Bryan Ferry Gets Help from Johnny Marr, Nile Rodgers and Flea on New Album

Former Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry is getting some major help on his new album Avonmore.

According to Clash Magazine, guests on the singer's 15th solo effort include former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, Chic co-founder Nile Rodgers, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, jazz man Marcus Miller, former Ronettes vocalist Ronnie Spector, singer-songwriter Mark Knopfler and saxophonist Maceo Parker.

In addition to eight originals, the album will also feature covers of Steven Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" and Robert Palmer's "Johnny and Mary," assisted by DJ Todd Terje. Avonmore is out Nov. 17.

Ferry spoke to Las Vegas Weekly in April, calling the new album a rock record as opposed to his previous release with The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, 2012's The Jazz Age.

"They were quite beautiful, some of those arrangements, with clarinets and so on," he said about his last album. "Very moody, and it suited my songs, I think. It's something I've always fancied doing, an instrumental album of my songs, so I thought it was a cool idea to do it in kind of a '20s style. People loved it on tour when we did the shows last year. It was a very big band to carry around, but it was a great triumph, and something I'm very glad I did."

In the 1970s, Ferry fronted Roxy Music, an art rock band that gained popularity thanks to songs like 1973's "Do the Strand," 1975's "Love Is the Drug" and 1979's "Manifesto." Ferry still does shows with Roxy Music every so often, but the group has not recorded anything since 1982's Avalon.

But the singer's 2010 album Olympia was close to being a Roxy record, Ferry told Pitchfork.

"I started working on most of these songs as a solo project, and then I toyed with the idea of turning it into a Roxy album," he said. "But it just didn't feel right, so it became a solo record again. In the interim, most of the guys from the Roxy world did some playing on a couple of the tracks. It's nice to have them in small cameo roles."

Listen to the first track off Avonmore below:

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Roxy music