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: #22621 in Music
• Released on: 2007-06-26
• Number of discs: 1

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Bryan Ferry Photos

More from Bryan Ferry

Boys and Girls	As Time Goes By	The Foolish Things
The Platinum Collection	Let's Stick Together	Bryan Ferry in Concert

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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

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.

Bryan Ferry returns with a strong album of...Dylan covers
First a confession--I'm a big Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry fan. I'm also a big fan of Bob Dylan. There have been many albums by Ferry I didn't really care for ("Taxi" except for one or two tracks rarely gets played and Mamouna is my least favorite Ferry solo album. While "Flesh & Blood" is, with the exception of two tracks, a complete waste of time as far as I'm concerned). I say all of that so you know where my bias is when it comes to Ferry's material. Ferry's weathered vocals actually compliment many of the songs here and even though he isn't the singer he once was (who is?), he makes up for some of his loss of range with his interpretative skills.

Bryan Ferry has tackeld Dylan before. His first time was with his art rock approach to "A Hard Rain's a-gonna Fall" and then the tracks on his last solo album. This time around he tackles an entire album full of Dylan songs and while the result isn't perfect, the bulk of these songs and their arrangements are inspired. Ferry works out arrangements that are both surprising and, at times, dazzling just don't go into this album expecting arrangements of the same songs cut from the same cloth as Dylan's--Ferry alters the arrangements to fit his vocal and arranging style much as he did with his album of standards from a couple of years ago.

The opener "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is inspired with a nice groove, nice harmonica fills from Ferry. His voice is a bit ragged but, heck, it adds character to his trilling crooner's voice. "Simple Twist of Fate" is up next and, again, Ferry does a nice job here although it isn't as radically rearranged as "Tom" it's still quite good with nice guitar playing by Chris Spedding. "Make You Feel My Love" opens with stately piano playing by Colin Good that would have made this song fit in well with the material on "Stranded". "The Times Are a'Changing" has a bold, rocking groove and makes it sound signficantly different from previous covers of the song. "All I Really Want To Do" is nice but doesn't quite fit in within the other songs here with a more conventional arrangement.

Doing "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is a pretty bold move for Ferry. Dylan's original is pretty definitive and Warren Zevon's cover reinvented it with a sense of desperation missing from the original. Ferry's version is solid but doesn't break any new ground. "Positively 4th Street" recasts Dylan's song with piano and a string background. Ferry's weary sounding vocals compliments the arrangement perfectly and the minimal use of percussion & guitar adds nice highlights to the song.

I have always thought of George Harrison's cover of "If Not For You" as the definitive cover but Ferry adds a syncopated beat and the moody, rolling guitar lines that Roxy were well known. The use of strings add a bit of punch when they kick in as well with just the right country flavor.
"Baby Let Me Follow You Down" features plenty of Ferry's harmonica playing and the use of organ gives this a feeling closer to what Dylan might do...well except for the funky rhythm guitar. "Gates of Eden" is a favorite of mine and Ferry recasts it in such a way that it would have fit in nicely right next to "Hiroshima" on his last solo album. "All Along the Watch Tower" closes out the album with an arrangement both familiar (because it touches on Hendrix's cover version)and original with some nice biting guitar work from Spedding. It's not a definitive version but it's a strong closer for the album.

Although it isn't quite as strong as Ferry's last solo album which mixed originals with a couple of Dylan covers, "Dylanesque" suggests that Ferry continues to be a terrific interpretor of other people's material. Although none of his regular Roxy Music cohorts appear on the album, his usual solo backing band (some of whom were added to Roxy for touring purposes)do a terrific job of reshaping Dylan's material.

Other Ferry solo albums where he covers every one from Dylan to Lesley Gore-

These Foolish Things
Let's Stick Together
Another Time, Another Place

great CD!
I must admit that as a big Dylan fan I was prepared to dislike this disc. I couldn't be more wrong. This is a great CD! Ferry's reinterpretations of these classics is great. So he made some of them sound like pop songs - big deal! Great singing, great musicians , and having Bob Clearmountain as your mixer makes for a winning team. Dylan is not God, and his songs can be reworked as the artist sees fit. Plenty of other great artists have had the same treatment. Check it for yourself before believing the negative reviews from people who hate any kind of change.