Bryan Ferry

Long a fashion figurehead as front man with art rockers Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry subsequently embarked on a successful career as a smooth vocalist which earned him the affectionate title "electric lounge lizard". He formed Roxy Music in 1970, topping the charts with Virginia Plain, but by 1973 Ferry was already recording solo material, specialising in cover versions of standards like These Foolish Things, and his album Let's Stick Together reached Number 4 in the UK album charts. After the relative failure of 1978's The Bride Stripped Bare, Ferry re-formed Roxy Music with Phil Manzanera, but reverted to solo work with the Number 1 album Boys and Girls in 1985. He teamed up with another ex-Roxy renegade Brian Eno for the Mamouna album, but had greater commercial success with the 1993 covers album Taxi. He was back in 1999 with a sentimental collection of 1930s songs entitled As Time Goes By and re-formed Roxy Music yet again in 2001 while continuing to record and perform solo, releasing Frantic in 2002. In 2007 Dylanesque, an album of Bob Dylan covers, took him back into the UK Top 10.