Joy Division celebrated

Not before time, the peerless legacy of the great Joy Division is being celebrated in England with impressive new record releases to piggyback on the acclaimed new Ian Curtis biopic movie, Control.

The Manc gloomsters’ three major record releases - Closer, Still and Unknown Pleasures – have been re-released as special editions with re-mastered sound and - here’s the important bit – a (different) formerly unreleased live performance packaged as a second CD with each album.

Yummy. Must buy!


Gerry Smith

English rockers dominating the newsstands

It doesn’t happen often, but the current issue of all three London poprock monthly mags has an Anglo musician on the cover: Keith Richards on the front of MOJO, Paul Weller on UNCUT and Johnny Marr fronting the new issue of The Word.

The only other Anglo clean sweep in the last 20 months consisted of The Beatles, The Smiths and Amy Winehouse, in February this year.

The three mags regularly cover home-grown talent alongside N American peers, but it’s rare for English musos to dominate the newsstands in this fashion.

The best-loved popular music of the last century was predominantly American, and US musicians have dominated rock ever since Bill Haley signaled the end of the road for the post-WW2 crooner generation. Since The Beatles, however, English musicians have punched above their weight in most world markets – if you doubt it, visit any record shop anywhere in Europe and count the Anglos.



Gerry Smith

The Biggest Bang – new Stones 4DVD box

It’s a well-kept secret, but The Biggest Bang, a new Stones 4DVD box set, featuring footage from the current world tour, has just been released. Best price I’ve seen is £30 at Asda, the UK Wal-Mart subsidiary. My local HMV hadn’t heard of it, and suggested In The Park as the “new Stones DVD”.

Far more tempting than Forty Flicks, the massively overpriced last Stones DVD box (£40-£50 – at that sort of price, they’d have to throw in a week at Sir Michael’s Loire Valley chateau to interest me.)

Along with the Martin Scorsese-directed Stones concert film, set for release (US) on 21 September, these are exciting times for Glimmer film collectors.


Gerry Smith

Paul Weller for beginners

As main man in The Jam and Style Council and as a solo artist, Paul Weller has been a prolific songwriter, with over 300 songs already to his credit - and the flow shows little sign of abating.

Like many creatives, Weller’s early stuff is the most highly regarded. In a lengthy feature in the new (Sept) issue of UNCUT, the music and movies monthly, celeb muso votes for his best songs produce a top 30 which is two thirds Jam songs. And a top ten with 9 Jam songs.

The top three, fairly predictably, are:

1. Going Underground
2. Town Called Malice
3. That's Entertainment

If you need to catch up on Paul Weller (as I did), the new issue of UNCUT offers you an expert dissection of his work.

www.uncut.co.uk



Gerry Smith

How to enrich Bryan Ferry’s Dylanesque with bonus tracks

On release in the UK several months ago, Dylanesque, Bryan Ferry’s covers CD, got great press – positive reviews and a very high profile in the English media.

Some reviews of the new American release are less positive. Probably because, while Ferry is respected (even revered) in his homeland the US has never been so receptive.

Thanks to Martin Cowan for this link: “Amusingly scathing review of the latest Ferry CD from Pitchfork here”:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/43837-dylanesque

Pity. Ferry’s the real deal – a grade one popular musician. Dylan is the preferred singer of Dylan songs, but Ferry’s one of only two singers I’d have entrusted with a covers album. Van Morrison’s the other contender, as most who’ve seen him perform outstanding versions of Just Like A Woman and It’s All over Now, Baby Blue in concert will testify.

If you buy Dylanesque, you can enrich its 11 songs by burning a new CDR to include as bonus tracks Ferry’s earlier Dylan covers:

* A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (These Foolish Things, 1973)

* It Ain’t Me Babe (Another Time Another Place, 1974)

* It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Frantic, 2002)

* Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Frantic, 2002)

They make a strong album even stronger.




