Album Review: Bryan Ferry, "Avonmore" (2014)

Album cover of "Avonmore," showing a young Bryan Ferry from the 1970's.

This is the cover image that Amazon showed for Bryan Ferry's "Avonmore" before it was released.

Bryan Ferry, mid-1970's, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.

Bryan Ferry in 2014, still as handsome and well-dressed as ever.

Bryan Ferry’s 15^th solo studio album “Avonmore” was released last month, and it’s yet another excellent piece of smooth pop from the former Roxy Music frontman. Ferry’s music hasn’t changed a great deal since 1980 or so, when the rough edges got sanded off of Roxy Music, but he still puts out perfectly glossy, elegant records full of beautiful midnight ennui. Ferry’s solo albums since 1985’s “Boys and Girls” are usually as smooth as a pane of glass, and “Avonmore” is no exception to that. 

“Avonmore” features eight new Ferry originals and two covers. Ferry is in great voice throughout the record. His voice has been burnished by the years, and that brings a certain melancholic quality to it that fits his songs very well. Ferry’s voice now sounds as world-weary as his songs have always been. “Avonmore” was produced by Ferry and Rhett Davies, who has worked with him off and on since the Roxy Music days. There are a lot of layers of sound going on, but “Avonmore” never feels overproduced. Ferry is supported by an all-star cast of musicians, including Nile Rodgers, Johnny Marr, Mark Knopfler, and Flea. Ferry’s son Tara plays drums on all of the songs, except for “Johnny and Mary,” and Ferry himself plays keyboards throughout the album. 

The track listing for “Avonmore” is as follows:

“Loop De Li”: A catchy song, featuring some hallmarks of Roxy Music’s sound, like an oboe and a saxophone. Ferry’s lyrics tell the story of someone caught in a pattern or loop with no way out. Ferry sings, “Well I know you know/we’re killing time/we’re on an up down see-saw/loop de li.” A beautiful portrait of alienation.

“Midnight Train”: There are 9 guitarists on this song! But somehow it doesn’t sound overstuffed, just polished like a smooth river stone. “Midnight Train” is one of my favorite songs on the album. Ferry has a way of making lyrics that could sound like clichés sound fresh. The song is full of romantic yearning, as Ferry sings, “I’ll never know/the meaning of your kiss/midnight train/must it end/like this?” I can just imagine Ferry standing forlornly at a train station, waiting for his girlfriend to come back, looking sad and handsome in a trench coat smoking a cigarette. 

“Soldier of Fortune”: Co-written with Johnny Marr, the guitarist from The Smiths. It has a laid-back insistence. Features some great guitar playing, this time from only 3 guitarists. As usual, Ferry is in pain in this song, as he sings, “I’m going out of my mind/and I won’t be back again.” 

“Driving Me Wild”: This song has something of an ominous feeling, as Bryan sings in the first verse, “My heart is pounding/I’m trembling with rage/I’m wrestling with my demons/on every page.” A woman is driving him wild, and Ferry sinks deeper into anguish: “No dream will ever be the same/everything around me calls your name.” This song has one of my favorite lyrics on the album: “I’m dealing with a feeling/that nobody knows/an unkindness of ravens/a murder of crows.” I knew that the proper term for a gathering of crows is a “murder” but I had no idea until I heard this song that the term for a gathering of ravens is an “unkindness.” Those very loaded terms just add to the unease of the song.

“A Special Kind of Guy”: Ferry is once again lovelorn, as he wishes that he could have the love of the girl in this song. Ferry sings that she needs “A special kind of guy/would take you by the hand/for all the world to see/wish it could be me.” This song is a good showcase for Ferry’s piano and keyboard work. It’s a beautiful song, melancholy, elegant, and yearning. 

“Avonmore”: This is one of my favorite songs on the album. There’s an intensity to the rhythm of the song that I really like, and that reminds me a little bit of the Roxy Music song “Both Ends Burning.” Once again, Ferry plays the yearning romantic, as he sings on this chorus: “I want a love that’s never ending/through all the thunder and the rain/but there’s no sense in pretending/I know I’ll never fall in love again.” Features a lovely saxophone solo from Richard White. 

