Nothing to add other than this is a very sad start to Monday morning.
RIP Scott Walker
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Nothing to add other than this is a very sad start to Monday morning.
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Oh shit that’s sad. Mum
My mum will be devastated. She was a massive fan from early Walkers onwards.
An original, a pioneer, a maverick, a writer, and what a voice.
Just woke up to this news. Reminds me of Bowie, another sad Monday morning. A great, unique artist.
Gosh.
I’ve been immersing myself in Scott IV lately. Always had a wonderful voice and his music was never less than interesting.
Stunned. Mrs M messaged me about this, which is appropriate as his music was one of the things that brought us together. Those first five solo albums, so gloriously deep and rich, seal his place among the immortals.
Did anyone hear that message he recorded for David Bowie on Radio One several years ago? The interview was hey yeah fab all right woo! kind of thing and then we hear a very cheery-sounding Scott Walker giving a brief but friendly greeting as a surprise.. To say Bowie was gobsmacked is an understatement.
I would say Bowie gave us a glimpse of the person beneath the artifice.
Chris O’Leary has written brilliantly about the relationship between Messrs Engel and Jones. Will post the link later.
There are other bits. This is the main one.
https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/nite-flights/
That’s brilliant, thanks
I disagree. It’s gobsmacking. I had no idea, but it makes perfect sense
Loved the voice of Scott Walker since his time in Walker Brothers in the ’60”s. I have everything he released. Even his more ‘difficult’ later work which I only acquired in the last 18 months.
RIP Mr Engel, you gave us the voice of Angels.
Deeply saddened by Scott’s passing.
Like you Baron, I have everything that he has recorded both solo and with The Walker Brothers. Been a huge fan since I first heard “Jackie” as a 14 year old. Loved the wonderful passionate singing of the song, the controversial Brel lyrics and the notoriety that accompanied it. The song even got Simon Dee sacked by the Beeb for playing it.
I went the Odeon in Manchester in 1968 to see his first ( and probably only )solo tour.
It was one of the last package type tours where he was top billing appearing with a bunch of other artists.
On the bill were The Love Affair, The Searchers, The Paper Dolls, Terry Reid and Gunn ( remember “Race with the Devil” ) ?
Then Scott appeared looking extremely nervous and was obviously uncomfortable with the persistent screaming from the girls in the audience. He sang about half a dozen songs ( beautifully ) before taking his leave.
I always wanted to see him perform live once more in a more suitable setting but, alas, this was never to be.
Now in my 66th year, 76 doesn’t really seem that old to me nowadays.
God Bless Scott,
See you up on that Fire Escape in the Sky one day.
beautifully put
With the music of (solo) Scott Walker, I made a big mistake. A schoolboy error. I bought a “Best of” album”
The CD in question was “Boy Child: The Best of Scott Walker 1967–1970”. I bought it when it came out in 1990.
It was, of course, very good.
So what happened when someone recommended one of Scott’s solo albums, such as, say, “Scott 4”?
I thought “There’s no point in me buying that, as I’ve already got “The Seventh Seal”, “On Your Own Again”, “Boy Child”, and “The Old Man’s Back Again” on the compilation. That’s half the album! So I never bought another Scot Walker album (apart from a cheap cassette version of “Climate of Hunter”, for some reason).
I can see now that I’ve missed out on a lot of great music …
You can pick up a 5 album set on Amazon for £9.99…….
Scott 1 – 4 and ‘Til The Band Comes In
Then get Nite Flights, Climate of Hunter and Tilt.
Oh I see you have Climate of Hunter
I’ve got “Climate of Hunter”. What a strange record it is. Not the most commercial album I’ve ever heard….
Be careful with Tilt …
….and beyond. Whoever reviewed The Drift in the Guardian said that it made Tilt sound like the Kaiser Chiefs.
Quite. I reckon Tilt is one of the greatest albums ever made, BUT it only really seems to make sense at around 4.00AM, when you’ve had too much red wine and you’re flat out on the floor (albeit conscious). Quite a rare combination of circumstances these days (for me). Climate of Hunter is far more accessible and is great in a very different way.
Bouncer See Bouncer always feels like the opening music to a creepy conspiracy thriller, probably set in the DDR. It’s got locusts on it!
Remastered in 2013 as “The Collection 1967-1970”.
Used to be available in hi-res (24/96) on Qobuz for 5 Euros, now 52.48 or S/H CD via Amazon for £69.99!