Gerry Smith

UNCUT – Dadrock and films mag – celebrates its tenth birthday

UNCUT, the Dadrock and films monthly, is celebrating its tenth birthday with a special issue which has just hit the news-stands. I’ve enjoyed the 9 (of 123) issues I’ve bought over the years.

Here’s the ranked list of musicians who’ve stared out from the news-stands on the front cover of a decade’s worth of UNCUTs:

1. Beatles - 11 covers
2. Dylan – 7 covers
3. Stones – 6
4. Pink Floyd – 5
5= Smiths/Mozz; Who; Led Zep; Clash; Bruce; Bowie; REM – 4 covers

Two thirds of the 123 covers feature 1960s/1970s rockers, mostly English.



Gerry Smith

Fopp, outstanding music retailer, in trouble

Music for Grown-Ups has been praising Fopp ever since the small chain started rolling out its refreshing music retailing concept in England.

Its stores, notably the new flagship in London’s Tottenham Court Rd, are my preferred outlet for buying CDs, DVDs and books. Fopp leaves the competition in its slipstream, thanks to its quirky catalogue, some keen pricing, but mostly because its genre classifications – reflected in innovative display – are just so well thought-out.

Bad news this week, though – Fopp seems to be struggling to survive – a one-day closure of stores last Friday, suspension of online sales, cash only in the stores, and the Music Zone stores – their recent acquisition is a likely major cause of Fopp’s woes – closed, as I found when I went to visit the Welwyn Garden City branch yesterday.

All music retailers are currently struggling against free downloads and aggressive online and supermarket discounting. But if all the major chains went under, Fopp is the one I’d miss most.


Gerry Smith

Your armchair guide: Glastonbury on TV

Thanks to Mike Ollier

Friday/Saturday/Sunday on BBC2/BBC3/BBC4 at various times

* Glastonbury Festival
Well, glad I'm not there… crack a warm can open (preferably Fosters or some other equally pissy 'beer'), sit in the shower with a gro-bag, invite a burglar into your home, drop an E or two and have some felafel. Watch on TV. Ah, the festival experience in your own home, and a handy, safe toilet. There, I've saved you a few hundred quid and you haven't contracted trench foot.

You'll have to check times yourself, cos it's on all weekend across three channels (and some radio coverage), but on Friday you'd be a fool to miss Arcade Fire. Amy Winehouse is promised and some loud wannabes. Probably. John Fogerty and Iggy Pop are promised on Saturday.

However, you'll also have to put up with a bunch of entirely unnecessary celebrity presenters, who just get in the way of the music. One can only hope that professional good egg Mark Radcliffe is introducing/interviewing the more watchable performers.

Best Of Van Morrison, Volume 3 – impressive duets, disappointing solo material, puzzling timing

The Best Of Van Morrison Volume 3, released yesterday in the UK (and in the USA on 19 June) is a 2CD album with 31 tracks, dating from the early 1990s to mid-Noughties, including previously unreleased collaborations, as well as duets with greats like John Lee Hooker, B.B. King and Ray Charles.

If you don’t have an extensive Van Morrison collection, the new release – available online from £8.95 delivered – is an impressive round-up of Morrison’s multifarious outings with some of the greats of postwar blues and soul music. Highlights? The Junior Wells and Hooker duets – both spellbinders.

But for this formerly heavy duty Van consumer, CD2 (see below) illustrates just how The Man’s art has careered uncontrollably towards pop pastiche/showbiz/showband in the last ten years, jettisoning former hardcoristas like me along the way. You couldn’t give me most of the solo tracks on CD 2: I’d have dropped them all, in favour of more duets.

The timing of the release, a bare four months after At The Movies, the last EMI Catalogue compilation of Morrison tunes, is puzzling, too. Presumably it’s a new contract and the label wants to maximize its return - rapido. They won’t get much help from me - I haven’t bought a new Van M album this Millennium, and Best Of Volume 3 won’t change that.


