Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry CBE (born 26 September 1945) is an English singer and songwriter who was the frontman of the band Roxy Music and also a solo artist.[2] His distinctive voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon".[3] He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style: according to The Independent, Ferry and his contemporary David Bowie influenced a generation with both their music and their appearances.[4] Peter York described Ferry as "an art object" who "should hang in the Tate".[5]
Bryan Ferry
26 September 1945[1]
Washington, County Durham, England
- Singer
- songwriter
- musician
- Vocals
- keyboards
- harmonica
1967–present
Born to a working-class family, Ferry studied fine art and taught at a secondary school before pursuing a career in music. In 1970 he began to assemble Roxy Music with a group of friends and acquaintances in London, and took the role of lead singer and main songwriter. The band achieved immediate international success with the release of their self-titled debut album in 1972, containing a rich multitude of sounds, which reflected Ferry's interest in exploring different genres of music. Their second album, For Your Pleasure (1973), further cultivated the band's unique sound and visual image that would establish Ferry as a leading cultural icon over the next decade.[6]
Ferry began a parallel solo career in 1973 by releasing These Foolish Things, which popularized the concept of a contemporary musician releasing an album covering standard songs and was a drastic departure from his ongoing work with Roxy Music. His second album, Another Time, Another Place (1974), featured as its cover image Ferry posing by a pool in a white dinner jacket and represented one of his most impactful fashion statements.[7] Over the next two years, Roxy Music released a trilogy of albums, Stranded (1973), Country Life (1974) and Siren (1975), which broadened the band's appeal internationally and saw Ferry take greater interest in the role of a live performer, reinventing himself in stage costumes ranging from gaucho to military uniforms. In 1983, following the release of their best-selling album Avalon the previous year, Ferry disbanded Roxy Music to concentrate on his solo career, with his next album, 1985's Boys and Girls, reaching No. 1 in the UK and featuring the hit singles "Slave to Love" and "Don't Stop the Dance", while the follow up album Bête Noire went Top 10 in the UK in 1987 [8]
As well as being a prolific songwriter, Ferry has recorded many cover versions, including standards from the Great American Songbook, in albums such as These Foolish Things (1973), Another Time, Another Place (1974), Let's Stick Together (1976), Taxi (1993) and As Time Goes By (1999), as well as Dylanesque (2007), an album of Bob Dylan covers.[9] Including his work with Roxy Music, Ferry has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.[10] In 2019, Ferry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.[11]
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$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#0__call_to_action.textDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$Early life[edit]
Ferry was born in Washington, County Durham, son of Mary Ann and Frederick Charles Ferry.[12][13] His parents were working-class: his father was a farm labourer who also looked after pit ponies.[1][12] He attended Washington Grammar-Technical School[14] (now called Washington Academy) on Spout Lane from 1957.[2]
As a child he had a job as a paperboy and bought jazz magazines with his earnings.[15][16] He studied fine art at Newcastle University from 1964 until 1968, under Richard Hamilton for one year,[1][17] and some of his paintings were displayed at the Tate Gallery in 1970.[18] His contemporaries included Tim Head[19] and Nick de Ville.[20] During this period, Ferry was a member of the bands the Banshees,[21] City Blues, and the Gas Board, the latter of which featured his university classmates Graham Simpson and John Porter.[22][23][24] He then moved to London in 1968 and taught art and pottery at Holland Park School while pursuing a career in music.[25]
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Personal life[edit]
Style and influence[edit]
Ferry's vocal style is regarded as unique and highly influential. When asked for examples of singers she studied, Kate Bush remarked "I thought [Ferry] was the most exciting singer that I'd heard ... For me it covered the whole emotional spectrum, and I just couldn't get enough of it."[77] In reviewing a 1975 Roxy Music concert, The Village Voice described Ferry's voice as "a second tenor which lacks vocal antecedent", going further to note, "his voice operates on the same principle as hotel room service. Studied effects appear with hazy origins, use themselves up, and are removed without explanation."[78] In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Ferry at number 150 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[79]
