Bryan Ferry has a new solo box set out and in the course of its promotion has been talking about the tricky live debut of one of his most successful singles, 1985’s Slave To Love.
In an interview with the Guardian, Ferry spoke about its composition and its live premiere on the largest stage of all - Live Aid: “The drummer broke his snare-drum skin, the bass was in a different tuning, (David) Gilmour’s guitar wasn’t working properly, and someone had to tape another mic to mine because it wasn’t audible.”
Even before that, the recording of the song wasn’t straightforward. After starting the track in his home studio and then the White House studio in London, Ferry then moved recording to, of all places, Bette Midler’s house in New York. In the same article, producer Rhett Davies explains how they ended up there: She’d had trouble sleeping and had built a soundproof room, so we set a studio up in there. It was one of the most difficult tracks to finish and it went through a lot of lives.”
Davies remembers that Ferry took a while to finesse his lyrics. “Bryan was still working on the lyrics so the vocals came last, and it was the last track we finished for the album.
"Bob Clearmountain (mixing engineer) mixed it so many times in so many studios. He remembers falling asleep in Air Studios mixing it even more. It was finally finished at three in the afternoon. When we heard the completed song, there was just elation.”
Meanwhile no less than four guitarists can be heard on the track. “Neil Hubbard had the most wonderfully soulful tone and we recorded him early on to build the song around him,” Ferry remembers. “The guitar solo in the middle is actually three interweaving guitarists: Gilmour, Keith Scott and Hubbard.”
The sessions for the accompanying album Boys And Girls featured a stellar cast. Aside from Gilmour and Hubbard, Mark Knopfler and Nile Rodgers also contributed guitar. Andy Newmark was on drums and David Sanborn guested on saxophone. In many ways, the sound of that album, with its super smooth production and fine attention to detail, was a continuation of late period Roxy.
It remains his most successful solo album – aside from compilations it was the last to reach Number One - and Slave To Love would be his final Top Ten hit in May 1985.