Disc 1
1. Cry For Home (with Tom Jones) (previously unreleased)
2. Too Long In Exile
3. Gloria (with John Lee Hooker)
4. Help Me with Junior Wells (live)
5. Lonely Avenue / 4 O' Clock In The Morning (with Jimmy Witherspoon, Candy Dulfer & Jim Hunter) (live)
6. Days Like This
7. Ancient Highway
8. Raincheck
9. Moondance
10. Centerpiece (with Georgie Fame & Annie Ross)
11. That's Life (live)
12. Benediction (remix) (with Georgie Fame & Ben Sidran)
13. The Healing Game (re-mix)
14. I Don't Want To Go On Without You (with Jim Hunter)

Disc 2
1. Shenandoah (with The Chieftains)
2. Precious Time
3. Back On Top (remix)
4. When The Leaves Come Falling Down
5. Lost John (with Lonnie Donegan) (live)
6. Tupelo Honey (with Bobby Bland) (previously unreleased)
7. Meet Me In The Indian Summer (orchestral version) (remix)
8. Georgia On My Mind
9. Hey Mr. DJ
10. Steal My Heart Away
11. Crazy Love (with Ray Charles)
12. Once In A Blue Moon
13. Little Village
14. Blue and Green
15. Sitting On Top Of The World (with Carl Perkins)
16. Early In The Morning (with B.B. King)
17. Stranded



Gerry Smith

Waterboy Mike Scott interview in new Bowie fanzine

Tirelessly promoting Book Of Lightning, the new album, Mike Scott, Head Waterboy, has been turning up all over the media. But nowhere as surprising as the Bowie Zone Fanzine (www.bowiezone.net), the impressive new unofficial website celebrating the art of the great chameleon art rocker.

Scotty fans will love the interview. Bowie followers will want to check out this lovely new site. Grown-up rockers will get a double buzz.


http://www.bowiezone.net/11343/98901.html



Gerry Smith

Bob Marley’s Exodus – 30th anniversary CDs, book, film

Exodus, the quintessential Bob Marley album, first released 30 years ago, has been treated with respect by record label Island/Universal.

Having released re-mastered single CD and De Luxe 2CD versions in 2001, Island have just released no fewer than five 30th Anniversary versions of the great album: single CD, CD/DVD, vinyl LP and – here’s the interesting bit – CD/SD memory card version and CD/USB memory stick version.

The CD/DVD combo looks like the pick of the crop.

Exodus: Bob Marley and The Wailers, a new book (ed Richard Williams, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, £25), published on Thursday, gathers together a collection of articles on the seminal album. Looks interesting.

Bob Marley’s Exodus, Sunday’s Arena programme on BBC2, was disappointing. It made the schoolboy error of playing the album tracks under a series of ill-chosen, unrelated contemporary news clips. And compounded the error by inserting an endless series of inconsequential comments on the album by anonymous wo/men in the street.

The leitmotif of clips from a ceremony dedicating a plaque on a block of flats off London’s Tottenham Court Rd., where Marley briefly lived, was the most squirm-inducing bit of TV I’ve seen for ages.

The Arena documentary was nowhere near as good as three earlier Marley TV documentaries I have on VHS tape: largely unwatchable; a missed opportunity.


Gerry Smith

Major new Paul Weller photo exhibition

Birmingham’s Snap Galleries is notching up some top rock photography exhibitions. Following a top quality Doors show, they’re about to host first major exhibition of Paul Weller photographs, by Lawrence Watson.

Thanks to Guy White, Gallery Director, for details:

Modern Rock ‘n’ Roll - Paul Weller - The Solo Years: The photographs of Lawrence Watson. Saturday 7 July 2007 to 8 September 2007


Lawrence Watson’s first major Paul Weller exhibition to be held in Birmingham

Snap Galleries, a gallery specialising in rock ‘n’ roll photographs, will host a major exhibition of photographs from Lawrence Watson’s renowned Paul Weller archive starting on Saturday 7 July 2007. Snap Galleries is based in a 2,000 sq ft space in Fort Dunlop, one of England’s most recognisable buildings, just outside Birmingham.

