I have 32 Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music albums. I have 9 Smiths albums, 4 Johnny Marr solo records, and 17 Morrissey albums. I have 17 Pink Floyd albums and 2 David Gilmour solo records. For years these sat in different sections of my collection, connected only by the fact that I liked all of them. Then I looked at the credits on Ferry’s 1987 album Bête Noire and found out they were connected to each other.
The B-Side
In May 1986, The Smiths released “Bigmouth Strikes Again” as a single. The B-side was an instrumental called “Money Changes Everything.” It was a Marr composition — no vocals, no Morrissey, just guitar. The kind of thing that gets left in the vault.
A year later, Bryan Ferry released “The Right Stuff” as the lead single from Bête Noire. It reached No. 37 in the UK and became Ferry’s only solo single to chart in the US Top 40. The song was co-written by Johnny Marr. According to Wikipedia, it was adapted from “Money Changes Everything” — the same instrumental B-side that The Smiths had tucked away.
Two Accounts
There are two versions of how this happened.
Johnny Marr told Sonics magazine in 1989: “He [Ferry] didn’t know who I was. But he was looking for co-writers and someone suggested me to him. Someone played him some Smiths records and he went ‘Oh, this guy plays guitar all right!’ So he invited me down to the studio. Bryan Ferry was an old hero of mine and it was great to work with him, but the end result was…he’s a bit blow-waved.”
Guy Pratt, who played bass with Ferry during this period, tells a different story in his book My Bass And Other Animals. According Pratt, Ferry heard “Money Changes Everything” and had the idea of putting vocals on it. Ferry’s then-guitarist Chester Kamen “could play the intro, but couldn’t play it” — so Ferry brought Marr in to play on the track himself.
Either way, the result was a Smiths instrumental getting new lyrics from Bryan Ferry and turning into a hit single.
The Guitarists
Here is what makes Bête Noire unusual: the guitar credits read like a summit meeting.
Johnny Marr plays on “The Right Stuff.” David Gilmour — Pink Floyd’s guitarist — guests on the album. Neil Hubbard, who had toured with Roxy Music, plays guitar. Chester Kamen, who would later join Roxy Music’s touring band, plays guitar and co-produces. Dann Huff, who would go on to become one of Nashville’s most successful producers, plays guitar.
Patrick Leonard, known for his work with Madonna, co-wrote five of the album’s nine tracks and co-produced the whole thing. Marcus Miller, Abraham Laboriel, and Guy Pratt handle bass. Vinnie Colaiuta and Andy Newmark share drumming duties.
It is a session musician’s dream team, assembled for one album by a man who had spent the previous decade making records with Roxy Music.
The Collection
I own 17 Pink Floyd albums. I own 9 Smiths records. I own 22 U2 albums. All of these artists connect to Bête Noire through the people who played on it — and through the tour that followed.
During the 1988–89 tour promoting the album, The Edge from U2 joined Ferry on stage at the Dublin show to perform the Irish folk song “Carrickfergus.” That is another documented connection: the guitarist from U2, sitting in with the guy from Roxy Music, playing a song neither band is known for.
The Oscar Wilde quote on the 12" single’s runout groove says it all: “Talent borrows, genius steals.” Marr took a Smiths B-side and gave it to Ferry. Ferry put his voice on it and had a hit. The whole thing sounds like something Wilde would have found amusing.
What I Actually Learned
I always thought of Bryan Ferry and Johnny Marr as belonging to completely different worlds. Ferry was the sophisticate in the suit, making urbane pop with Roxy Music. Marr was the jangle-guitar kid from Manchester, soundtrack to a generation of bedroom misfits. David Gilmour was somewhere else entirely — the atmospheric guitarist from Pink Floyd, making records that sounded like weather systems.
Bête Noire is the album where all three of them were in the same room. The credits prove it. I just never looked.