{"id":2149,"date":"2009-05-05T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T04:00:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-05T08:05:24","modified_gmt":"2009-05-05T08:05:24","slug":"overlooked-gems-of-my-lifetime-bryan-fer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/overlooked-gems-of-my-lifetime-bryan-fer\/","title":{"rendered":"Overlooked Gems of My Lifetime: Bryan Ferry, <em>Let&#8217;s Stick Together<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/together.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" \/><\/div>\n<p><strong>Roxy Music<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Love Is the Drug&#8221; was tough, stylish treat on the radio when I was growing up. It wasn&#8217;t a smash hit on Philadelphia radio in my middle school days, but it would come on now and then and fit right in with the &#8217;70s soul and downbeat-heavy rock that I sought out as hormones raged. Later in the &#8217;70s, I&#8217;d dig rare FM radio spins of songs like &#8220;Over You&#8221; and &#8220;Manifesto.&#8221; As bad as commercial rock radio was becoming by that time, playlists still allowed for some &#8220;play,&#8221; some experimentation. Those chart-scraping Roxy Music singles occupied a similar place in my heart with other slightly dark, soulful not-quite-hits, like <strong>J. Geils Band<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;One Last Kiss.&#8221; Some day I need to gather all those last-gasp, blue-eyed rockin&#8217; soul numbers of the late-70s on  one mix CD.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9XvphWrLovM?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nI never got around to buying an actual Roxy Music album (or a J. Geils Band album, for that matter) while in high school. The little bit of Roxy Music I was familiar with had qualities I liked, but it required more patience than I could muster. Compared with <strong>David Bowie<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Young Americans,&#8221; a TSOP-influenced song that continues to excite me in an immediately gratifying way from beginning to end to this day, the super-cool &#8220;Love Is the Drug&#8221; was much more&#8230;cool. And I wasn&#8217;t that cool.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t until freshman year in college that I first heard the mind-blowing early Roxy Music I&#8217;d only read about in magazines and books. An older friend and mentor plied me with some of the tools for <em>deeper understanding<\/em> before throwing the band&#8217;s first album on his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bang-olufsen.com\/\">Bang &amp; Olufsen<\/a> turntable and and <em>CRANKING UP<\/em> his super-hi-fi system. I must have been grinning and rocking back like Danny DeVito&#8217;s Martini from <em>One Flew Over the Cuckoo&#8217;s Nest<\/em>.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/martini.gif\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_legend\">Mr. Mod hears &#8220;Re-make\/Re-model&#8221; for the first time, November 1981.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>After hearing that first album, with its strange mix of absurd, effete pretension and cock-rocking abandon, I wanted more! My friend delivered, playing me the darker <em>For Your Pleasure<\/em> and then what would become my favorite Roxy Music album, the underrated linchpin in the band&#8217;s catalog, <em>Stranded<\/em>. These albums would form the core of a new strain of record collecting. I&#8217;d report back to my mentor with each new purchase, but truth be told, that more accomplished, mid-70s rocking run of <em>Country Life<\/em> and <em>Siren<\/em> contained a few too many songs that seemed like re-made\/re-modeled versions of songs from the first three albums &#8211; and went on for a minute or two too long. I was ready for a change of pace.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/01_LetsStickTogether.mp3\" title=\"\">Bryan Ferry, &#8220;Let&#8217;s Stick Together&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>One day in a Chicago record store I picked up my first Bryan Ferry solo album, <em>Let&#8217;s Stick Together<\/em>, a 1976 collection of mostly solo singles and B-sides from the preceding years that signalled the band&#8217;s first breakup\/hiatus. Although it&#8217;s a patchwork collection of recordings, over the years I have found this album to be as coherent as any original album involving Ferry. <\/p>\n<p>This was a better purchase than I could have imagined. I was beginning to develop my stance that I preferred Ferry&#8217;s warbling croon to Bowie&#8217;s, and I liked the cover shot. I was also curious to hear why Ferry thought it necessary to cover five Roxy Music songs. My friend never played me this album &#8211; I don&#8217;t think he even owned it! Maybe this would be my chance to teach my master a lesson.