“Lost”: A slow ballad that features Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits on guitar. Another romantic song for late at night.

“One Night Stand”: A funky song about the possibility of finding love with that stranger on the dance floor. Like “Midnight Train,” this song also features 9 guitarists, but again it doesn’t feel like too much. Ferry sings, “In the mood and in the dark/can you mend that broken heart?” We don’t know what the answer will be, but I’m guessing from the melancholy nature of this album it’s probably no. 

“Send in the Clowns”: Bryan Ferry singing Stephen Sondheim? Sure, why not. Ferry has always had success with unlikely cover versions, from the very beginning of his solo career. This is a lovely version of this standard from “A Little Night Music.” Ferry’s voice adds the necessary pathos, but he keeps it from going over the top. Nice trumpet solo from Enrico Tomasso. 

“Johnny and Mary”: Ferry’s cover of Robert Palmer’s 1980 hit single jettisons the nervous, New Wave energy of the original, drastically slows it down, and strips the song down to its basics. It’s brilliant and beautiful, and it starts with just a murmuring synth line and finger snaps. This version was originally recorded for Norwegian DJ Todd Terje's album “It’s Album Time,” released in April, 2014. I really love Robert Palmer’s version of “Johnny and Mary,” so I was excited to hear what Bryan Ferry would do with it. I love the lyrics to this song, as Palmer paints a vivid picture of this couple: “Johnny’s always running around/trying to find certainty/he needs all the world to confirm/that he ain’t lonely/Mary counts the walls/knows he tires easily.” Ferry’s version plays up the paranoia in the song, inherent in lyrics like “Scared that he’ll be caught/without a second thought.” “Johnny and Mary” moves at a languid pace, stretching out over nearly seven minutes, and I find it mesmerizing. A great ending to a marvelous album. 

My three favorite songs from “Avonmore” are “Midnight Train,” “Avonmore,” and “Johnny and Mary.” If you like Bryan Ferry or Roxy Music, go out and get “Avonmore,” pour yourself a drink, listen to it late at night and let the music wash over you.

Book Review: Conversations with William F. Buckley, Jr. edited by William F. Meehan III (2009)

Conversations with William F. Buckley Jr., 2009.

William F. Buckley looking like a rock star riding his moped in New York City in the 1960's.

William F. Buckley at his desk.

I’ve written about William F. Buckley before on this blog, as I recently reviewed his novel Saving the Queen and I wrote a very long piece about his fascinating book Overdrive, which chronicled a week in his fast-moving life. My political sympathies run to the opposite end of the spectrum from the late Mr. Buckley, but that does not preclude my enjoyment of his writings and his personal style. I’m also an admirer of his son Christopher, who has written many very funny satirical novels. 

Having thus established my Buckley bona fides, I turn to the subject at hand: the 2009 book Conversations with William F. Buckley, Jr. It’s from the long-running “Literary Conversations Series” published by the University Press of Mississippi, and these volumes have proven to be endlessly fascinating for fans of the authors profiled. The University Press of Mississippi has done readers an immeasurable service through this series by rounding up these interviews and collecting them in one volume. The volume on William F. Buckley is shorter than those on other writers, as it runs just 186 pages. 

The earliest interview in the book is from Playboy magazine in 1970, and it’s arguably the most interesting, as Buckley holds court on all manner of topics. The Playboy interview is also by far the longest included, as it runs for more than 40 pages. One of Buckley’s funniest quips from that interview is when he says that too many people are voting, and the interviewer asks him who he would exclude from voting. Buckley’s response is: “A while ago, George Gallup discovered that 25 percent or so of the American people had never heard of the United Nations. I think if we could find that 25 percent, they’d be reasonable candidates for temporary disenfranchisement.” (p.24) Buckley’s quote reminds me of Gore Vidal’s witty remark: “Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President. One hopes it is the same half.” 

