Bryan Ferry had released two solo albums when he took the stage at London's Royal Albert Hall in December 1974. Both of them, 1973's
These Foolish Things and 1974's
Another Time, Another Place, had found him transferring the swaggering, arty glitter-rock of his band
Roxy Music into a series of well-curated covers from the 1930s through the 1960s. It was an iconoclastic move, comparable to
David Bowie's
Pin Ups, but adorned with
Ferry's own dashing pop elan and smooth theatricality. As an interpreter of standards, American Popular or otherwise,
Ferry had impossibly combined the hazy sheen of golden-era Hollywood glamour with a wry singer/songwriter sincerity and a wallop of good-time rock & roll. He brought all of this jazzy charisma to bear on this live concert date, offering a cross section of songs from these two solo productions. Joining him were several
Roxy Music regulars, including guitarists
Phil Manzanera and
John Porter, drummer
Paul Thompson, and
Roxy Music-adjacent pianist/violinist
Eddie Jobson, who also supplied string arrangements. Also on board was
King Crimson bassist and future
Asia vocalist
John Wetton. Rounding out
Ferry's stage group were a sundry mix of horn and string players, keyboardists, and a trio of female backing vocalists. The result is a vibrantly dynamic live sound that straddles the line between
Rocky Horror Picture Show and
Elvis: As Recorded at Madison Square Garden. Here,
Ferry offers singularly inspired takes on
Lesley Gore's "It's My Party,"
Smokey Robinson's "The Tracks of My Tears,"
Ike & Tina Turner's "Fingerpoppin'," and a raging, goose bump-inducing reading of
Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Also redolent is
Ferry's love of jazz standards, represented here with his rousing take on "These Foolish Things," one that would come into even brighter focus in years to come on albums like 2012's
The Jazz Age and 2018's
Bitter-Sweet. One of the key delights in
Ferry's work in the standards arena is the way he makes song lyrics take on new and unexpected meaning. Hearing him intone the iconic opening line from
the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" -- "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste" -- is to witness
Ferry both cheekily underlining his public persona with
Roxy Music and recontextualizing his aesthetic as a tuxedo-wearing matinee rock idol in his own right. ~ Matt Collar
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