Bryan Ferry selects his finest solo work
Bryan Ferry has not had just one envious career in the music industry; he’s managed to juggle two simultaneously; one with the legendary Roxy Music (formed in 1970) and a glittering solo career that took flight in 1973.
Just after the release of Roxy Music’s second album, For Your Pleasure, Ferry embarked on a parallel solo journey, beginning with These Foolish Things, which was Ferry’s attempt to repopularise the old format of covering “standard songs”. This is how many of the famous musicians in the early-mid 20th Century cut their teeth,
Back in 2018, Ferry walked through his solo journey and noted what he thought was his best output. Beginning with These Foolish Things, he said, “So I thought I’d make one like Elvis or Sinatra or Billie Holiday or Bing Crosby would. I loved the albums I had of great singers singing great songs, written by songwriters in teams. I did this really fast, in about two or three weeks, and it was such fun. It was good to just get out of the group, out of the group angst.”
Ferry followed up a year later with another covers album (after doing Stranded with Roxy Music) entitled Another Time, Another Place. The album featured a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ as well as Ferry’s first original composition as a solo musician, the titular ‘Another Time, Another Place’.
The first of Ferry’s albums with solely original songs arrived in 1977 with In Your Mind. Discussing the year, Ferry said, “I went on my first world tour as a solo artist. I think I’d got fed up with being in a band, and wanted to try making an album of original material as a solo artist. I say as a solo artist, but it was more like being in a different band ’cos it wasn’t just me on my own with a guitar, or piano. I think this is the first time I worked with strings.”
Ferry did not record another solo album after In Your Mind until 1985 with Boys and Girls. He had also recorded the final Roxy Music album, Avalon, in 1982. The 1980s brought about a different sound, and Ferry threw himself into a funkier, synth-ier sonic expression. Discussing ‘Slave to Love’, he said, “It just caught the mood, I guess. I had some great people working with me by then. All these great people I’d worked with through all this time, plus new people like Nile Rodgers and Marcus Miller. It was a very important album for me.”
Ferry hasn’t let up since then. His solo output has been quite prolific, constantly adapting to the new sounds that crop up throughout the years. Speaking of his collaborations in the 21st Century, he said, “I got in contact with Jonny Greenwood to see if he wanted to play – I thought he was a very good player, very experimental, lots of different sounds, musically very adept, the real deal. Johnny Marr, obviously, is another great English guitar player. I worked with him first of all at Air Studios on a couple of things.”
Check out the songs that Bryan Ferry considers his best solo work below.
The solo songs Bryan Ferry considers his best:
- ‘These Foolish Things’ (1973)
- ‘The ‘In’ Crowd’ (1974)
- ‘Let’s Stick Together’ (1976)
- ‘Love Me Madly Again’ (1977)
- ‘Sign Of The Times’ (1978)
- ‘Slave To Love’ (1985)
- ‘Mamouna’ (1994)
- ‘You Can Dance’ (2010)
- ‘Loop De Li’ (2014)
