Track Listing

1. In The Midnight Hour
2. Oh Yeah
3. Same Old Scene
4. Flesh And Blood
5. My Only Love
6. Over You
7. Eight Miles High
8. Rain Rain Rain
9. Running Wild
10. No Strange Delight

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6096 in Music
• Released on: 1999-11-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
What's remarkable about Roxy Music's final three albums is how each one builds on its predecessor. FLESH & BLOOD was the middle of this triptych (which ended with AVALON, the group's peak achievement). Where its predecessor, MANIFESTO, still had ties to the band's pre-hiatus first era, FLESH & BLOOD heads ever further into the lush romanticism that singer Bryan Ferry was to explore fully as a solo artist in the '80s. Where an earlier Roxy Music may have embraced an element of camp in a cover of "In The Midnight Hour, here Ferry nods to the camp factor only fleetingly.
Reduced to a trio of Ferry, guitarist Phil Manzanera, and saxophonist Andy MacKay, Roxy Music brought in a range of session players as needed. This, in effect, freed the band to follow the songs wherever they needed to go, which was straight into gorgeously produced romantic landscapes. The song's rich melodies cast Ferry as a matinee-idol leading man, a role he adapted to so successfully that songs like "My Only Love" sound like part ofhis own solo career.

Customer Reviews

The seventh studio album...
With the release in May 1980 of the seventh studio album from Roxy there was a difference with this collection, the band had the American market in mind in my opinion, and this I think because for the only time in their back catalogue they recorded cover songs.
The songs they recorded where by 2 American artists both from different genres of music, one from soul and the other from rock.
The band itself was reduced to 3 original core members, Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera.

The first cover version being the soul classic "In the Midnight hour made famous by the soul legend Wilson Pickett.
For their version Roxy added some of their touches to make the song their own firstly footsteps can be heard just like the early Roxy track "Love is the drug" and Bryan Ferry can be heard counting from 1-10 with the main theme of the song being played on Andy Mackays saxophone, with the crooning voice of Mr Ferry adding the right touch of smooth to the song.

The next track "Oh Yeah" is a song written by Bryan Ferry and was the second track to be taken off the album to be a single, but when the track was released as single the title was "Oh Yeah (on the radio)" the song itself has a piano intro playing the main theme of the song, with lush sounding strings giving the song a rich full sound that is a perfect backdrop for the lead guitar of Phil Manzanera which is the perfect counterpoint to the signature vocals and the silky smooth sound of Andy Mackays saxophone.

For the last single release from this album "Same old Scene" the title was changed to "The Same old scene" and had an outtake on the B-side called "Lover". The song itself has a drum and percussion introduction that gives it a slight rock sound, with the smooth guitar sound and vamping piano, along side the powerhouse bass and synthesizer solo in the middle 8 making it a perfect choice as a single, but still with the warm and full production touches that the whole album has.

The title track of this album "Flesh + Blood" has Bryan Ferry playing guitar on it along with keyboards and his crooning vocals along with full sounding bass played by Allan Spenner and drums played by Andy Newmark with percussion fills by Allan Schwartzberg.

The song "My Only Love" is a bit of a personal favorite from the later catalogue of the band, this is another love song from the pen of Mr Ferry that all 3 of the original members really shine on. The song has a full sounding string section that along with the piano plays the main theme of the song; this is blended with the lead guitar and vocal and the saxophone solo in the middle section is just superb and as the track fades out Mr Ferry repeats the title of the song.

For the first track to be released as single the band chose the break-up song "Over You" that has a bass intro with smooth crooning vocals that are underpinned by guitar, with the saxophone punching out lines of the song. The piano solo in the middle section played against the sax gives the song that Roxy sound that was ideal for this song to be used as a single, as this song fades the next tracks intro is interwoven to the fadeout.
The second track to feature on this album that wasn't written by the band is song called "Eight Miles High" and this was written by 60's band The Byrds. This time along with the usual sound of the band the track is given a slightly funky sound this put across by the theme being played on the saxophone and dub effects used on the main vocal in the middle section along with superb guitar playing from Mr Manzanera and percussion adding texture and atmosphere to the song as the main vocals echoes the song fades out.

For me this next song "Rain Rain Rain" is a highlight as it features Andy Mackay playing the oboe adding a sense of the spinster, the track starts drums and percussion with keyboards being played in the minor, with the oboe sound at the back of the keyboard a real feeling of menace is put across, the track also has a very strange sounding fade-out.
For the following song "No strange Delight" which has the opening lines "So there goes your life, Disappeared from ever loving friends, and now a slave to obsession, Your strange delight" along with the guitar parts of Mr Manzanera, who has added rhythm guitar as well as lead guitar, he also co-wrote the song along with Mr Ferry. This song too benefits from the sound of the oboe playing of Mr Mackay; this gives the track along with other aforementioned elements a very disturbing theme.
The last song on the album is another Ferry/Manzanera composition "Running Wild" closes the album perfectly as it's a another love song but with twist, for as well as piano playing the main theme the track features for the first time on the album organ that is played at the back of the saxophone solo to fill the sound and give a rich warm texture to the song, Ferry sings "running wild again" then a fade out and the album quietly finished.

This a superb example of the later works of Roxy Music and the voice of Bryan Ferry.
This version of the album has been re-mastered to HDCD standard by Bob Ludwig and was released in September 1999, a few weeks earlier the mini-Lp version came out.

Easy on the ears. Ferry at his finest
This album gets unfairly placed towards the bottom of the Roxy Music pile probably because it is considered commercial. So what? This is what makes it a great album if you accept that it's a totally different Roxy Music to the Eno days. The hit singles Over You and Oh Yeah are absolutely cracking and 22 years after their issue they remain a joy to listen to. Great Roxy renditions of The Midnight Hour and Byrds classic Eight Miles High show Ferry in fine form, choosing varied material which is performed with the usual class and integrity.
This is a very easy album to like and remains my favourite Roxy Music CD, now even better with the HDCD remastering.
The album does tend to tail off a little towards the end with the cream of the crop definitely being the first 6 songs.
It's a highly polished and superbly presented body of work. OK, so it's not trendy to like this era of Roxy but then who sets the trends anyway? Real music will always defy the trends and live on.

Classy!
Roxy did three albums that really hang together, Avalon, Manifesto and Flesh & Blood. This incarnation of Roxy was very much more mature than the wacky glam rock era of Pyjamarama, Virginia Plain etc. It was, however, a progression from Siren. Roxy were by now stripped down to a core of Ferry, Manzanera & McKay albeit aided by a list of extra musicians including Gary Tibbs (Adam & the Ants) and Phil Carrack.

The album itself is just so smooth. Put it on late at night and this album just wafts you away on the dance floor (and I can't even dance!!!). But seriously, this was part of the creative peak of Roxy Music, the style is slick, polished and honed to perfection. Quite how Roxy managed to integrate Wilson Pickett & Steve Cropper's "In the midnight hour" and the Byrds "Eight Miles High" into this album is beyond me but they are in there and they fit perfectly.

The killer track is Oh Yeah for me but there isn't a bad track on this album. Only bettered for me by Avalon.