Bryan Ferry - "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"/"Another Time, Another Place" (Island) 45 rpm 7" single, 1974

I bought this single in 1974, sold or lost it through the ages, and recently purchased again, in Tokyo.  1974, and especially anything dealing with Island Records, was an exciting time for a record fan or listener.   I discovered Sparks that year, and that is a gift that keeps on giving.  Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music is another cultural importance for me.  Ferry went on to have this duo-career of being the head thinker for Roxy Music while doing solo recordings.  I don't fully understand his need to do solo work, where he clearly wrote or co-wrote all the Roxy Music songs.  If he strictly just did covers, I can understand that for being a solo artist, but the fact he started to add original songs under "Bryan Ferry" is a mystery to me.   

"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is a classic American pop tune from the early 1930s.  Depression era, and to Ferry a romantic time.   At this time, Ferry was mining the past, but he was making it into a Roxy re-make, where it seems at times he wrote the song himself.  It's love, but a love that is damaged and leaves the after-effects of smoke after the burning heart.  It's a beautiful bitter-sweet melody with lyrics that sting.  A perfect cocktail for someone like Bryan Ferry.

The b-side is a great Ferry composition "Another Time, Another Place."  Why this wasn't recorded for Roxy Music is a mystery.  It's a hypnotic piece of aural delight.  The importance of sound to take one to another place - that is basically the motif of the Bryan Ferry method of making art. 

The Yardbirds - "I'm a Man"/"Still I'm Sad" 45 rpm Single (Epic Records) 1965

I distinctly remember that my first 45 rpm single that I purchased was The Yardbirds' double sided A-side hit "Still I'm Sad" and on the other side "I'm a Man."   I must have been around nine-years-old, and since I didn't have a job at the time, I'm going to presume that one of my grandmothers gave me the money to purchase the record.   "I'm a Man" (written by Bo Diddley) to this day gives me goosebumps in my lower back.  The way it starts off with the ugly sound of the guitars, and then slowly building up to this intense rave-up where it becomes noise.  Without a doubt, one of the first recordings that had a strong effect on my sensibilities at the time, and still, today. 

Then when I turned to the other side, the music is not only sad (of course) but also scary.  I heard this song on the radio as well as "I'm a Man," and it's the ying-yang or either/or of the pop music world of 1965.  Usually, for me, the album gives me the full narrative picture, but this 45 rpm single had a full narration for me.   One is very sexual, and the other is pensive.  

There are a lot of guitar bands that I like, but none sounds like The Yardbirds -except Television.  The Yardbirds went through three legendary guitarists in that group's history.  Eric Clapton.  Jeff Beck.  Jimmy Page.   By far my favorite is Jeff Beck.  Flashy yet detached.  I'm presuming that it's him playing on "I'm a Man," and not Clapton - but I'm not super sure about that. But I like to think it's Beck, because of the noise, in the end, seems so much up his alley.  Violent, sexual, and cool at the same series of seconds.  

The forgotten hero of The Yardbirds are not any of the three guitarists or even the singer Keith, but their bass player Paul Samwell-Smith.  He arranged the songs and did some of the engineering/production as well.  He worked with Mickie Most and Simon Napier-Bell. Eventually, he produced the classic hits of Cat Stevens in the 1970s.   I recently bought this single again for $1, and it sounds like a $1,000 to me.  Excellent record.