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Bryan Ferry Shares Stories From His Upcoming Record... and an NPR/Music 'First Liste

Listen To The Conversation With Bryan Ferry...

It's been more than 40 years since singer Bryan Ferry started making some of the freshest, most original rock music of the early 1970s in the band Roxy Music. Ferry was 26 years old when the group formed in 1971, but his unexpectedly mature croon was a potent counterpoint to the glam and eerie electronic rock the group made. Later, as a solo artist, Ferry found entry points to cover both '60s rock hits and standards from the 1930s. His music has been a combination of all those things ever since.

Bryan Ferry is now 69 years old. His voice is a bit deeper and even more alluring. His latest (and fourteenth) solo album, Avonmore, comes out Nov. 18.

He recently sat down to chat about the record and his life of music with All Songs Considered hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton. Speaking from member station WNYC in New York, Ferry talked about his love for sad music, why he'd like to see his songs turned into a Broadway musical and how he was inspired to become a musician after hitchhiking to London to see Otis Redding play.

You can listen to the full interview with the link above, or read select quotes and hear songs from the new album below.

On his musical inspiration:

"I hitchhiked from Newcastle down to London to see Otis Redding and the Stax Revue, with Sam & Dave, and Eddie Floyd, and Steve Cropper, and all those great musicians. And Booker T., etc. That was the kind of road to Damascus for me, really. I was still at university. Still dreaming. And when I decided I really want to do this — seeing all of these people on stage, playing this beautiful music — that's when it all kind of came together for me."

http://youtu.be/UCmUhYSr-e4

First Listen: Bryan Ferry, 'Avonmore'...

John Schaefer

Bryan Ferry rolls back the years with Avonmore, an album with eight original songs that recall his classic mid-'70s albums with Roxy Music, as well as two covers that are by themselves worth the price of admission. Ferry's "Loop De Li," the album's opener, has the stinging guitars, wisps of sax and lush keyboards of old favorites like "Both Ends Burning" and "Love Is the Drug." "Midnight Train" marries a cool '70s soul sound to vintage blues imagery ("Midnight train, rollin' down the track / Midnight train, never comin' back"). And, for fans of later Roxy Music, there's "Lost," cut from the same cloth as the 1982 hit "Avalon."

Now 69, Ferry is still a romantic, whether that means the rakish, slightly dangerous lounge lizard crooning his come-hithers in "Avonmore" or the man wandering in the rain, lonely and heartbroken in "Soldier of Fortune." In "One Night Stand," he's both, asking the object of his affection if she'll mend his broken heart — tonight. Touches of contemporary production pop up: the loop that opens "Loop De Li," for example, or the strong dance beat of "Driving Me Wild" and the title track. The genius is how organically these modern touches are woven into the fabric of Ferry's signature sound. That sound is full, but also clear and direct, with intricate layers of instruments shifting in and out of focus.

Ferry has been covering standards for decades now, and even recast some of his old Roxy Music material as 1920s dance-band music to great effect on 2012's The Jazz Age. So it comes as no surprise that Avonmore's two covers are absolute stunners. Ferry sings a clear-eyed, modal version of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns," while the band seems to think it's playing The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows." His version of "Johnny and Mary," an early-'80s new-wave hit from the late Robert Palmer, is a revelation: Slowly pulsing, with subtle washes of electronics and Ferry's voice barely above a whisper, this cover mines the sadness and confusion that were hidden in the uptempo, synth-driven original.

As he so often does, Ferry has help from an impressive cast, headed by co-producer Rhett Davies, who's been working with Ferry and former bandmate Brian Eno since the 1970s. Notable guests include both The Smiths' Johnny Marr (who co-wrote "Soldier of Fortune") and Nile Rodgers of Chic, but everyone here is acting in service of Ferry's eternal, impossibly cool voice.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Source: NPR