You’re missing two of the best songs from Scott 4, Rhymes of Goodbye and Duchess. That said, BC is a bloody good compo. Bear in mind that when it was released none of those albums had been in print on any format for years.
This is me, too. Been meaning to pick up that original albums set for ages…
The ‘Boy Child’ album also includes ‘The Plague’, a great b-side that was sadly left off the recent box set.
Years ago, The Word ran an article on US/UK musical differences, and one of the examples was Walker, a cult hero here who was said to have no following at all in his native land. I wonder if that is still true?
He lived in the UK for more than 50 years, so in the end he was more British than American I would imagine.
I think the WBs had one or two minor hits, but that’s basically it apart from the odd Pitchfork type.
It probably doesn’t help that his (stage) name is also that of a horrendous Republican politician.
I’ve been listening to Scott 1 in honour of the late, great man, and I have a modest criticism to make. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it back then, and mooched around moodily with it under my arm along with everybody else. I still do love it.
But oh, that huge overblown, muddy orchestral accompaniment! Wally Stott was the man (later woman) responsible, as he was for 2 and 3, and even at the time I found it a little bit much – absolutely not transistor radio friendly, or Dansette friendly come to that. And, as I discovered this morning, not particularly Sonos friendly either. Dusty Springfield was someone else who suffered a bit from the same syndrome until she went to Memphis – maybe it was something Phillips label artists just had to put up with.
I would love to hear these songs stripped right back, in the manner of the chansonniers he so admired. Piano, jazz guitar, bass, drums, a little sax or trumpet now and again, maybe even the occasional string fill, rather than Wally and his Old Blokes in Dinner Jackets Wall of Sound.
Am I alone in this?
You are not alone. I came late to the Scott party and was…surprised with the arrangements and orchestration.
I think that’s why 4 & Climate Of Hunter are my favourites. Not as overblown and not completely leftfield as his later ones where.
The link track is Sleepwalkers Woman, which you could almost segue out of Boy Child (the song, not the album)
I’ve been knocked for six about this terrible news if I’m honest. Scott was my favourite singer and really could almost do no wrong in my book.
Have a not so well known but absolutely beautiful track.
On the odd occasion I’ve banged on about Billy MacKenzie here it has been mentioned more than once that his singing style could be likened to Scott Walker listening to this track I can certainly hear that. I know nothing about Scott Walker but will investigate further. Where would you start @ip33
As above:
I can only concur with the above. But if you ever come across a box set called 5 Easy Pieces I would snap it up. It came out in 2003 so it doesn’t cover the recent stuff (The Drift, Bish Bosch etc) but loads of the hits and plenty of not so well known stuff as well. It goes for silly money on t’net but i have seen it for a tenner in the second hand emporiums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Easy_Pieces_%28Scott_Walker_box_set%29?wprov=sfla1
Here’s a review of 5 Easy Pieces.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/6wmq/
If you’re not quite ready to plunge into a box set I would start with the aforementioned Boy Child compilation, good round up of the “classic” late 60a solo stuff on which his reputation rests and this is the stuff Billy, Marc Almond, Julian Cope, Jarvis Cocker, Goldfrapp etc would have been seduced by.
Misses lots of later goodies like this one though which would have fitted into The Associates repertoire easily and of course Bowie had a crack at it on Black Tie White Noise
It’s on Spotify so will listen tomorrow. .
I prefer the Fatima mansions cover myself:
That Moviegoer album is great – it’s the last appearance of the production team that made the classic 60s records.
Good tip – didn’t have that one (just odd tracks) so picked up on Discogs
Never heard this – lovely. Anyone hear the similarities here with Jackie Leven ( sure he must have been a fan) ?
Sort of but Jackie seemed more grounded. Walker seems just so histrionic and mannered. I know I am in a minority here, but is there anything less look at me? (I know he became a recluse but all the songs I know are all demanding adulation and attention.)
Try Time Operator. Or Just One Smile (below). Or this.
To be polite, utter twaddle.
Still too theatrical for me, I’m afraid…
I just cannot comprehend where you get that impression from. Never a less ‘mannered’ singer anywhere.
My ears and the arrangement, by and large.
Nope, not with you I’m afraid.
Those lush arrangements are to my ears the perfect setting to convey the drama and melancholy of songs like Such a small love and Big Louise. I can’t imagine them any other way.
Me too, my Mum had all the singles and albums (I’ve still got most of them) do they don’t sound overblown to me, it’s just how they are. Personally I love them.
What a poignant moment in the 30 Century Man documentary when the former Wally Stott said she must listen to some of these songs, with no memory at all of having done the orchestral arrangements for them.
