Roxy Music - Heart Still Beating/The High Road (1983)

Dan:

Heart Still Beating was released on CD in 1990 and remastered in 1999. It documents a concert performance on August 27, 1982 in Fréjus, France during Roxy Music's tour to support the Avalon album. The remastered CD is a great companion to a DVD version of the same concert, titled The High Road, which includes 12 of the 14 songs from the CD plus two more. 

To complicate matters a little, The High Road is also the title of an extended play 12" record released in 1983 and attributed to Musique Roxy. The EP documents four songs played in concert in Glasgow, Scotland a month after Fréjus. 

It's hard to compare the Fréjus concert to Roxy Music's earlier live album, Viva! (1976) because it's like comparing two different bands. It's easy to divide Roxy into two eras - the 1970s and the 1980s - and the live albums showcase the difference. The music of the 1980s features a more polished and elegant Roxy, whereas the 1970s Roxy were more restricted instrumentally and not as glossy. I personally love them both.

I bought The High Road EP at Yardbird Records in Miami when it came out in 1983. "Can't Let Go" immediately became my favorite song with the cover of Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" becoming my second favorite. The other two tracks on The High Road EP are "My Only Love" and John Lennon's "Jealous Guy." This new Roxy was a happy discovery to say the least. 

The audio CD of the Fréjus concert contained these four songs and much more. The instrumental "India" is used as a one-minute prelude to "Can't Let Go," and we're off through the concert in order of the performance. Included are a great version of "Out of the Blue," the Phil Manzanera feature "Impossible Guitar," and a spellbinding "Both Ends Burning." A gorgeous version of "Avalon" follows, showcasing leader Bryan Ferry at his suave best. The concert closes with Ferry crooning "Jealous Guy".

When I got the VHS, and the later DVD released in 2005, I was surprised at how much a video of the performance enhanced the musical experience. Ferry goes through a sweaty metamorphosis, marked by disrobing from his tux jacket and tie, rolling up his sleeves, and mopping his brow as the warm night progresses. Individual band members strut their stuff, and it's thrilling to see Manzanera play live. The other guitarist, Neil Hubbard, excels in his role, and drummer Andy Newmark exudes total energy throughout. But the biggest visual impression is made by the trio of background vocalists - Fonzi Thornton, Tawatha Agee, and Michelle Cobbs. Thornton's infectious smile and his suit jacket worn over his bare chest stick in my mind as ultimate cool. 

I would strongly recommend that the Fréjus concert be enjoyed with the better-sounding remastered CD and the visuals available on the DVD. It's a classic concert by a group better known for their studio albums. The glam posturing is nowhere to be seen or heard, and Ferry is glorious as a unique vocalist - at times the tortured soul, and at times the suave crooner - but always the heart and soul of Roxy Music.

Steve:

Although it's been decades since I last saw it, The High Road VHS/DVD concert remains fresh in my mind. It certainly is a different experience than hearing/seeing Roxy Music in their earlier glam-rock guise, and the new Roxy phase helped to guide the direction of the early 80s sophisticated/adult pop trend. Artists like Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Steve Winwood, and others were popular with boomers and GenXers alike. Younger "New Romantic" bands like ABC and Duran Duran also took cues from Bryan Ferry's debonair image and performance style.

"Can't Let Go" stands out in my memory from the show, and it's significant that it's not a Roxy Music tune per se, but rather a track from Ferry's solo album, The Bride Stripped Bare, released in 1978. That was the year before Roxy Music re-emerged from their hiatus for 1979's Manifesto. As an opener to the live show (after the "India" introduction, of course) it can be viewed as a prelude to the new Roxy Music style. 

Roxy Music - Avalon (1982)

Dan:

Avalon was the only Roxy Music album not to feature at least one alluring female model on its cover. The cover art of Sir Bryan Ferry (I assume) staring across the misty moors with a hooded falcon on his arm suggests a mythological turn for the band, which had already moved into its glossy period with Flesh + Blood (1980). Despite the new imagery, most of the songs on Avalon are consistent with Roxy Music's themes of infatuation, obsession, painful longing and broken hearts. They were simply made more elegant on Avalon than on any of Roxy's or Ferry's previous albums.

That elegance elevates Avalon to the top echelon of glam-prog in the 80s. It's a knockout gorgeous album, brilliantly conceived and executed. The vocals are perfectly measured, and the instrumental backing superb. I'm running the gamut of superlatives here, but I think they're deserved. 

The highlight of Avalon is the title track, which conjures images of King Arthur's Court and chivalrous knights and their ladies. The YouTube video for this song is a great complement to the album, as it takes you inside the manor where the party has ended but the dance continues. Ferry's singing is at its most romantic, and the accompanying vocal by Yanick Etienne is sublime. It's such a great song!

I also find "True to Life" to be an exceptional piece of songwriting delivered with just the proper rhythmic drive. The alienating aspects of night life are portrayed indistinctly but the message comes through:

Dancing city, now you're talking

But where's your soul

You've a thousand faces

I'll never know.

Travel way downtown in search of nothing
But the sky at night
And the diamond lady
Well, she's not talking but that's alright.

