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Bryan Ferry announced recently that he is not going to tour the United States in support of DYLANESQUE, his new CD consisting entirely of covers of Bob Dylan. DYLANESQUE: LIVE --- The London Sessions, a DVD of studio performances of the songs contained on the CD, will ease the pain of that omission considerably.

The balance of DYLANESQUE: LIVE is a television special featuring Ferry and a full band, interspersed with clips of Ferry discussing his history with Dylan’s material, as well as the development of his personal appreciation for Dylan’s work --- some of it retroactively --- as well as providing some insight into Ferry’s work methods. The DYLANESQUE CD, we come to learn, occurred as the result of Ferry’s wish to take a break from writing material for a new Roxy Music project, and it’s evident that DYLANESQUE is a labor of love and not some one-shot toss off. There are, in fact, apparently a half-dozen additional songs from the DYLANESQUE project in various stages of completion. One of them, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” is included in performance on DYLANESQUE: LIVE as a “bonus track,” with Ferry accompanied only by pianist Colin Good. Also included on DYLANESQUE: LIVE is the video of “A Hard Rain’s A’Gonna Fall,” the first Dylan composition which Ferry ever recorded, for THESE FOOLISH THINGS, Ferry’s first solo project from 1973. The video is a bit of a shock --- Ferry has aged well, but lordy, he has aged! --- but is a fabulous inclusion, as its release predated MTV, and over saturation, by some eight years.

DYLANESQUE: LIVE is the perfect complement to the DYLANESQUE CD, and a reminder of why Ferry, after well over three decades, remains a fascinating figure and entertainer. Recommended.