There was never going to be room for both Bryan Ferry & Brian Eno within a single working band, not for long anyways, but during the brief tenure they did manage to tolerate one-another’s egos, it spawned some of the most alluring and artsy stuff to come out of the glam scene in England; without a doubt, the time spanning their first two albums is, by far and away, my favorite period of Roxy Music. Not that they were want for acclaim or anything (Bowie used to fawn all over them, talking them up any chance he got, mainly over Eno I suppose), but it’s the slicker sounds that characterized the post-Eno period for which Roxy receives most of their praise, over here in the US anyways; although I am a fan of those tunes as well, this early stuff is so free-form and exploratory it takes my breath away---you could easily fool someone into believing this song was released in the ‘80s, maybe even the 2000s. This was Bryan Ferry’s ode 2 Humphrey Bogart, which actually makes a lot of sense considering Ferry’s cassanova-esque demeanor and affect, at times almost humorous; a peculiar song in anyone’s book, the real stars in this track are his electric piano, Andy Mackay’s sax-strangling exercises & Graham Simpson’s super-dope bassline.
