“I never would have done this album in ’73,” explains Bryan Ferry with an audible sigh. That was the year the Roxy Music frontman released his first solo record, These Foolish Things, with its swaggering, cocksure cover of Bob Dylan’s protest anthem, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”
“I mean, I could have done Gershwin or somebody who was dead. Back then, the idea of doing a whole album of contemporary songs by a living writer would seem a bit weird. But now it just seems like an okay thing to do.”
The king of detached Anglo cool is referencing his latest solo project, an album of eleven Dylan covers entitled, appropriately enough, Dylanesque. Hammered out in a week last August with a crackerjack crew of Roxy Music alums (including drummer Andy Newmark, guitarist Chris Spedding and keyboard wizards Brian Eno and Paul Carrack), the lushly orchestrated record sounds anything but rushed. From the sexy, chugga-chugga rhythm of “The Times They Are A-Changin’” to the bittersweet, atmospheric funk of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Dylanesque represents a substantial departure not only from the original versions of these classic songs, but from any of Ferry’s prior Dylan covers.
The 61 year-old icon is flopped in an armchair in a deluxe suite at The Carlyle Hotel, that mainstay of old school Upper East Side chic. But with his faded jeans and boyish forelock, Ferry’s physical bearing is far more teen than sheen. Which is in keeping with the spirit of the songs on the album, the majority of which are taken from Dylan’s “angry young man” period.
“I tend to favor Dylan’s work from the 60s,” Ferry says in his trademark near-whisper, “when he was the young poet who’d found his métier. Although it wasn’t until he was electric that I got interested. I was like a soul man. American black music was my thing - fitted suits and electric guitars and foot movements. So that guy with an acoustic guitar and sandals just didn’t appeal to me.”
Ferry laughs suddenly, a burst of self-deprecating mirth that is as contagious as it is unexpected.
“But I overcame my prejudice when he did ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’ I was the opposite of those purists who left him when he went electric. I went to him when he was electric.”
When asked how the album came about, Ferry cites writer’s block as his primary inspiration.
“I just wanted a break from writing. I’d been trying to do some writing for a new Roxy Music album, and I thought, God, this is going to take a long time. I wanted to get something out to my audience, so we did the album really quick.”
Regarding his approach to the material, Ferry is refreshingly agenda-free.
“Not much analysis goes on. I’m a singer, and I want to sing words that resonate for me. Which is where Dylan comes in. I think he is a great poet. I just want to enjoy doing the songs, to immerse myself in them. And hope something of my character comes out, whatever that is.”
Given the record’s sumptuous, velvety feel, it’s safe to say that something of Ferry’s character comes out in the recordings. Indeed, Ferry laughingly admits to taking certain liberties with the songs on Dylanesque.
“It’s funny. You look at a song by a writer, and you think you’re above the song. And you say, oh Christ, I don’t like that verse as much as this one. So with these Dylan songs, I did edit quite a few - you know, squeeze ‘em up a bit - because some of them are really long.”
Ferry takes one of those epic pauses he’s known for, and lets his face settle into a sly half-smile.
“I don’t think Bob would mind.”
--Kenyon Phillips
Photo: Chris Dunlop
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Bryan Ferry's Dylanesque is released June 26, 2007 on Virgin Records.
http://www.bryanferry.com
