Bryan Ferry and Dylan songs

Thanks to Bernard McGuinn:

“Bryan Ferry did It ain’t me babe, on Another Time Another Place, the follow up to These Foolish Things. His next album after that was Let's Stick Together, which, of course, is a song Bob covered on the largely forgettable Down in the Groove. Ferry’s next album, In Your Mind, carries a version of Rock of Ages, a song Bob's been known to sing on occasion.”


Bernard was responding to my plea for details of Ferry/Dylan links in the article, New Bryan Ferry album of Dylan songs:

Bryan Ferry - last seen as a model in ads for Marks & Spencer clothing – is set to release Dylanesque, a CD of 11 Dylan songs, on the Virgin label in early March.

The tracklist includes Dylan classics like:

All Along The Watchtower
All I Really Want To Do
If Not For You
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Positively 4th Street
Knocking On Heaven's Door
Simple Twist Of Fate

The album will be a must-buy for all fans of Ferry/Roxy Music and many in Dylan’s fanbase (count me in, twice over). Although the cognoscenti regard all the Ferry solo releases as inferior to all the Roxy Music albums, his cover versions generally garner high praise.

Many Dylanistas will, no doubt, fill out the new CD with bonus tracks of previously released Ferry covers of Dylan compositions - notably A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall from the first solo album, in 1973; It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, and Don't Think Twice, It's All Right from 2002's Frantic. (Are there any more?)

Ferry’s 1999 album, As Time Goes By, a collection of standards by the great Broadway writers such as Cole Porter, is a beautiful CD. It’ll be instructive to see how Dylan’s work sounds alongside The Great American Songbook.

The re-invigorated Ferry will also be appearing on the first new Roxy Music studio album for a quarter of a century, due later this year. He’s also touring the UK this spring.


Gerry Smith