Roxy Music Cover Models

Roxy Music are one of my all time favorite bands. Not only because of the music, but also because  they were the most stylish bands ever.  I read somewhere that Bryan Ferry was  more likely to redecorate a hotel room than to trash it. I guess that says it all…..

The Roxy Music album covers are legendary. The album artwork for the first five Roxy LPs imitated the visual style of classic “girlie” and fashion magazines, featuring high-fashion shots of scantily-clad models. And there are some great stories behind them.

Roxy Music

The first cover model was Kari-Ann Muller. She’s one of the rare models who didn’t date Bryan Ferry (but she later married Mick Jagger’s brother Chris). She got paid 20 pounds, as Roxy were unknow at the time.  Later she played in the Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. She’s now a yoga teacher and has five sons.

For Your Pleasure

Amanda Lear was the cover model  on the For Your Pleasure Album.  Not only did she model for Paco Rabanne, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Mary Quant and Ossie Clarck, but she also was the confidante, protegée and mistress of the Spanish painter Salvador Dali. Amanda was also romantically linked to Brian Jones, which resulted in the ironic Rolling Stones track “Miss Amanda Jones”, included on the 1967 album Between the Buttons. In 1973 she was also briefly engaged to Bryan Ferry, and the same year she famously depicted posing in a skintight leather dress leading a black panther on a leash on the cover of  For Your Pleasure. She went on to have a year-long affair with the married David Bowie. In 1975 she started a career as a disco singer. In 1977 she posed nude for Playboy. Despite modelling nude, there are peristent rumours that she was born as a man by the name of Alain Tapp and that she is a transsexual. Joanna Lumley, who plays Patsy Stone in the brilliant comedy Absolutely Fabulous, has confirmed in several interviews that the character Patsy Stone was loosely based on the mysterious life story of a certain A. Lear.

Stranded

Marilyn Cole appeared on the third album Stranded. She started her carreer as a Playboy bunny in London and modelled for Playboy in 1972 and 1973. She was pursued romantically by Hugh Hefner and Victor Lownes, who at the time was president of Playboy Enterpises. For a period she was involved with Bryan Ferry, but in 1984 she and Lownes got married.

Country Life

The title of the fourth Roxy album, Country Life, was intended as a parody of the well-known British rural magazine of the same name, and the visually punning front cover photo featured two models (two German fans, Constanze Karoli and Eveline Grunwald)  clad only in semi-transparent lingerie standing in a forest. As a result, in many areas of the United States the album was sold in an opaque plastic wrapper because retailers refused to display the cover. Later, an alternate cover (featuring just a shot of the forest) was used.

Siren

The most famous model is Jerry Hall.  She was one of the original supermodels in the seventies.  She started her modelling career in Paris, where she was the roommate of model/singer/actress Grace Jones. In 1975 she appeared, in the guise of a mermaid, on the cover of  Siren. Five months later, Bryan Ferry gave her an engagement ring.  Her relationship with Ferry continued and she also appeared in the video for his 1976 solo hit “Let’s Stick Together”. By 1977, Hall had been on forty magazine covers including Italian Vogue and Cosmopolitan. That same year, she met Mick Jagger at a dinner party, for whom she would eventually leave Bryan Ferry. The Rolling Stones song “Miss You” was written by Mick Jagger for Jerry Hall. She appeared in the 1989 movie Batman and  still works as a model.

 

Avalon

And finally a cover that I don’t like (the Avalon album), but should be mentioned, because the model (Lucy Helmore) married Bryan Ferry. Only 22 and with Bryan Ferry 14 years her senior, they married in 1982. They divorced in 2003.

Well, I must say, it must have been great to be Bryan Ferry in those days………………………