The exhibition focuses on Paul Weller’s entire sixteen year (and counting) solo career, a period photographed in its entirety by Lawrence. He first photographed Paul Weller in the last days of The Style Council, and is still photographing him today.

In January 2007 he flew to New York to shoot the three consecutive concerts Paul held play songs from The Jam, The Style Council and his solo period.

Lawrence’s photographic credits do the talking - his work appears on most of Paul Weller’s albums and singles, and his photographs documenting the first few years of Paul Weller’s solo career were published in the 1995 book ‘Days Lose Their Names And Time Slips Away’.

Perhaps Lawrence’s most instantly recognizable image is the silhouette of Paul Weller strumming his guitar in a doorway with a dappled summer scene in the background, used on the cover of 1993’s ‘Wild Wood’. The exhibition features this and a feast of other work, none of which has been exhibited before.

As a video director, Watson also made the acclaimed ‘As Is Now’ DVD documentary, which will be screened regularly throughout the exhibition.

A Thousand Things: the exhibition coincides with the publication of ‘A Thousand Things’, the forthcoming luxury limited edition book by Genesis publications, which covers Paul Weller’s career from The Jam to the present day, and features Lawrence’s photographs alongside images by many other photographers. The book will be available to purchase at the gallery throughout the exhibition.

Snap Galleries Limited, Fort Dunlop, Fort Parkway, Birmingham B24 9FD
www.snapgalleries.com; email: info@snapgalleries.com

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Friday 10.30am-6.00pm, Saturday 11.00-5.00pm


Further background on Lawrence Watson

Lawrence Watson was 17 when he hustled a freelance job at the NME. His first commission was a portrait of a group called Southern Death Cult, who later became The Cult, and whose singer, Ian Astbury, replaced Jim Morrison when The Doors reformed.

He was soon shooting covers on a regular basis. His first was not a musician but a comedian-turned-film star - Eddie Murphy was in town to promote Beverly Hills Cop when Lawrence persuaded him to leave his hotel suite and travel to Bow Street police station, where he posed him beside a pair of London bobbies. For NME he shot, amongst others, The Smiths, David Bowie, KLF, BB King, INXS, Madness and Neneh Cherry.

He shot Lenny Kravitz in Bar Italia, Michael Jordan in his San Antonio dressing room, Snoop Doggy Dogg in a California police cell, and Bobby Womack in what looks like Berwick Street fruit-and-veg market.

More recently Lawrence worked with the artist Peter Blake to photograph the ‘Stop the Clocks’ album cover for Oasis. Lawrence had shot the cover for their album ‘Don’t Believe the Truth’, and accompanied Noel Gallagher on his warm-up gig in Moscow for the Teenager Cancer Trust concerts.

As a video director he has worked with Cast, Echo and the Bunnymen, One Dove, Ian Brown, Travis and, of course, Paul Weller.

For further background on Paul Weller: www.paulweller.com

Background on ‘A thousand things’, the forthcoming limited edition book by Genesis Publications: www.genesis-publications.com

Seven Ages Of Rock (again)

The second age in BBC/VH1’s new Seven Ages Of Rock, shown at the weekend, confirmed the suspicion that the disappointing first programme was no fluke.

After the looney call to focus on Jimi Hendrix in the ‘60s programme, the ‘70s chapter concentrated on Pink Floyd.

Gimme a break.

I just can’t wait to see who the remaining five programmes revolve around. U2 in the ‘80s? George Michael in the ‘90s?

According to the new canon being advanced by this missed opportunity of a series, rock’s even less interesting than I thought.