Two short instrumental pieces help to make Avalon's songs more poignant. "India" follows the title track on side 1, and "Tara" closes the album with Andy Mackay's beseeching soprano sax. 

Roxy Music's Avalon tour included the live performances in Glasgow and Fréjus, France that yielded The High Road EP and DVD and the Heart Still Beating CD, both of which are reviewed elsewhere in this blog. Not to be missed.

Steve:

Avalon was the first compact disc I recall entering our home, purchased by Dan on the same day as his first CD player in 1985. It was a great first choice, as its lush atmospherics were perfect for the superior sonic experience that CDs supposedly provided. It may be hard for younger readers to understand this, but when CDs came out, they were marketed as the antidote to the surface noise and rough, live sound of vinyl. Nowadays, of course, vinyl lovers shun the antiseptic, compressed sound they claim CDs have, but back in the mid-80s, compressed and antiseptic sounds were IN. It was a selling point, and lots of top-selling albums from that period boasted that super-clean sound - the same sound that many complain sounds "too 80s". 

I happen to love that sound when it's done well, and boy is it done well on Avalon. So much so that the pejorative terms "antiseptic" and "compressed" don't even seem appropriate. What they do sound is "spacious", "romantic", "nuanced/detailed" and other more positive terms. I have trouble selecting a favorite track, as each one is capable of putting a huge smile on my face.  

Bryan Ferry's solo album Boys and Girls (1985) is essentially a follow-up to Avalon and pushes all the same fabulous buttons. I even get the two albums confused with each other sometimes, as they both played constantly in our house in the early to mid 80s. One of my current favorite songs to listen to on my stereo, in fact, is the title track of Boys and Girls, a forlorn romantic dirge that seems to have nothing in particular to do with boys or girls, yet the chorus echoes that simple phrase in between love-torn verses. It all seems to mean the world to Ferry, and thus empathetically to me.

Roxy Music - Siren (1975)

Dan:

In Miami I had a friend Rafael who was into rock music. About 1984, he turned me on to Roxy Music, a band I had never heard of before. I looked into them and was not sure whether I would like a "glam" band or not. Fortunately, my first acquisition was Siren, their fifth album. I got the impression that the first track, "Love Is the Drug," was the favorite single, but it was the only track that I did NOT like. The rest of the album was full of interesting songs that typify Roxy Music's distinctive approach to progressive rock. "She Sells," "Sentimental Fool," and "Both Ends Burning" are the most engaging for me, but the whole album is completely satisfying. Even the weirdest songs have irresistible hooks. Thank you, Rafael!

I then explored the rest of the band's records, including the live EP The High Road. The only disappointments were the self-titled first album and Manifesto. I noticed the increasingly polished production that began around the time of Flesh + Blood and Avalon but viewed it positively. I also became a huge Bryan Ferry fan, collecting most of his solo albums. 

Part of my admiration for Roxy Music is because Bryan Ferry is exactly one year younger than me, and we do look a bit alike, so I'm told. (My other doppelgänger is Righteous Brother Bill Medley, who is four years older than me). Of course, I'm not debonaire, don't smoke, and can't sing or make any remotely musical sounds (that's why I have the Hi Fi). I've never worn a white dinner jacket either, although our Florida home did have a swimming pool.

Several of Ferry's solo albums, such as Another Time, Another Place, cover old-timey songs from the 1950s and earlier - definitely pre-prog. Many critics pan these albums for their song choices and the retro style productions. My belief is that the choices of standards and Motown classics are a sincere tribute to the music that he grew up listening to. He's not mocking anybody like you might think. This is what we old-timers listened to growing up in the 50s and 60s. 

Steve:

I was given many opportunities to hear Roxy Music in my youth, thanks to Dan. For a few years, I think they were the most-played band on his stereo. Siren, Stranded, Country Life, and Avalon are the ones I remember hearing the most. The High Road EP and VHS concert video were also frequently played. I also recall assisting Dan in making a Roxy Music mix tape. By the time I was out of high school, I was an old pro at Roxy Music, although I did not have any albums of my own. No need, he had them all!

In one of my most surreal high school memories, my sister Amy (3 years my junior) was having a birthday party at our house, and my friend Tim's rock band was the entertainment. The repertoire was mostly punk rock, but there was one cool song I wasn't familiar with. When I asked them, it turned out to be "Virginia Plain", from Roxy Music's first album. As Dan mentioned above, he didn't regard that album very highly, so I had not heard it before. It was right there on his shelf, though.  

Back to Siren. Roxy Music's fifth album represents the peak of the original band's run - their first five albums are all rightly considered rock classics and became key steppingstones that moved rock in more artful directions, leading the way for glam rock and New Wave at the same time. "Love is the Drug" remains one of their more popular songs, though I confess I'm a little tired of it by now; the real meat of the album is elsewhere - practically no weak tracks on the whole record. Hard to even choose a favorite, but it may be "Just Another High", with "She Sells" not far behind. Oh, and "Whirlwind". Goodness me, what an album. Listen to it today!