<\/p>\n<p>I couldn&#8217;t wait to get back to my dorm room and check out this album. Before I had a chance to ponder Ferry&#8217;s Roxy Music covers with the originals, however, I was pumping my fist to the fat pinky rock of the title track. With goonish drummer <strong>Paul Thompson<\/strong>, Roxy Music was always able to tap into The Power and Glory of Rock, but never before had they so fully tapped into the <strong>Meat and Potatoes of Rock<\/strong>. With <strong>Phil Manzanera<\/strong>, the funniest guitarist in rock; <strong>Andy MacKay<\/strong> on woodwinds; and <strong>Eno<\/strong> or <strong>Eddie Jobson<\/strong>, Roxy Music could push well past the edges of Thompson&#8217;s charging beats, but the band&#8217;s attempts at more soulful, chugging rock, like &#8220;Do the Strand,&#8221; couldn&#8217;t help but be something gloriously wrong. With Thomspon drumming on <em>Let&#8217;s Stick Together<\/em> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/02\/08\/don_t_call_it_rockabilly_rth_interviews_\">Chris Spedding<\/a><\/strong> the primary guitarist (King Crimson buddies John Wetton and Mel Collins fill out most of the bass and sax responsibilities, respectively, with contributions by Manzanera, Jobson, early Roxy guitarist David O&#8217;List, and a number of non-official Roxy bassists) Ferry is able to live out seemingly every British rocker&#8217;s dream as an honest-to-goodness soul man.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/04_ShameShameShame.mp3\" title=\"\">Bryan Ferry, &#8220;Shame, Shame, Shame&#8221;<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/06_ThePriceOfLove.mp3\" title=\"\">Bryan Ferry, &#8220;The Price of Love&#8221;<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/05_2HB.mp3\" title=\"\">Bryan Ferry, &#8220;2HB&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On <em>Let&#8217;s Stick Together<\/em>, Ferry&#8217;s not a soul man in the traditional Stax\/Volt sense. As the backing vocalists&#8217; reference to <strong>Marvin Gaye<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Can I Get a Witness&#8221;  on the cover of <strong>Jimmy Reed<\/strong>&#8216;s  &#8220;Shame, Shame, Shame&#8221; suggests, Ferry&#8217;s more of a <em>soul stylist<\/em>. Like Gaye, Ferry doesn&#8217;t possess the strongest voice. He layers multiple tracks and points of view to create a richer whole. On his cover of <strong>The Everly Brothers<\/strong>&#8216; &#8220;The Price of Love,&#8221; a recording that would soon mean so much to me and my burgeoning bandmates, his multi-tracked vocals lead a cavalcade of cutting-edge retro-rock that <strong>Dave Edmunds<\/strong> would have killed for with his mates in <strong>Rockpile<\/strong>. Even the mellower, not-so-chooglin&#8217; numbers, like the subtle covers of Roxy&#8217;s &#8220;2HB&#8221; and The Beatles&#8217; &#8220;It&#8217;s Only Love,&#8221; rest on a thick, rhythmic bed over which Ferry can croon with more ease and authority than he could have when undercut by the nervous energy Roxy Music&#8217;s many &#8220;wildcard&#8221; musicians. <\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/Zhivago-Ice-Palace.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"170\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_legend\">The thrill of it all.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Not all the Roxy Music covers are as enlightening as the steadier takes on &#8220;2HB,&#8221; &#8220;Casanova,&#8221; and &#8220;Sea Breezes&#8221; &#8211; the funky version of &#8220;Re-make\/Re-model&#8221; shows the limitations of a meat and potatoes diet &#8211; but those covers are not at the heart of my love for this album. When Roxy Music would re-form for <em>Flesh + Blood<\/em> and <em>Manifesto<\/em>, with the wildcards either cut loose or put on a diet of saltpeter, the band would begin to resemble Ferry&#8217;s concurrent and even more soulful, meat and potatoes solo outing, <em>The Bride Stripped Bare<\/em>. Until Ferry and Roxy Music once more learned to coexist and create in a unique, seamless way on 1982&#8217;s <em>Avalon<\/em>, <em>Let&#8217;s Stick Together<\/em> was the first key work in stripping down the grandiose, cool sound that was sucking out the humanity of Ferry&#8217;s musical vision. I would have still found much to like about Roxy Music had they continued down their path to the ice palace, but I&#8217;m glad Ferry did what it took to go out with heart.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><ins>COMING SOON<\/ins><\/strong> &#8211; exclusively for <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/htsrv\/register.php?redirect_to=%2Fblogs%2Findex.php%3Fblog%3D2%26paged%3D1%26page%3D1\">registered<\/a><\/strong> Townspeople &#8211; a Rock Town Hall Listening Party: For a limited time, we&#8217;ll provide Let&#8217;s Stick Together in its entirety for your review and discussion!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roxy Music&#8216;s &#8220;Love Is the Drug&#8221; was tough, stylish treat on the radio when I was growing up. It wasn&#8217;t a smash hit on Philadelphia radio in my middle school days, but it would come on now and then and fit right in with the &#8217;70s soul and downbeat-heavy rock that I sought out as <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/overlooked-gems-of-my-lifetime-bryan-fer\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[168,1014],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}