I understand that artists often have no wish to hear their albums again once they are done, but still find it odd that music that has touched millions remains unlistened to by those who created it. George Harrison famously couldn’t remember which album certain legendary HJH songs were on.
It seems this is quite a common theme – I often seem to hear musicians say things like this. The Stones always seemed to defer to Bill Wyman on the subject of what was on which album, and on the recent Sticky Fingers live concert disc they all seem to have never listened to the damn thing, except for Ronnie, who wasn’t on it!
Scott obviously deliberately never listened to the old albums, or the new ones come to that – once they were done, that was it…move on…
Very sad, not least because I got the impression he had plenty left to say and record.
Huge admirer of his refusal to look back when he could have so easily have made a small fortune on the heritage circuit playing the 60s solo albums in full. Instead he went the opposite route and made the music he wanted to make, and it was up to you to make the leap with him.
What an extraordinary career trajectory as well… from essentially a teenage pop Idol to torch song troubadour, to boozy chicken-in-a-basket cabaret, to Bowie-esque Art Rocker and finally disappearing into the darkest, most esoteric corners of Rock. I was intrigued to see where he was going to take the music next. I doff a peaked cap to the man.
this one for me:
First 4 songs of Nite Flights are extraordinary (also released as Shutout EP)
This is one of the great handbrake turns in musical history if you play it directly after the soporific country-rock of the No Regrets and Lines albums. But then this is the man who performed Brel’s My Death on The Billy Cotton Band Show.
Wakey wakey…...What’s up dooooooc?
Nite Flights was a contractual obligation album. The record company had completely lost interest after the commercial failure of the 2 previous albums, and left them to it. They responded by recording the album they wanted to produce, rather than the MOR that had been demanded of them.
The whole label was going tits-up. Nite Flights remained out of print until it was released on CD in 1996.
The WBs comeback had fizzled out fairly rapidly – basically it amounted to the chart success of the No Regrets single, and they were so under the radar by 1978 that one wonders who actually bought that album on its first release. Apart from Midge Ure, of course.
Midge and I make two.
Not much I can add except to say, just another one of my heroes gone. Listen to him at his peak, and compare with the computer corrected yodelling that passes for singing these days.
I remember my dad, a real opera buff, saying “That lad can sing, lovely dark brown voice” after he saw Scott on Top of the Pops.
Praise indeed from him.
I saw the Walker Brothers in 1967, on a package tour with Hendrix. He was drowned out by the screams.
OK so I know it would never be considered an ‘easy listen’ but I was totally knocked out a few years ago by his collaboration with SunnO))
Do yourself a favour and try it!
When is a Boy a Man to Sun O))) – quite a journey.
I’m immersing myself in this stuff.
I’ve come far from chains,
from metal and stone
From makeshift designs,
I’m seeking a star
To grab for the truth,
to keep myself one
I turn and it’s gone,
you smile and it’s born
The rhymes of a woman’s a river
that never ends
The rhymes of dimension surrounds us
with fire and friends
and roaring through darkness
the night children fly
I still hear them singing
the rhymes of goodbye
“There’s nothing within
but within” says a voice
“That’s still my empire
and I’ve got a choice”
It’s heedless of death,
it’s still got a fire
And I’ll keep it burning
with hands of desire
The bells of our senses
can cost us our pride
Can toll out the boundaries
that level our lives
Can slash like the sunlight
through shutters and cracks
Our nakedness calling
our nakedness back
The rhyme of our passions find beauty
in loving love
The rhyme of our madness burns cities
in push and shoves
And roaring through darkness
the night children fly
I still hear them singing
the rhymes of goodbye
So many similarities in the careers of Scott and Mark Hollis. Both turned their backs on popdom to pursue more challenging music. Scott did take it to a further extreme though – Tilt was about as far as I could get and then gave up. Loved Climate though.
What a voice – I heard a story about when Mark Knopfler was doing his Climate session – he played the intro but when Scott started to sing Knopfler momentarily stopped playing he was so taken back by the quality of his voice
I remember that. MK said that it was the sheer acoustic size of his voice in the room that made him stop dead and think “Fookin’ hell!”
Has anybody ever asked Billy Ocean about his appearance on that album? It’s so anomalous that I think most people just react by saying “I can’t process that, it’s too weird, let’s just not think about it”. What about Esther Ofarim on When The Band Comes In? I mean, what??
No complaints though, they both sound great!