Gerry Smith

Scott Walker: the grown-up musician’s grown-up musician

Last week’s BBC TV airing of slabs from the spellbinding new Scott Walker film, 30 Century Man, in its Imagine slot, showed just why Walker is the grown-up musician’s grown-up musician. Top art rockers – Eno, Bowie, Jarvis, Radiohead et al - queued up to praise the artistry of the lugubrious baritone.

Walker’s career has been a succession of highs and lows (sometimes simultaneous), and his discography is patchy. But he’s a vastly underrated musician with at least three albums which should be considered for any grown-up collection: Scott Walker 3, Scott Walker 4, and Tilt. Last year’s The Drift is no slouch, either.

Go on, give Scott Walker’s mature music a chance…



Gerry Smith

Dylanesque/Bryan Ferry’s London Sessions DVD – only £6.75!

Thanks to Nigel Boddy:

“Further to your spotting the `bargain of the year' at cd-wow.com for the Dylan Don't Look Back Special Edition DVD, I've noticed the Bryan Ferry - London Sessions (Dylanesque) DVD is priced at £6.75, delivered. (I know it's not released until late June, but it's a still good saving).”

Amy Winehouse in concert in Bristol - magnifico

Amy Winehouse, the first subject in a new series of Vodafone TBA gigs, aired on Sunday night on Channel 4, was filmed in a Bristol church. The exciting new diva – one of the few pop singers to whom that over-used term can be accurately applied – responded with a suitably divine performance. Stone cold sober (see below), she showed just what a strong performer she is.

The TBA series concept is clever marketing – Vodafone txt msgs subscribers to announce a free gig by a hot name, to be held a few hours later. Kids in the area who are up for it presumably register and hurry to the venue (no doubt after texting a few hundred mates).

That said, the Winehouse programme was a disappointment. Its Yoof TV production values restricted clips of the performance to half a dozen three minute songs - in a one hour programme - with the balance taken up by fan vox pops, a presenter loping round scenic Bristol tourist spots, and Amy spouting to camera. Focus on the music, stoopid!



Earlier Music for Grown-Ups feature on Amy Winehouse:

Amy Winehouse live – music for grown-ups, boozing for losers

Amy Winehouse, the exciting young Brit chanteuse, is currently managing the almost impossible - attracting demanding jazz fans, while getting the mass bonehead market to shake its collective ass and persuading 30-something supermarket impulse buyers to throw the new album into the trolley alongside the baked beans and the cat food.

It can’t last forever – at some point, hard artistic choices will have to be made. But, for the moment, Amy Winehouse is setting the popular music agenda in these parts. And producing some great art.

Friday’s screening by BBC 1 of a recent London hotel gig underlined just why she’s making waves – great voice, charismatic on-stage persona, strong material, and a wonderful band.

It also reminded you how it could all end up in tears. Much as a I value non-conformity, the sight of Winehouse clearly under the influence of booze, seeking refuge in a glass throughout the gig, exchanging “f*ck off!s” with a heckler, was dispiriting.

Somebody may be persuading her that playing a foul-mouthed lush is a good career move. Music fans will be praying that wiser counsels prevail. Amy Winehouse is an outstanding young musician; here’s hoping she doesn’t p*ss it all away in show biz excess. Boozing brazenly in public is for losers.



Gerry Smith

The Smiths: a light that will never go out

Let’s be honest, I’d seen the listing in the TV/radio guide and decided naaaah – not even worth recording… it’ll be yet another tedious, glum Manc love-in, blighted by the usual show biz bonehead yap-yap production values of BBC Radio 2.

But, three days later, curiosity led me to “Listen Again” via the web to Radio 2’s Salford Lad, the first in a two-part documentary on Morrissey/The Smiths. I am rather partial to The Smiths’ music, after all…

Confounding my prejudices, it was a lovely programme. Most of the motley crew of interviewees, presenter Stuart Maconie included, had something worthwhile to say. Some of them even said it well.

