Seven years after his first performance in St. Petersburg, Bryan Ferry is back - but this time he will be backed by a rock and roll band featuring guitarist Chris Spedding and will introduce some songs from “Dylanesque,” his new album that pays homage to Bob Dylan, the 20th century’s greatest songwriter. The elegant frontman of the British glam-rock legends Roxy Music took a break from his band’s long-awaited reunion album and, unlike his previous releases, recorded “Dylanesque” in just a few days — with a little help from his friend and Roxy Music co-founder Brian Eno. Amid original compositions, cover versions play a great role in Ferry’s work, whose band’s biggest hit was its unlikely version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” in 1981. Ferry, whose solo albums occasionally feature covers, set the trend for cover albums with “These Foolish Things,” his first solo outing in 1973, which also included a cover of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall.” David Bowie responded with “Pinups,” an album of his favorite songs from the 1960s, the same year, while John Lennon covered some 1950s and early 1960s rock and roll on “Rock and Roll” in 1975. Released in March, “Dylanesque,” Ferry’s 12th solo album and the follow-up to 2002’s “Frantic,” was recorded when Ferry took a break from recording sessions with a reunited Roxy Music. “Dylanesque” includes 10 songs recorded by Dylan between 1962 and 1975, including such classics as “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” “Gates of Eden” and “All Along the Watchtower,” as well as “Make You Feel My Love,” taken from Dylan’s 1997 album “Time Out of Mind.” Ferry first came to St. Petersburg in 1997 paying a visit to Eno, who was then on a lengthy sabbatical in the city, and spent time at the Hermitage and Mariinsky Theater. He performed with a 13-member band of jazz and classical musicians complete with brass and strings in September 2000 at the Shostakovich Philharmonic at the end of his “Slave to Love” tour, which was technically in support of a compilation album of the same title that featured much of “As Time Goes by,” his 1999 album of classic jazz and pop songs from the 1930s. Ferry also used the visit to celebrate his 55th birthday which coincided with the day of the show. Ferry spoke to The St. Petersburg Times by phone from London last week. Your history of Bob Dylan covers started with “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” in 1973 — it was radically different from the original, you added perhaps soul and gospel influences to it. It was also sort of a glam rock period for you. What inspired you to record a Dylan cover at that time? Well, at the time I did that first solo album, “These Foolish Things,” and I thought I’d choose 10 different songs from different musical genres, you know, of people whom I like… perhaps an interesting selection, a cross-section of musical tastes. The title track, “These Foolish Things,” was a song from the 1930s, from the golden period of pop songs, which is still being performed as a classic song by many people. And I thought Dylan is such an important character in the history of popular music; I thought ‘I must do a Dylan song.’ [“These Foolish Things”] was a big hit, it was my first solo single. So since then I did one or two Dylan songs on different albums, and I thought, ‘One day I must do a complete selection of Dylan songs for an album.’ Because they’re such beautiful songs, very poetic. He uses a very good vocabulary, they’re intelligent songs. If you’re a singer, you have to sing great songs. In my solo career since then I have tried to expand my repertoire in different ways, and this is one of the pieces of the puzzle. How did it happen that you started to listen to Dylan in the first place? You come from a different generation and a totally different scene. Yeah, I mean when I was at university I remember people carrying Dylan albums, his first albums, like acoustic records, his early records. For me they were not so interesting at that time; I was very much into rhythm and blues and electric guitar, I liked the noise and energy of black American music, and it wasn’t until later that… perhaps, I don’t know, I’m not sure when, perhaps when he did “Blonde on Blonde” or something, and he played with The Band — certainly I found it very interesting, and since then I have been a very big Dylan fan. I’ve only seen him play once, and this was last year. I saw him last year: very, very good… I think he’s also a great singer as well as a great songwriter, but I think I sing his songs in a slightly different way. Well, although we seem very, very different stylistically from one another and our careers are quite different, it seems to me that we had a lot of the same musical influences, which is quite interesting — you know, American blues singers and that kind of thing. I think also we both come from a similar kind of blue-collar, quite hard working class environment, also. So hearing Dylan’s electric songs made you look back to his earlier work? Exactly, and I started to appreciate the beauty of those songs and simplicity of the performance, although, on my album, “Dylanesque,” I bring a band feel to most of the songs, with lots of instruments playing. We did it very live, of course, and it was a very spontaneous record to make. There wasn’t much planning, just we did it, you know. And it was very enjoyable to make. It’s been very enjoyable to perform live, so on a tour we are doing perhaps six or seven of those Dylan songs, and