Well, having finally given proper attention to The Jazz Age, that joins my desert-island list of Ferry albums along with Bride Stripped Bare, Frantic, and LST. Bete Noire would be hard to leave behind, too. All subject to change or additions as I make my way through the catalogue but I suspect these will remain tops to my ears and heart.

Hi Sonnet

You seem to like the Edgier Bryan
He Is Fabulous
In All His Editions

No straight woman with a pulse (which I happen to be) can ignore the looks and charisma, great God Almighty above. Although, the first pic you put up always strikes me like a mugshot from some overnight jail stay

Anyways . . . yes, I'd say generally the edgier material suits me best. Conversely, though, I'm partial to some of the very poignant and/or sad songs, too. Or, I should say, those that strike me as being such. Just Like You, Still Falls the Rain, Spin Me Round, A Fool For Love. His version of Carrickfergus, on first listen, made me cry, as did his cover of Song to the Siren.

Hi Sonnet
So Agree!!!


You write like a poet...
And your view of Nighthawks was
Absolutely Perfect...

Sweetest Mug Shot
I've Ever Seen

And Yes...
Bryan Just
Has It

Elegantly Ageing Hipsters,

What a great inaugural post from sonnet18 - bienvenue au club and welcome to the Ferrygoround.

For the ghosts that haunt this hallowed cyber hall who have, for the most part, lived their Ferry existence in real time - album by album, article by article and show by show it is fun to imagine how it must be to stumble over his treasure trove at this stage of the game.

How would we react ? Would we simply be overwhelmed ? Would we understand his journey and nuances ? Would we go back and review his career in chronological order or just OD on the whole catalogue ?
Would we feel cheated to have missed out on all those fabulous concerts ? Would our favourite songs still be our favourites if we didn't have the memories that accompany them ?

All interesting questions n'est ce pas ? And in sonnet18's case it looks like youtube has been a great catalyst and has filled in a lot of the gaps.

Of course it could be argued that it is no different to somebody discovering Billie Holiday or one of the other greats with time having elapsed but, as a devout Ferryista who lost his Roxy virginity in 1972, W2 can't personally imagine having lived life without the soundtrack.

That said, Windswept has one other experience of this phenomena and again it concerns one of our American brethren.

In the first decade of this millennium Windswept was working in NYC and took the opportunity of a March 2007 meeting in Paris to take his American colleagues to Ferry's Dylanesque fandango.

W2's principle objective was to ensure that he didn't miss the gig but the team were a creative lot and he was sure the event would prove to be motivational.

Amongst the party was a close colleague who developed into a life long friend. This particular colleague had great taste in music but for reasons that he attributed to American radio segmentation was Ferry lite and the unfortunate boy had lived his life sans Roxy.

The fandango blew him away and he left the gig in a Ferry haze muttering that he felt robbed to have missed out on all of this. His inauguration was not complete because W2 took him to a dark Ferryesque bar in Rue du Faubourg where he introduced him to our hero. This left the poor boy comatosed and he had to be escorted back to his hotel. Windswept doesn't think he's been the same to this day.

W2 checked on him recently and is happy to say that there is not a day goes by without the friend playing some Ferry and his wife has acclimatised to living with an addict !

Happily for sonnet18, my friend, and all of us, there is 'More Than This' and the Ferry fandango is fare from over.

Salutations,
Windswept

The Ferrygoround

Fabulous post As Usual WS2!

I was a tad worried my mugshot comment would sound unkind, it wasn't meant to be. The poor kid looks so unhappy there you just want to take him home and give him a comforting dinner plus some homemade cookies for the road. Maybe a warmer coat, a blanket, bus money . . .

W2, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading your post. Your friend must have been gobsmacked in the best possible way.

U.S. radio was the issue, to be sure. It still is, and far worse now. Being born in '57, the whole of my cognizant childhood spanned the '60s. I happened to be living in a semi-rural area yet not terribly far from NYC. Our home radios were picking NY stations up nicely, plus we got Wolfman Jack all the way from Mexico gratis the infamous bird-killer tower down there. I was a hand-me-down listener from the moment I could think - much older siblings playing whatever they wanted on the radio or turntable, I absorbing by osmosis.

I learned to walk, then toddled over to the speakers, and listened to R and R as we knew it die with Holly, and Elvis' military draft, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry kept running themselves off their personal rails . . . all replaced by record industry selections of bubblegummy white-as-your-pet-pig's-backside sillyass excuses for performers, whiteLite without the grit, the living, the misery under their belts. No Johnny Cash who found his brother sawn in two in this bunch. The biggest life challenge too many of these bubblegum guys had had was how to unscrew the Brylcreem tube. A few of them could in fact sing but that doesn't let them off the hook of mediocrity. I suppose they get a few points for hairdos but that's all I'm willing to give. Into the vacuum swept the Beatles/Stones, at the very moment when we had nothin' baby, nothin' true going on in R and R.

At any rate, mainstream radio airplay duly charted this sequence of events, then 1968 happened. We turned in a matter of months ass over teakettle into something difficult for me to recognize from any societal standpoint whatsoever, and that's when I started reaching backward in time for my music.

Now, most mainstream radio is corporate-owned by unknowable mega outfits such as Clear Channel. Automated playlists, no sound booth, no disc jockey, nobody who gives a blank about music, it is creepy and shallow as a dark ditch at midnight. We're still making exceptional music over here, but it's all been shunted away to obscure stations and tiny venues. Very tiny venues. The real stuff is now sidelined under "Americana", "alternative", "alt. country" - such belittling asinine terms for the true art still being made, as if they're saying Oh look, how quaint those widdle people are. Cripes. Even a successful band like The Mavericks, who fuse so much that is "American" - read: diverse - so well - really can't get arrested on radio, they're so not there.

And so it is ITunes and YT that save the day, broaden the horizon, and create revenue stream for artists who would probably go belly-up if they had to depend on the old radio ways. I see that Ferry himself, in one of the archived articles here on this site, speculated that Americans in general want background listening. I think there's probably a lot of accuracy in that. It did come close to extinguishing our music heritage, but I think that harrowing moment has now safely passed.