Mixing the voices of key players, especially Morrissey and Marr, with some spectacular music reminded you just how good The Smiths really were.

I won’t be missing the second part, aired on Saturday 28 April at 2000. It covers Morrissey’s solo career, a yawning gap in my musical knowledge.

You can hear the first programme via the web until Saturday, then the second for the following seven days:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio2


Radio 2 billing (with corrections!):

“Saturday 21/28 April 2000-2100
“It is almost twenty years since Morrissey, England’s most thoughtful and enduring lyricist and singer, launched his solo career. Ever since his emergence as front man with the Smiths in the 1980s his songs have been pored over, analysed and quoted.

“In this two part series for BBC Radio 2 Stuart Maconie tells the story of the Manchester lad who became a British icon. We hear from friends, fans, colleagues and fellow musicians including: Richard Boon, Mike Hinc, Jo Slee, Andrew Paresi, Willy Russell, Badly Drawn Boy, Zoe Williams, John Hegley, Preston, Stephen Street, Tony Visconti, Andy Rourke and Suggs.”



Gerry Smith

The Best Of Van Morrison, Volume 3 - due in June

The Best Of Van Morrison, Volume 3 will be released in the USA on 19 June. The 2CD album has 31 tracks, dating from the early 1990s to mid-Noughties, including previously unreleased collaborations, as well as duets with greats like John Lee Hooker, B.B. King and Ray Charles.

Disc 1
1. Cry For Home (with Tom Jones) (previously unreleased)
2. Too Long In Exile
3. Gloria (with John Lee Hooker)
4. Help Me with Junior Wells (live)
5. Lonely Avenue / 4 O' Clock In The Morning (with Jimmy Witherspoon, Candy Dulfer & Jim Hunter) (live)
6. Days Like This
7. Ancient Highway
8. Raincheck
9. Moondance
10. Centerpiece (with Georgie Fame & Annie Ross)
11. That's Life (live)
12. Benediction (remix) (with Georgie Fame & Ben Sidran)
13. The Healing Game (re-mix)
14. I Don't Want To Go On Without You (with Jim Hunter)


Disc 2
1. Shenandoah (with The Chieftains)
2. Precious Time
3. Back On Top (remix)
4. When The Leaves Come Falling Down
5. Lost John (with Lonnie Donegan) (live)
6. Tupelo Honey (with Bobby Bland) (previously unreleased)
7. Meet Me In The Indian Summer (orchestral version) (remix)
8. Georgia On My Mind
9. Hey Mr. DJ
10. Steal My Heart Away
11. Crazy Love (with Ray Charles)
12. Once In A Blue Moon
13. Little Village
14. Blue and Green
15. Sitting On Top Of The World (with Carl Perkins)
16. Early In The Morning (with B.B. King)
17. Stranded


Yippee! UK date, and discussion of the release, to follow.




Gerry Smith

Dylanesque – BBC radio interview, music mag profile and London gig review

You’d have to be pretty careless to have missed the UK release of Dylanesque, Bryan Ferry’s new album of Bob covers. It’s been everywhere - if I’d been doing the PR, I’d be delighted with the album’s exposure.

Latest sightings include:

* Mark Radcliffe (Ferry fan and the brightest button on BBC Radio) interviews the enigmatic Byron about Dylanesque in tomorrow night’s show, Tuesday 2230 GMT, BBC Radio 2. You can listen on the web as it’s broadcast (and for seven days thereafter).

www.bbc.co.uk/radio2



* Observer Music Monthly profile: Thanks to Martin Cowan: “More from Bryan Ferry in yesterday's Observer Music Monthly:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,2033516,00.html



* And Ferry’s well-received promo tour reached London with a sell-out at London’s Albert Hall. Review from The Independent here:

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article2369594.ece


Gerry Smith

Joss Stone slammed

Let’s be honest. I can’t stand Joss Stone’s music. Or any of her supermarket popster contemporaries – Norah Jones, Katie Melua, Jamie Cullum. Or those earnest young men who drone on from the same hymn sheet.

