Track Listing

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 Want To 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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6939 in Music
• Released on: 2007-06-26
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com

Bryan Ferry Photos

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Amazon.com
Long a Bob Dylan fan, Bryan Ferry remade "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" for his 1973 self-titled album of covers. This time around, the celebrated Roxy Music leader turns in Dylanesque, recasting 11 Dylan classics during a single live-in-the-studio week that leaves the album sounding vibrantly faithful to the original numbers. Far be it for the imaginative contrarian to retrace Dylan's steps, and sure enough--despite an omnipresent harmonica--Ferry does just the opposite. The raw rocker "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" becomes a seductive British pop song, while despair and loneliness turn into effervescence for the driving "Simple Twist of Fate." Ferry's ageless tenor injects a modern momentum into early Dylan imprints "Positively 4th Street" (with strings!), "All I Really Want to Do," and "The Times They Are A-Changing," and gloriously respects the more recent "Make You Feel My Love" (from 1997's Time out of Mind). But the best is yet to come, as the oft-covered "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" may never have received better treatment and "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" loses not a beat of its original knock-down luster. The record closes with "All Along the Watchtower," a twin tribute to Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, the visionary for this adaptation. --Scott Holter

Customer Reviews

Brian Ferry's Usual Genius at Work
This CD is a pleasure to listen to. Original Dylan fans may be uncomfortable at first but, like all great albums, Brian Ferry's take on the master's classics just gets better, richer and more nuanced with every listen. It will be a long time before I get tired of this one.

Not for Dylan Fans
I love Dylan. I received this CD as a gift from a friend who thought I would like another take on some of Dylan's work. It was hard to imagine someone being having the nerve to be "Dylanesque" but thought I'd give the CD a chance. There are a few pieces that are nice listening--but since when was Dylan nice listening? There are other pieces that are absolutely horrible--like nails on a blackboard. I can't turn them off fast enough. If you love Dylan don't get this CD. As for my "Dylanesque" I'm giving it to the person who gave it to me. He doesn't like Dylan and should just love this CD.

A class act ! Engaging, never boring.
Most of us would not associate Bryan Ferry the art-rock lounge lizard with Bob Dylan, the ragged poet-troubadour.
But Ferry's swaggering 1973 version of Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" left old smoothie chops with a desire to do a whole album of Dylan covers, but it has taken him over 30 years to get round to it.
One of the supremely gifted interpreters of other people's songs, Ferry's take on Dylan's work was always bound to be at the very least interesting.
Twenty songs were rattled off in a week, of which 11 made the final cut, and the spontaneity of the session is obvious.
Ferry's band deftly evoke the sturdy, simplistic country-tinged rock which is Dylan's thing, and the album kicks off convincingly with "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and "Simple Twist Of Fate".
But some of the mid-tempo material, like "All I Really Wanna Do", is merely so-so, and it's a surprise to hear the protest song "The Times They Are A-Changin'" dashed off at yet another plodder in this vein. Neither is there much that Ferry can do to improve on Hendrix's blistering re-interpretation of "All Along The Watchtowe"r or even Eric Clapton's reggaefication of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door".
Where Ferry scores is in a wistful, airy reading of "Make You Feel My Love", the velvety-yet-venomous "Positively 4th Street" and the Roxy-like "If Not For You", complete with simmering sonic enhancements by old buddy Brian Eno.