kid. Ferry gets top honors for "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and "Positively 4th Street" but why does the CD sleeve look like a grunge castoff from 1993?

Bryan Ferry – like the subject of his new covers disc – has one of the most recognizable
voices in rock: A quavering, vulnerable tenor that can shift from totally-over-it to totally
lovesick in a single elided phrase. Cut fast and loose with Ferry's touring band, Dylanesque
dresses up Dylan classics for a night on the town with Avalon-style atmosphere (original
Roxy Music sound wizard Brian Eno even adds "electronics" to the gorgeous "If N... More >