Why? Because what they offer has been done before, many times over. And it has been done far, far better.

So I was intrigued to see Joss Stone’s new album/gigs slammed in the press. “Big voice, little to say” was the message. Which had been exactly my own reaction when she was being praised to the skies at launch a few years ago.

But to single out Stone for such criticism is very unfair. Hell, all the big soul singers are guilty of the same sin – over-excitable, inappropriate vocals, limited content, poorly expressed. Haven’t the critics currently slamming Stone ever listened carefully to Aretha Franklin or Tina Turner?



Gerry Smith

Amy Winehouse live – music for grown-ups, boozing for losers

Amy Winehouse, the exciting young Brit chanteuse, is currently managing the almost impossible - attracting demanding jazz fans, while getting the mass bonehead market to shake its collective ass and persuading 30-something supermarket impulse buyers to throw the new album into the trolley alongside the baked beans and the cat food.

It can’t last forever – at some point, hard artistic choices will have to be made. But, for the moment, Amy Winehouse is setting the popular music agenda in these parts. And producing some great art.

Friday’s screening by BBC 1 of a recent London hotel gig underlined just why she’s making waves – great voice, charismatic on-stage persona, strong material, and a wonderful band.

It also reminded you how it could all end up in tears. Much as a I value non-conformity, the sight of Winehouse clearly under the influence of booze, seeking refuge in a glass throughout the gig, exchanging “f*ck off!s” with a heckler, was dispiriting.

Somebody may be persuading her that playing a foul-mouthed lush is a good career move. Music fans will be praying that wiser counsels prevail. Amy Winehouse is an outstanding young musician; here’s hoping she doesn’t p*ss it all away in show biz excess. Boozing brazenly in public is for losers.


Gerry Smith

Another (different) TV gig of Bryan Ferry promoting Dylanesque

If you missed Friday’s delightful Bryan Ferry Dylan covers gig on BBC TV, there’s a second chance to see the material performed in a different gig recorded for competing TV station Channel 4.

It airs at 1210-0115 next Saturday night, 3 March, ie two days before the keenly awaited album goes on sale here.

Gerry Smith




My review of Friday’s TV gig:

Bryan Ferry excels in Dylan covers gig: review/setlist/video link

The 45 minutes of Bryan Ferry’s Dylanesque promo gig, which has just finished on BBC1 TV, saw England’s rags-to-riches rocker delivering an inspired set. Ferry was backed by a lively band – a rock quartet, filled out by piano, keyboards/viola, horn(s), and a pair of tumultuous gospel-tinged backing vocalists.

The broadcast component of Ferry’s set, recorded at the lovely ex-church, LSO St Luke’s, London, was a rich mix of Ferry/Roxy favourites, interleaved with Dylan covers:

SETLIST:
1. The In Crowd (Ferry – Another Time, Another Place)
2. All Along The Watchtower (Dylan – JWH)
3. Slave To Love (Ferry - Boys And Girls)
4. Make You Feel My Love (Dylan – TOOM)
5. Let’s Stick Together (Ferry – Let’s Stick Together)
6. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Dylan – H61R)
7. Don’t Stop The Dance (Ferry – Boys And Girls)
8. Gates Of Eden (Dylan – BIABH)
9. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Ferry - Another Time, Another Place)
10. I Put A Spell On You (Ferry – Taxi)
11. A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall (Dylan – TFBD)
12. Jealous Guy (Roxy – single)

Ferry’s treatment of the five Dylan covers was both soulful and reverential. He worked the nuances of each tune. His occasionally melodramatic delivery served to highlight the majesty of both the Dylan and the other songs in the set. He delivered some well-felt, lively harp on songs 6 and 8, too: bonus!