Inducting Roxy Music into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon described Ferry's lyric writing as "open-heart surgery".[80]
In addition to his contributions to music, Ferry has also come to be known for his distinctive style and artistic sensibilities as well as a "synonym for cool".[80] In 2005, GQ presented Ferry with its Lifetime Achievement Award, deeming him "pop's original art-school bobby-dazzler" and noting his solo career spent as the "world's best-dressed and most languidly mannered deluxe chanteur".[81] Esquire has noted Ferry's lifelong obsession with clothing and describing any in-person interaction with him as a "bespoke event, a louche ensemble of elegant affectations".[82] In 2007, Belgian fashion designer Dries van Noten created a Fall 2007 collection inspired by outfits Ferry wore during his solo career and tenure with Roxy Music.[83]
In his 1976 essay "Them", cultural critic Peter York described Ferry as "the best possible example of the ultimate art-directed existence" and suggested he was the most important pasticheur in Britain at the time.[5] Ferry has credited numerous art and film influences throughout his career, among them Richard Hamilton, Marcel Duchamp, and Humphrey Bogart. Hamilton is credited by Ferry as an inspiration to him both as an artist and as a person, and is also responsible for introducing Ferry as an art student to Duchamp's work. The title of Ferry's 1978 solo album The Bride Stripped Bare is taken from Duchamp's classic work The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even.[84] For Bogart, Ferry penned the song "2HB" ("2HB" = "To Humphrey Bogart"), leading the band Madness to record "4BF" ("for Bryan Ferry"), on their 1988 album The Madness. Phil Manzanera – who would become Roxy Music's guitarist – recalls, during his audition to join the band, that Ferry and he discussed Humphrey Bogart and classic films from the golden age of Hollywood.[85]
Relationships and family[edit]
In 1975, Ferry began a relationship with model Jerry Hall. They first met when she appeared on the album cover for Siren (1975), which was photographed in Wales during the summer of 1975. According to Harper's Bazaar, the photo shoot boosted Hall's status as an international celebrity.[86][87] Her stay at Ferry's Holland Park (London) home, following the album photo shoot, marked the start of their relationship. Hall and Ferry lived together, sharing homes in London and in the Bel Air neighbourhood of Los Angeles, and Hall also appeared in some of Ferry's solo music videos, including "Let's Stick Together" and "The Price of Love" (both 1976).[88] Their relationship ended when she left him for Mick Jagger in late 1977.
Ferry rarely talks about Hall, but fans have often speculated his song "Kiss and Tell" from his album Bête Noire (1987) was his response to Hall's 1985 tell-all book in which she discussed their relationship.[89] Additionally, Ferry's 1978 solo album The Bride Stripped Bare is widely believed[90] to contain allusions to his break-up with Hall, particularly the song "When She Walks in the Room".
On 26 June 1982, Ferry married London socialite Lucy Helmore, who had become pregnant with their child Otis (b. 1 November 1982). Though her face is not seen, Helmore was the model on the front cover of Roxy Music's album Avalon (1982), released a month before their wedding.[91] The couple had three more sons, Isaac,[92] Tara, and Merlin.[91] After 21 years of marriage the couple divorced in 2003. Helmore died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2018, while on holiday in County Clare, Ireland, after what her brother described as "a long battle with depression".[93] Ferry said he was "saddened and shocked" by her death.[94]
In 2000, the whole Ferry family were on British Airways Flight 2069 to Nairobi when a passenger forced his way into the cockpit, attacked the pilot and caused the plane to lurch downwards. The assailant eventually was overcome, and the pilot recovered from a descent of 12,000 feet in 25 seconds; the fastest rate of descent from which any civil aircraft has ever recovered.[91][95]
Ferry's son Otis has become known in the British media for his pro-hunting political activities. He has been arrested and charged several times for activities relating to hunting, only one of which led to a conviction.[96] In 2004 he was among pro-hunt campaigners who stormed into the chambers of the House of Commons during a debate on the banning of hunting. He was charged with disorderly conduct.[97] Otis was also a joint master of the South Shropshire hunt.[91][98]
