Not the finest of crooners but he does it with great style and having spent forty years in the business he must be doing something right. Behind all the glamour and glitz is, in fact, a very serious and professional exploration of musical genres from 'glam-rock' to jazz to avant-garde, all of which are reflected in the following videos. Like most artists at the top he can and does pick the best for his backing musicians (we can excuse a bit of nepotism with his son Tara Ferry on drums, although he is rather good) and some of those musicians are new to me; Jorja Chalmers on saxophone and a very, very good guitarist in Oliver Thompson.
A note on the avant-garde aspect of Roxy Music: In my view Roxy's work in this genre, as in the last video here, is far superior to the more famous names such as John Cage or Dane Rudhyar or Stockhausen to name a few. "For Your Pleasure" is a complex and mesmerising piece of work and ends, appropriately enough, with the voice of Judi Dench whispering "You don't ask. You don't ask why."
6 comments:
You've hit one of my all time favourite bands - saw one of the best concerts ever in the 70s and Ferry was masterly.
Moving on, one of the readers at our place, Hereward Unbowed, has a comment too and can't seem to get it posted here. Here 'tis:
"Why doesn’t ‘Broad Oak Magazine’ have a proper comment facility. Because I’ve always been a Roxy fan if not quite so enamoured of Bryan. I was a bit more Brian, was always a favourite but Bryan did not like the prog rock stuff much.
Imho Virginia Plain [wotsher name?] was and still stands up as a cracking tune if not a classic rock ballad, for that you’ll have to drift over to ‘Stranded’ mainly B side and Psalm, Serenade, Song for Europe, Mother of Pearl and Sunset – it’s such a Street life, mind you no Brian it must be accorded – if not recorded if you ken what I mean. And Jobson, Manzanera, Mackay – magnifico!"
Hereward Unbowed (via James Higham) comments:
"Why doesn’t ‘Broad Oak Magazine’ have a proper comment facility. Because I’ve always been a Roxy fan if not quite so enamoured of Bryan. I was a bit more Brian, was always a favourite but Bryan did not like the prog rock stuff much.
Imho Virginia Plain [wotsher name?] was and still stands up as a cracking tune if not a classic rock ballad, for that you’ll have to drift over to ‘Stranded’ mainly B side and Psalm, Serenade, Song for Europe, Mother of Pearl and Sunset – it’s such a Street life, mind you no Brian it must be accorded – if not recorded if you ken what I mean. And Jobson, Manzanera, Mackay – magnifico!"
@Hereward Unbowed: the comments form appears to be the way Blogger does it, one has to click on the word "comments" at the foot of the post. If anyone knows a better way please let me know!
JD comments:
I was toying with the idea of including Ferry's 'Song For Europe' (as mentioned by Hereward in his comment) but then decided against it as it would probably be misunderstood/misinterpreted :)
Wow - ooooh I see what you mean. What I was trying to register albeit in a very roundabout way, referred to afore [@ NO] was that, I didn't have a google profile wordpress wotsit, or the other options and as if by magic - now I do, yippee because I rather like this blog, have been a regular lurker.
Further stuff on Bryan, yes I do love him really, his band was the thing for me but Bryan his languid style was imho the biz and he put his heart into it and that will do, Roxy always were one of 'my' bands, in the days of................ Floyd, Genesis, Yes, Tangerine dream, Alice Cooper, Elton John's early Albums - Madman across the water and the like, Led Zep II, III Physical Graffiti, Kraftwerk, JM Jarre, Nazareth, SAHB, Zappa, Fairport, Slade, BJH, ELP, Crimson, Beefheart, Bad Company - indeed and there were others................
@ Hereward
Ferry attended Newcastle College of Art where his tutor was the pop artist Richard Hamilton. I think that was a big influence on Ferry's and Roxy Music's 'style'
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