Bryan Ferry’s 1976 solo album Let’s Stick Together captured a pivotal moment between Roxy Music’s first era and Ferry’s emerging identity as a solo artist.
by Paul Cashmere
Fifty years after its release, Bryan Ferry’s Let’s Stick Together remains an unusual entry in his catalogue, assembled largely from singles, B-sides and an EP rather than conceived as a conventional studio album. Released in 1976, it followed the temporary disbanding of Roxy Music earlier that year and placed Ferry’s own songs alongside reinterpretations of material by The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, Jimmy Reed and others.
The album was Ferry’s third solo release, but its relationship with Roxy Music was unusually direct. Five of its 11 tracks were new versions of songs Ferry had originally recorded with Roxy Music, including four from the band’s 1972 debut album and “Casanova” from 1974’s Country Life.
That makes Let’s Stick Together a particularly revealing document of 1976. Ferry was not walking away from Roxy Music’s catalogue. Instead, he was reshaping it. The new recordings generally moved the material away from the art-rock textures of early Roxy Music towards smoother arrangements with stronger jazz and R&B influences.
At the same time, Ferry was establishing a parallel solo career while Roxy Music was in a period of separation. The resulting album sits between two identities: the songwriter who had helped define one of Britain’s most distinctive bands and the solo performer increasingly exploring standards, rhythm and blues and sophisticated pop.
The title track provided the album’s clearest commercial statement. Originally written and recorded by American rhythm and blues artist Wilbert Harrison in 1962, Ferry transformed “Let’s Stick Together” into a saxophone-driven performance. Released as a single in June 1976 with “Sea Breezes” on the B-side, it reached No. 4 in the UK.
The song was followed by an Extended Play release in August containing “The Price of Love”, “Shame, Shame, Shame”, “Heart on My Sleeve” and “It’s Only Love”. That EP reached No. 7 in the UK, demonstrating that Ferry’s solo work was functioning as a significant part of his career even as Roxy Music remained central to his musical identity.
Several of the recordings had already existed in other forms. “2HB”, Ferry’s tribute to Humphrey Bogart, had first appeared as the B-side to “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” in 1973. “Chance Meeting” had been the B-side of “The ‘In’ Crowd” in 1974, while “You Go to My Head” and “Re-Make/Re-Model” had been issued together as a single in 1975, reaching No. 33 in the UK.
The album therefore operated almost as a snapshot of Ferry’s recording activity across several years rather than a single, unified recording project. “Casanova”, meanwhile, had been recorded during sessions associated with Another Time, Another Place in 1974 and was not issued in this form until later.
The cover versions reveal another side of Ferry’s musical sensibility. Alongside Harrison’s “Let’s Stick Together”, he tackled The Everly Brothers’ “The Price of Love”, Jimmy Reed’s “Shame, Shame, Shame”, The Beatles’ “It’s Only Love”, the standard “You Go to My Head” and Gallagher and Lyle’s “Heart on My Sleeve”. The selection moved between rock, rhythm and blues, pop and traditional song, with several performances taking a more restrained cabaret approach.
The personnel also reinforced the connection to Roxy Music. Paul Thompson played drums, Eddie Jobson contributed synthesizer and violin, Phil Manzanera played guitar on “Re-Make/Re-Model”, and David O’List played on “Chance Meeting”. John Porter, John Gustafson and other musicians supplied bass, while Chris Spedding and Neil Hubbard were among the guitarists. Mel Collins and Chris Mercer added saxophones.
Ferry co-produced the album with Chris Thomas, with Steve Nye and John Punter among the engineers. The sessions brought together musicians from Ferry’s Roxy Music world with a broader studio ensemble, giving the recordings a more polished character than some of the original Roxy Music performances.
Commercially, Let’s Stick Together performed particularly strongly in Australia and the Netherlands, where it reached No. 1. In Australia, it finished at No. 9 on the 1976 year-end album chart. It peaked at No. 19 in the UK and No. 160 on the US Billboard 200.
Its reception reflected the album’s divided character. Later assessments have recognised its strengths while noting that its construction from different recording projects gives it an unconventional shape. That quality is also central to its historical interest. Let’s Stick Together documents Ferry using his own catalogue as raw material while simultaneously extending his relationship with songs written by other artists.
Roxy Music would reunite for further work, but the 1976 separation gave Ferry an opportunity to establish how his solo career could operate on its own terms. Let’s Stick Together was an important part of that transition. Half a century later, its mixture of Roxy Music revisions, classic covers, recent singles and older recordings provides a distinctive record of Ferry between one chapter of his career and the next.
Track Listing
Let’s Stick Together (Wilbert Harrison) – 2:59
Casanova (Bryan Ferry) – 2:46
Sea Breezes (Bryan Ferry) – 6:11
Shame, Shame, Shame (Jimmy Reed) – 3:16
2HB (Bryan Ferry) – 3:14
The Price of Love (Don and Phil Everly) – 3:27
Chance Meeting (Bryan Ferry) – 3:15
It’s Only Love (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller) – 3:49
You Go to My Head (J. Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie) – 2:42
Re-Make/Re-Model (Bryan Ferry) – 2:43
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