Most of the later interviews in the book discuss Buckley’s novel writing, so there is some repetition as Buckley describes his working methods again and again. The interviews that delve into politics the most are the Playboy interview and an interesting 1978 interview with The American Civil Liberties Review. The focus on Buckley’s novels makes sense given the interests of William F. Meehan III, the editor of the book, as he wrote a dissertation on Buckley’s fiction.

Conversations with William F. Buckley sheds more light on the fascinating personality of one of the 20^th century’s most prolific public intellectuals. Surprisingly enough, Buckley claimed that he didn’t enjoy writing, as he says in a 1978 interview, “I get pleasure out of having written. I like to paint. I don’t like writing, but there is a net satisfaction when it’s done.” (p.75) In another interview from 1978, Buckley shared the success of his famous productivity: “Deadlines. I have deadlines for everything. I find them liberating.” (p.69) Buckley expounded a little more in a 1983 interview: “I had three deadlines this weekend. And because they simply had to be done, they were done. And if you know that you’ve got to phone in six columns, they get phoned in. The people I pity are not the people who have deadlines, they’re the people who don’t have deadlines.” (p.84) That sounds easy enough, right? Just set some deadlines for yourself and you’ll soon be as productive as William F. Buckley. I think it helped that Buckley had a tremendous work ethic.

Throughout the book, Buckley comes across as smart, witty, funny, and someone who must have been a lot of fun to hang out with. I’d recommend Conversations with William F. Buckley to anyone with an interest in this fascinating, entertaining, sesquipedalian writer and thinker.

Book Review: Saving the Queen, by William F. Buckley (1976)

Cover of Saving the Queen, by William F. Buckley, 1976.

The back cover of Saving the Queen: William F. Buckley in his limo with one of his Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Talk about multitasking!

In the mid-1970’s, William F. Buckley decided that merely writing a newspaper column three times a week, hosting a weekly television show, and editing a biweekly magazine wasn’t quite enough frenetic activity for him, so he tried his hand at novel writing. Buckley spent two months every winter in Switzerland, and he figured that after skiing in the afternoon he should be able to bang out 1,500 words every day and thus by the end of his “vacation” have a draft of a novel. Since William F. Buckley seemed to have more energy than three people combined, this plan worked. Buckley’s first novel, Saving the Queen, was published in 1976, and it introduced the world to dashing CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Saving the Queen was a success, and Buckley would go on to pen 11 novels featuring Oakes. 

Saving the Queen is a decent enough potboiler, but it doesn’t have the tension of great thrillers. Blackford Oakes is just too ridiculously perfect to be very entertaining, and everything falls together much too easily for him. Oakes saves the fictional Queen Caroline of Great Britain, and sleeps with her, all without breaking a sweat. Saving the Queen takes place in 1952, and someone close to the Queen is leaking information about the hydrogen bomb to the Soviets. Oakes’s mission is to find out who the mole is, and he figures that out far too easily, since it’s the only person he meets that is close to the Queen. Oh, and the Queen readily tells Oakes who amongst her inner circle has a suspiciously high curiosity level about the hydrogen bomb. Well, that was easy!

Buckley admitted that he deliberately made Oakes a flawless character, saying in a 1985 interview, “I made Blackford Oakes such a shining perfection to irritate, infuriate the critics, and I scored!” (Conversations with William F. Buckley, p. 91) That’s all well and good, but it makes Oakes a little, well, boring. He never says or does the wrong thing, so we never actually get worried for Oakes. Some critics at the time charged that Oakes was nothing more than an idealized version of William F. Buckley himself, but I don’t think that’s true. Although there are some surface similarities between Oakes and Buckley, they are quite different people. Buckley, who was himself briefly a CIA agent, also deliberately puts the CIA in the best possible light, since it was Buckley’s contention that the CIA was on the side of good, and the Soviets were on the bad side. There are no shades of grey in this book, only black and white. Buckley was writing about the CIA during a rather thorny time in the history of the agency, as the Rockefeller Commission, led by then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, was taking an interest in the legality and morality of the CIA’s actions. Even though his novel was set in the past, Buckley felt he had to address the Rockefeller Commission, and he does so in a clunky prologue and epilogue. Despite Buckley’s attempts to put a heroic gloss on the CIA, I found Boris Bolgin, the Russian NKVD agent, to be the most interesting character in the book. Bolgin’s main goals in life are avoiding having to express any political opinions of his own, and to never have his name mentioned to Stalin. 