the rest of the show, of course, is a selection from my solo career and also from Roxy Music. I have a big band of about 10 people. We have three wonderful guitar players, so there’s a lot of guitar interaction. And it is a rock and roll band, basically — although some of the musicians are quite sophisticated. Two of them are from a jazz background. Leo Abrahams is a more avant-garde guitar player, Chris Spedding is very famous in the world of guitar players, and the young boy, Oliver Thompson, a teenage boy, he’s a very good rock player. For the album you’ve mainly chosen songs from the 1960s and three from the 1970s — what was your choice based on? It was just based on my feelings for the song, sometimes you don’t analyze too much — you just say, ‘I love this song, I feel it,’ and if I feel the song, I can perform it. Having skipped the 1980s entirely, you did “Make You Feel My Love” from Dylan’s 1997 album, “Time Out of Mind.” The latest song I chose was “Make You Feel My Love,” a ballad. I’m not sure which record it’s on. All the others were from an earlier period. But when I heard this other song, this ballad, the slow one, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a beautiful one.’ So I threw this one in as well. It’s one of the most popular songs from the album, actually. Do you feel your approach to covering Dylan songs changed much since “Hard Rain”? Yes, because I think “Hard Rain” was a very radical reading of the song, it was completely different. But on this album I think I haven’t really tried too hard to change the songs. I didn’t want to make it a difficult album at all. It was just a kind of celebration of Dylan songs, you know. And I suppose one [which is] quite different is “Positively 4th Street,” as I used strings on it. It’s quite beautiful and quite different from his original version. Is there any change of meaning when you perform songs now that Dylan wrote in the 1960s? I think a great song can be done in many different ways and can be taken into a different time, you know, and can be appropriate in a different way. And some of Dylan’s inspiration for his protest songs was obviously the war in Vietnam, and now there’s a war in Iraq, and it’s still just as appropriate… Even if you take a war away, they still stand up as very interesting pieces of work, I think. It’s interesting that “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” was not even written by Dylan. (On his 1962 eponymous debut album Dylan announces that he first heard the song from blues guitarist Eric von Schmidt.) Exactly! Exactly, that’s one of his covers. But sometimes you stray away from your original intention just on a whim, you know. And I thought it was just such a good song and added a different flavor. What interpretation do you like the most on the album? Oh, I think, probably “Positively 4th Street,” yeah. Does “Dylanesque” somehow stem from “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” that you covered on [the 2002 album] “Frantic”? I think very much so. Some of the same musicians, from those sessions, play on two of these songs, I think. You have never met Dylan, but maybe you have heard any reaction from him, indirectly — if not to this album, then to “Hard Rain”? No, nothing! Still waiting. But it doesn’t matter. I’m sure he must be pleased that people like his work so much. Your previous album of covers was “As Time Goes By” in 1999, which was mostly songs from the 1930s. Is there any logical connection between it and “Dylanesque”? No, just the fact they are great songs — but from a different period. I like to show, I hope, a diversity of interests. It’s always a bit of an adventure, you know. On the album you worked again with Brian Eno — how did it happen and how was it working with him after such a long pause? I don’t know, I was in contact with him, and I said, “You know, I’m doing a Dylan album — do you want to comment, you come and listen and maybe do something.” He said, “I’d love to.” So he came and… It’s exciting always to work with Brian. He is a character. Very intelligent, very talented. Yeah, we have a kind of interest in art together, many interests in common. That’s good. There’s also [Roxy Music guitarist] Robin Trower on the record. His is a very small role on this album. He only played acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar on one song, “All Along the Watchtower,” which was a demo that I did eight years ago, so that track is interesting. We started it years ago during the “Taxi” sessions for an album called “Taxi” [1993], and then later I added the other instruments. Interesting how some songs have different lives from the others, you know. But the other songs were done very quickly. Very quickly. When I had my other songs which we did in one week, I looked at this track and said, “Ah, I’d really like to include it,” and just finished it off. It’s like an artist sometimes has canvases in his studio unfinished and picks it up one day and “Haha, a few strokes and it’s finished!” Just before you recorded “Dylanesque” you had been recording a Roxy Music reunion album — are you going to finish it? Yes. Next year, when I finish my tour, I think I will hopefully go back to the Roxy album that I started last year. We shall see, we shall see, no plans yet, nothing fixed. It would be nice to do it. Thank you very much. Yeah, I’m looking forward very much to coming to St. Petersburg, later to Moscow. It’s exciting to travel. Today I go to Kazakhstan and then I come back to go to Vilnius and start my Russian tour.