By 2008, Ferry's son Tara was performing in a rock band called Rubber Kiss Goodbye.[99] By 2008, Merlin was studying for "A" Levels at Marlborough College,[99] and then played guitar in a band called Voltorb. Ferry's children have also contributed to his albums Olympia and Avonmore. On Olympia, Tara played drums on several tracks, Merlin played guitar on one track, and Isaac was the producer of the album's artwork.[100] Tara also toured with Ferry (and Roxy Music) on the band's 2011 For Your Pleasure tour, performing additional drums.[101]
Ferry's youngest son, Merlin, was seriously injured in a head-on car crash in Shropshire in December 2014.[102]
Ferry and Helmore split in the early 2000s after she had an affair, and they divorced in 2003.[91] After their separation, British newspapers photographed Ferry with Katie Turner, 35 years his junior, naming her as his new girlfriend.[39] Ferry and Turner met while she worked as one of the dancers on Roxy Music's concert tour in 2001 (and is featured on the DVD of the 2001 Hammersmith Odeon show). She appeared with Ferry on several TV shows to promote the Frantic album, and performed on the Frantic tour in 2002. After their break-up, Ferry had a relationship with British socialite Lady Emily Compton.[13] In 2006, he resumed his relationship with Katie Turner for some time.[103]
In 2009, Ferry began a relationship with Amanda Sheppard, an acquaintance of one of his sons, and on 4 January 2012, they married in a private ceremony on the Turks and Caicos Islands.[104][105] In August 2013, it was reported that the couple were to separate after 19 months of marriage, and they divorced in 2014.[106][107]
Ferry was estimated to have a fortune of £30 million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2010.[108]
Politics[edit]
In 1988, Ferry referred to himself as "sort of conservative" in his beliefs in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. He also expressed support for having a strong work ethic, stating "most of my life is spent working hard. I come from the kind of working-class background where you have to work very hard and if you don't, you feel guilty."[109]
In 2007, controversy arose when Ferry praised the imagery and iconography of Nazi Germany in an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, citing in particular "Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings". In the same interview Ferry was reported to have referred to his West London recording studio as "The Führerbunker" (Adolf Hitler's bunker during World War II).[110][111][112] Ferry later issued a public apology for any offence caused by the comments.[113] Jewish Labour peer Greville Janner criticised Ferry for his remarks.[114] At the time of the controversy, Ferry was contracted to the British retailer Marks & Spencer, one of whose co-founders Michael Marks was Jewish, to model its "Autograph" menswear line. Despite Ferry's public apology for his comments, Marks & Spencer opted to sever its ties with him.[115][114]
In 2007, Ferry performed at a concert to raise funds for the Countryside Alliance.[116]
In 2008, Ferry indicated that he supported the Conservative Party, referring to himself as "conservative by nature" but essentially apolitical, preferring not to mix art with politics. Without elaborating, he stated he was "proud" of his son Otis and described the then Labour Government's ban on fox hunting as "futile". He also expressed an opposition to "left-wing bitterness" and political correctness, arguing both were stifling to individual liberty and freedom of expression. The model of free speech he cited was the 1970s.[117] In a 2009 interview, Ferry stated:
In 2012, Ferry was a guest at the Conservative Party's black-and-white ball.[118] In 2020, he described incumbent Prime Minister Boris Johnson as "bright" but expressed a reluctance to discuss politics.[119]
In August 2014, Ferry was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.[120]
In other media[edit]
In 1985, Ferry contributed the song "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" to the Ridley Scott film Legend.[121] The song, featuring guitar work by David Gilmour, plays during the end credits of the US theatrical release, and was released with the Tangerine Dream version of the soundtrack on CD (although this is out of print and rare). A promotional music video was created, integrating Ferry and Gilmour into scenes from the film; this is included as a bonus in Ferry's 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release. The song was later covered by How to Destroy Angels for the soundtrack to the 2011 US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.[122] A heavily fictionalised version of Ferry featured in the last episode of the first series of The Mighty Boosh. In it, he lived in the forest and raised the character Vince Noir alongside multiple animals.[123][124]