One problem I had with Saving the Queen is that all of the characters talk like William F. Buckley. While that means that everyone is fabulously intelligent and witty, with the vocabulary of an unabridged dictionary, it also means that the characters all sound the same, which makes the book a trifle dull.

Saving the Queen is a moderately entertaining thriller that I would recommend only to William F. Buckley fans or diehard Cold Warriors.

Concert Review: Nick Lowe, Los Straitjackets, and The Cactus Blossoms at First Avenue

Nick Lowe, frolicking in the snow and being left-handed. (Left-handed people are the best. Nick Lowe, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, David Byrne and Philip Roth are all left-handed. I rest my case.)

Album cover of Nick Lowe's "Quality Street," 2013.

The Cactus Blossoms

Nick Lowe, one of my favorite artists, came to the Twin Cities again this week as he performed at First Avenue on Tuesday with Los Straitjackets backing him. Veteran British rocker Ian McLagan was due to open the show, but sadly he passed away on Tuesday after suffering a stroke on Monday. I was looking forward to seeing McLagan, who was the keyboard player with the Small Faces and the Faces. Local duo The Cactus Blossoms filled in for McLagan on the bill, and they did a great job. The Cactus Blossoms are two brothers, Jack Torrey and Page Burkum, who specialize in Western swing, and their voices combine just as beautifully as the Everly Brothers. Torrey and Burkum performed as a duo, with just their acoustic guitars, and that worked very well for their sound. One of the highlights of their set was a lovely cover of the Beatles’ “This Boy.” 

Lowe took the stage alone and sang the first few songs of his set solo, which always highlights what a great guitar player he is, and how good his songs are. Lowe spoke a little about McLagan’s tragic passing and that he would have wanted the show to carry on. As Nick played “7 Nights to Rock,” Los Straitjackets came onto the stage to accompany him. Los Straitjackets proved to be an inspired choice to back Lowe, as their 1960’s surf/garage rock style worked very well on rockers like “Ragin’ Eyes” and “Half a Boy and Half a Man.” Los Straitjackets also brought a palpable energy to the stage, and when Lowe left the stage for a break they entertained with instrumental versions of “Sleigh Ride,” “Bus Stop,” “Linus and Lucy,” and Lowe’s own “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass.” 

Although the tour’s official title is the “Quality Holiday Revue,” taking its title from Lowe’s 2013 Christmas CD “Quality Street,” Nick only sang four holiday songs. But I don’t think the audience minded. Lowe sang a lot of his best-known songs, but the set list also featured songs I haven’t heard him sing live before, like “The Rose of England” and “Half a Boy and Half a Man.” Lowe brought his customary energy and good humor to the stage, and the highlights of the concert for me were a lovely solo version of “Heart,” the slyly humorous “Christmas at the Airport,” and two great tracks from Nick’s 2007 album “At My Age,” “Not Too Long Ago,” and “Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day.” Lowe closed the evening by singing a beautiful solo version of Elvis Costello’s “Alison,” a song that Nick originally produced for Costello’s debut 1977 album, “My Aim Is True.” Lowe’s soulful voice and spare guitar worked well to bring out all of the emotion in Costello’s song. 

Here’s the set list for the songs that Nick Lowe sang:

Solo:

The Rose of England

Heart

Long Limbed Girl

A Dollar Short of Happy

7 Nights to Rock

With Los Straitjackets:

Only a Fool Breaks His Own Heart

Ragin’ Eyes

Christmas at the Airport

Not Too Long Ago

Sensitive Man

Somebody Cares For Me

North Pole Express

Half a Boy and Half a Man

Cruel to be Kind

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday

I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)

Encore:

Tokyo Bay

(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?

Second encore:

Alison-solo