Artist: Ferry, Bryan
Label: Virgin Records
Released: 2007
There’s something about Dylan’s songs that draws all kinds of musicians in like moths to a lightbulb. And usually every musician (singer) has their own modest idea that they can only make these songs better with their interpretation. But is there any truth to that?
Depends who you ask, but to me the original is usually way ahead of the covers that assorted musicians try to use to ride Dylan into the good graces of the music world. There are a few bands and individuals who have genuinely pulled off Dylan’s songs, or at least done them well enough not to hurt the reputation of either the author or the performer. The Byrds and Jimi Hendrix spring to mind, two truly exceptional, brighter-than-average lights. No doubt there are a few other inventive musicians who have covered pretty much anything from this rich, almost Biblical songbook with great success. They just didn’t all make a big fuss about their covers. Neil Young and Will Oldham are two more who love to wander through Dylan’s songbook, and do it very successfully and quite often, though also pretty much unheard. Neither of them, though, probably thinks about having to improve the chosen song in any way. Some folks love to show off, especially vocally, but these two simply sing the song in their natural style. The late, legendary Johnny Cash knew how to do this well, for example. With him you never would have guessed it was a cover; every song he took on belonged, in that moment, exclusively to him and to those few lucky souls who got to sing a verse or two with him. No pointless trying to prove anything to anybody.
So where does Bryan Ferry fit in? With all due respect, Mr. Ferry is a gentleman who knows his craft and, generally speaking, does it well. Nor is his love for Dylan anything new; he put the odd Dylan song on his albums as far back as the seventies. But an entire album of covers, Dylanesque, is still a bit too big and too stiff a mouthful. Especially because it jumps from Bob’s first album (Bob Dylan, 1962) with “Baby Let Me Follow You Down” all the way to “Make You Feel My Love”, from the 1997 album Time Out Of Mind, with pretty much the same sonic mass running through all eleven songs, which makes the album sound far too samey. Dylan was never the greatest sonic experimenter, sure, but neither is Ferry. And even though Ferry strays quite far from the originals in places, especially on the songs from Dylan’s early, protest-tinged acoustic albums like “The Times They Are A Changing”, “Gates Of Eden” and “All I Really Wanna Do”, he only strays from the image Dylan created, while the image he builds himself is pretty one-note and monotonous.
There’s no particular concept to be found either, unless maybe he wanted to create some kind of rainbow spectrum of songs, the classics that make Dylan Dylan, yet it makes Ferry neither a rightful contemporary of Dylan nor even Ferry himself! One song, two, maybe three would have been a great addition to one of his own records, but in this form they get completely lost. They sound half-baked, sometimes even forced, and considering that Ferry has surely heard Hendrix’s version of “All Along The Watchtower”, which his own take is much closer to, he could have made a bit more of an effort, at least with the arrangement, and at least let that closing guitar solo run its natural course. As it is, the song and the album end abruptly, or rather just vanish somewhere into the fog, where there’s certainly no trace of any rainbow.
Bryan Ferry is a seasoned old cat of the music world, so it’s fair to expect more from him than what he offers here, and that’s why, at its core, Dylanesque is fairly noncommittal material for Bryan Ferry listeners, for Bob Dylan listeners, and, last but not least, for fans of both.
Lineup
Bryan Ferry: Vocals, harmonica and farfisa, electronics (#8)
Colin Good: Piano
Chris Spedding: Guitar
David Williams: Guitar
Oliver Thompson: Guitar
Leo Abrahams: Guitar
Guy Pratt: Bass
Paul Carrack: Organ
Andy Newmark: Percussion
Isaac Ferry: Electronics (#8)
Me’sha Bryan, Sarah Brown, Tara McDonald, Anna McDonald, Sharon White, Michelle John, Joy Malcolm: Backing vocals
Lucy Wilkins: Violin (#2)
Anthony Pleeth: Cello (#7)
Robin Trower: Acoustic guitar (#11)
Bobby Irwin: Drums (#2 & #6)
Zev Katz: Bass (#2 & #6)
Mick Green: Guitar (#2 & #6)
String quartet: Gavyn Wright (Violin), Jackie Shave (Violin), Jon Thorne (Viola), Anthony Pleeth (Cello)
Production
Rhett Davies & Bryan Ferry
Tracklist
1. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
2. Simple Twist of Fate
3. Make You Feel My Love
4. The Times They Are A-Changin’
5. All I Really Wanna Do
6. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
7. Positively 4th Street
8. If Not for You
9. Baby Let Me Follow You Down
10. Gates of Eden
11. All Along the Watchtower
Album length: 42:33
