BRYAN FERRY BLINDFOLD TEST

(Bryan Ferry is Roxy Music’s founder, lead singer and creative focus. He is also — as evidenced by his solo album These Foolish Things and most recent single, a crushing up-date of Dobie Gray’s “The In Crowd” — an afficionado of pop music, past and present. When Ferry visited Boston on a recent promotional excursion, he agreed to comment on a selection of vintage pop cuts. He was given no information about the records played. — Ed.)

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: “Dog Breath in the Year of the Plague,” from Uncle Meat (Bizarre).

“That’s Frank Zappa, and the Mothers. I don’t like their music too much, but I admire the scope of Zappa’s conception, the fact they had a huge band, brass and everything. Some of his guitar playing I like, although there’s too much wah-wah. I think the best thing about the Mothers’ records is that saxophone player he records with. Ian Underwood. I also like the way Zappa goes from mood to mood. It sounds like good music for a cartoon, doesn’t it? But I don’t really go in for this much; I find it a bit tedious and boring, the fact that it’s mainly instrumental. I’m not very much into instrumental music at the moment. Since I’ve started Roxy, I’ve gotten increasingly involved in vocal

things, and the words.”

Frank Sinatra: “Learnin’ the Blues,” (Captiol). Arranged by Nelson Riddle.

“Frank Sinatra. A great influence. I liked all his records. This is a Nelson Riddle arrangement; I like those muted trumpets in the back. His phrasing is very inventive; I think he’s one of the great white singers, he would be on my list of top singers. Most of them would be black: Billie Holiday, Smokey Robinson, Otis Redding. And one European, Lotte Lenya.”

"I don t know who it is, but I can see what they’re wearing."

P.J. Proby: “Que Sera, Sera” from Somewhere (Liberty).

“P.J. Proby, eh? Have you heard the Sly and the Family Stone version of that? It’s really a masterpiece. Proby, his range, he’s really an incredible singer. He used to cut demos for Elvis; he even claimed that Presley would copy his phrasing on some songs.”

Marlene Dietrich: “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe eingestellt,” from the film “The Blue Angel.”

“On ‘A Song For Europe,’ I originally wanted to do this song — you know about the Eurovision Song Contest?

Each year they choose a song for Europe. It’s very strange, like the Olympic Games, you have a contest of songs. It seemed like a camp gesture, it appealed to my sense of humor, to do a song called ‘A Song for Europe’ for this contest. Originally, I planned to do each verse in a different language. And I wanted to do a German verse not unlike the style of this. But Andy MacKay came up with a tune, which seemed very European, and I just wrote the lyrics. There weren’t enough verses to do what I wanted to do; so in the future you might expect me to do something in the German language. That’s “Falling in Love Again.’ This might be a recording of Dietrich, but it doesn’t sound like her to me. Things like this have been an influence, any music from films.”

The Hilltoppers: “P.S. I Love You” (Dot).

“I don’t know who it is, but I have a very good picture of them. I can’t see their faces, but I can see what they’re wearing. My aunt used to have a lot of records like this. She gave me all her Ink Spots collection, which was a great influence. The Beach Boys must have been influenced by stuff like this.”

Elvis Presley: “It’s Now or Never” (RCA).

“It was amazing to me, when I was trying to chose an Elvis song for my solo album I went through all of his gold album series, it was apiazing how straight some of the backings were on several tracks. You could have been any sort of middle-of-the-road singer singing this, but it wouldn’t really have done anything. That just shows how much magic Presley has in his voice. Whereas some other tracks, you find great playing; some of the guitar breaks are outrageous.”

Warren Smith: “Ubangi Stomp” (Sun).

“Sounds like someone who influenced Eddie Cochran, but I don’t know who it is. It’s incredible. It’s like Dutch genre painting, in that you know the style is fight, but you don’t know who it is, it’s some obscure painter.”

Sonny and Cher: “Baby Don’t Go” (Reprise).

“My favorite. I just bought two magazines on the plane up here because they had Cher on the cover with Sonny. People just couldn’t believe them when they appeared on English television with ‘I Got You Babe’ and freaked everybody out totally. Because she was so beautiful, and he was so ugly, and the whole Spector sound, you know.”

Nico: “Evening of Light,” from The Marble Index (Elektra). Arranged by John Cale.

“Nico — is it The Marble Index album? Chris Thomas gave me John Cale’s 1919 album, but I’ll confess I’ve listened to it only once. I liked the music, but I didn’t like the words, I thought the words had been forced on the music. But I like this Nico album, all the different layers, I like that sort of music. Each time you listen to it, you pick out a different instrument, or hear something new. This song here though, it’s much too droney. She sounds like the voice of doom.”

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Captain Beefheart: “Dachau Blues,” from Troift Mask Replica (Straight).

“The voice of doom! It’s Captain Beefheart, isn’t it? I didn’t like Gear Spot, but I liked the first one. I was a disc jockey at this club in Newcastle for a while, when Beefheart made his first tour of England, and I had to introduce him. And they started out playing “Yellow Brick Road,’ it was really a great show. I liked the slide player in that group.” I

The Four Seasons: “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (Phillips).

“That’s the Four Seasons. It’s a real pleasure to record songs like that. I feel a lot closer to the people, the songwriters of that period, than people who are writing now — because there’s a certain amount of craftsmanship there.”

James Brown: “The Bells” (King).

“James Browiv. We used to do a few of his numbers when I first started out. I sang, and played a little tenor. On ‘Night Train,’ I used to do an extraordinary tenor solo, it was a totally atonal solo like Albert Ayler. The things I like best by Brown are all those tight riff things, amazing saxophone, very fast. ‘Out of Sight’ — that’s the kind of thing I like; ‘Please, Please, Please’ from Live at the Apollo, that’s a great album. People like James Brown were very important to me on the visual side, just the general thing of them putting on a show. It seems to me that you add an extra dimension by presenting something in a show-business way.”