So the thought occurred to me this morning, that with Bryan Ferry’s unreleased opus “Horoscope” having been finally issued last year, maybe the time was now to have the unexpurgated vision of Ferry’s rawburn epic, “The Bride Stripped Bare,” finally reach our eager ears in the double album form that was Ferry’s early intention? When Ferry and his paramour Jerry Hall split with her moving to the Jagger side of the street, Ferry set about putting his feelings down on wax as one is wont to do. He was uncharacteristically open about the heartache.

The sessions were made in Montreaux’s Mountain Studios with an imported crew of top dollar US session players like Waddy Wachtel, Jerry Marotta, and Herbie Flowers. The first two even sharing production credits with The Maestro, Steve Nye, and longtime Ferry cohort Simon Puxley. Then there was what I’ll call the Crimson Contingent: John Wetton and Mel Collins; in addition to the Ferry crew of the time like Nye and Neil Hubbard. Ferry’s may have been thinking that maybe American players might have gotten him some currency on the notoriously reticent US airwaves, but it was for naught. “The Bride Stripped Bare” was an album that atypically under performed on both sides of the Atlantic, in a rare happenstance. Ferry reformed Roxy Music the following year possibly as a response.

Bryan Ferry: The Bride Stripped Bare – UK – CD [1988]

1. Sign Of The Times
2. Can’t Let Go
3. Hold On I’m Coming
4. The Same Old Blues
5. When She Walks In The Room
6. Take Me To The River
7. What Goes On
8. Carrickfergus
9. That’s How Strong My Love Is
10. This Island Earth

The ten tracks were released in 1978 as the productive phase was edited down into a more traditional , single album serving. Mixing four Ferry originals with a selection of cover songs chosen for matching the mood of the material he was writing. But there were another five songs from the sessions that eventually made their way our to the public as B-side material and even an A-side, over the eleven years following the 1978 issue of “Bride.”

The first unused session track accompanied the first single from the album, “Sign Of The Times.” I can see how the jaunty “Four Letter Love” may have been at odds with a breakup album, but it was a Ferry original that at least came out at the time of the record. The remaining tracks we can hear emerged years later.

The third single from “Boys + Girls” in 1985 was a feast of lost Ferry material from the “Bride” sessions. What was my favorite song from the album was matched with a trio of non-LP tracks; two of which were completed in 1981, and released four years later on this single. The Van Morrison cover, “Crazy Love” was A-side material if I’ve ever heard it! It boggles my mind how a performance like that was relegated to a B-side, seven years later! “Feel The Need” was a feast of Ann Odell’s dramatic string arrangements; giving the obscure R+B number an even higher gloss and budget than the Detroit Emeralds track from the year prior. Finally, the one ca. 1977 track was Ferry’s ballad “Broken Wings.”

Finally, in 1988, to add something new to the “Bryan Ferry With Roxy Music – Ultimate Collection” compilation, another track, the Jim Reeves Country weeper “He’ll Have To Go” was given a new mix by Bruce Lampcov and Rhett Davies. The next year it was issued as single/EP format with three other “Bride” era tracks [“Carrickfergus,” “Take Me To The River,” “Broken Wings”] on the CD-3 format. The 12″ got a mixture of tracks from all Ferry eras.

There was also one more non-LP Ferry track that sure seemed like it was recorded with Robert Fripp guesting that I have always wondered if it fit into the “Bride Stripped Bare” puzzle. “Nocturne” was the B-side to 1985’s “Don’t Stop The Dance.” Fripp was only active from the 1977-1981 period on other’s records, so if that tone was Fripp, then he could have been playing again following his sabbatical from Rock after ending King Crimson in 1974. But there are said to be other tracks from the “Bride” sessions that have not reached our ears yet.

Now that Ferry has cast a backward glance on the ill-starred, yet triumphant period that didn’t give us “Horoscope” but instead offered “Mamouna,” I would like to see the The Maestro give similar attention to the unrealized form of his most heartfelt album ever, “The Bride Stripped Bare.” At the very least you know it would make a double album in clear emerald vinyl that we’d all have to buy. Until that time happens, the Universal store is releasing a gatefold repressing of the 1978 album itself on June 10th, 2024 if you’ve not had the bittersweet pleasure. Good ol’ black vinyl at 180g for a fair price: $24.98. DJ hit that button.

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