It was instructive (if predictable) to hear how well the Dylan material sat alongside the old Jerome Kern standard, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

The only slight weakness of a delightful gig was the choice of final tune – a weak song by an over-rated writer, with an appropriately weakly whistled outro.

Overall, this was a lovely show – the best rockpop gig I’ve seen for some time. Now, is it too late to I book for Ferry’s forthcoming UK tour… ?

You can see a splendid 15 min video, with clips of the gig, plus a Ferry interview discussing the Dylanesque release (due 5 March – yummy!), as well as an album review, and related Roxy Music stuff:

www.bbc.co.uk/music



Gerry Smith

Bryan Ferry excels in Dylan covers gig: review/setlist/video link

The 45 minutes of Bryan Ferry’s Dylanesque promo gig, which has just finished on BBC1 TV, saw England’s rags-to-riches rocker delivering an inspired set. Ferry was backed by a lively band – a rock quartet, filled out by piano, keyboards/viola, horn(s), and a pair of tumultuous gospel-tinged backing vocalists.

The broadcast component of Ferry’s set, recorded at the lovely ex-church, LSO St Luke’s, London, was a rich mix of Ferry/Roxy favourites, interleaved with Dylan covers:

SETLIST:
1. The In Crowd (Ferry – Another Time, Another Place)
2. All Along The Watchtower (Dylan – JWH)
3. Slave To Love (Ferry - Boys And Girls)
4. Make You Feel My Love (Dylan – TOOM)
5. Let’s Stick Together (Ferry – Let’s Stick Together)
6. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Dylan – H61R)
7. Don’t Stop The Dance (Ferry – Boys And Girls)
8. Gates Of Eden (Dylan – BIABH)
9. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Ferry - Another Time, Another Place)
10. I Put A Spell On You (Ferry – Taxi)
11. A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall (Dylan – F)
12. Jealous Guy (Roxy – single)

Ferry’s treatment of the five Dylan covers was both soulful and reverential. He worked the nuances of each tune. His occasionally melodramatic delivery served to highlight the majesty of both Dylan and the other songs in the set. He delivered some well-felt, lively harp on songs 6 and 8, too: bonus!

It was instructive (if predictable) to hear how well the Dylan material sat alongside the old Jerome Kern standard, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

The only slight weakness of a delightful gig was the choice of final tune – a weak song by an over-rated writer, with an appropriately weakly whistled outro.

Overall, this was a lovely show – the best rockpop gig I’ve seen for some time. Now, is it too late to I book for Ferry’s forthcoming UK tour… ?

You can see a splendid 15 min video, with clips of the gig, plus a Ferry interview discussing the Dylanesque release (due 5 March – yummy!), as well as an album review, and related Roxy Music stuff:

www.bbc.co.uk/music



Gerry Smith

Amy Winehouse: music for grown-ups

If you’re reading this outside the UK, the name Amy Winehouse will probably be new you – the word is that she has yet to be promoted overseas.

If you’re in the UK, you can hardly have escaped Ms Winehouse. Back To Black, her chart-topping second album, her colourful lifetyle, and triumph at last week’s Brits awards, have made her the best-publicised English pop persona since, er, Oasis.

Back To Black, the new album, released before Xmas, has already stacked up 700,000 sales. Frank, her fine debut album, was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2003.

A fine, ballsy songwriter blessed with an authentic soul/jazz/r&b voice and on-stage charisma, Winehouse is a massive new talent. Lovely tone. Fine range. Convincing actress. And – bonus – she swings.

But, because she was cross-promoted at launch to the supermarket crowd with a bunch of less talented Brit “jazz” singers, I’d dismissed her, along with the rest of the wannabes.

Mistake. Amy’s the first pop star to have made me pay serious attention for many years. Music for grown-ups? From a boozy, potty-mouthed, loose-lipped 23 year old? You bet.

Best check out Amy Winehouse - rapido!


Gerry Smith