I didn’t know Kernoffler and Ocean were on that record. I wonder if Virgin were hoping Scott would follow Steve Winwood and transition into a sharp-suited AOR star for the 80s (No slight on Winwood btw… he did this brilliantly and better than most of his generation)
Then Virgin got one hell of a shock.
Scott’s then manager Ed Bicknell said he only made about £200 out of working with him (and actually I have no idea how he even made that) but that it was the highlight of his professional career.
Just home from a work trip to Dublin to discover my favourite singer has gone. Always seemed such a young man, like Bowie it appeared he could go on forever, so this is rather shocking.
I first became really aware of him in the mid-80s with a best of LP, then picking up the re-issued big four on CD (on mail order, if i remember correctly), of which I think the first one is still my favourite (just). I love those “overblown” arrangements – the way “Mathilde” blasts out of the speakers at you, taking no prisoners, his voice matching the instruments all the way, the overwhelming mix of orchestra and big, big voice on “Montague Terrace”, how he could make a bit of fluff like “The Big Hurt” seem like one of the greatest songs ever written, the gorgeous swirling waltz of “Amsterdam”. That he would develop his own songwriting abilities more and more through those four records (whilst highlighting the work of Jacques Brel, among others) culminating in the entirely self-penned “4”, with all the glories contained in “2” and “3” would have been enough to make me mourn his passing, but the great work he went onto, shunning commercial expectations after the seventies doldrums (though there’s good stuff there too), showed he was a true one-of-a-kind artist. You mightn’t have liked it all (or indeed any of it), and some (fools) labelled it pretentious, but from Nite Flights on, he followed his own path – if you didn’t like it, that was your problem.
In truth, I didn’t care for “Climate Of Hunter” or “Bish Bosch” (though both have their moments), but “Tilt” is great, “Soused” terrific and “The Drift” is a masterpiece, though one of the most terrifying records I’ve ever heard. But he was modest enough to embrace 2017’s superb Scott Walker prom, given that it focussed on music from his first 5 albums. It’s sad that there’s probably no more to come, bar his soundtrack to “Vox Lux”. And in a perverse way he would probably appreciate, I’ll leave you with this, the incredible instrumental theme (from my favourite vocalist) to “Childhood Of A Leader” – see the film if you get the chance to (it’s fantastic), and see how important Scott’s music was to it.
High drama. High art.
And this was the last word of the original 60s run of the WBs – not, it has to be said, doing these things by halves.
Heartbreaking Randy cover, buried on the career low that was Stretch.
From memory I think Stretch is a good album (albeit lousy sleeve) – also has No Easy way Down and How I Got To Memphis.
I’ve played it again and you’re right! We Had It All is good too.
The bad stuff is really the John vocals on Lines and No Regrets. Nice voice but quite tedious songs.
Dug out the 30th Century Man film to watch. I haven’t watched it for some time, but it really is rather good – the later ‘difficult’ stuff suddenly comes into perfect focus and makes total sense.
We saw it in an almost empty picture house. The psychedelic visuals for the Drift material were pretty glorious.
I thought the BBC hacking an hour of it and calling it an Omnibus film was pretty shabby.
I recorded from BBC4 some time ago and burnt a DVD – my version is about 1.5 hours…?
That sounds like the real deal, I’m talking about the version they showed on BBC1.
Of course there’s more in the DVD, probably featuring the Afterword catnip that is Old Blokes Sitting Next to Mixing Desks Chuntering About the Sixties. Hurray!
Total mainstream guy here as far as the Walker Brothers are concerned, I remember their hits: not necessarily fondly, as we later got to know their image as (proto) boyband fodder for girls’ bedroom walls. Yep, at the age of 10 I was too cool for them! However, The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More is an extremely fine slab of large production/wall-of-sound pop (on my classic vinly setup): the youtube clip hardly does it justice. Here it is nevertheless. Good man yourself, Scott.
https://youtu.be/2eAxCVTMJ-I
Remarkable guy.
The brilliant 45cat website reveals a whopping NINE U.S. 45s released by Scott Engel from 57-63, the last of which is a surf record. Get Ace Records on the line someone.
Probably the first, and last, person who will be granted an obituary in all the UK daily papers, specialist rock ‘n’ roll magazines like “Now Dig This,” the music monthlies, “Wire” magazine, Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, Five Live and BBC6 Music!
His early records are extraordinary performances – the word “gusto” does not cover it. At the age of ten he could already be identified as someone who Wasn’t Messing About.
Listening to “Scott 4.”
Anyone writing a lyric like “Hero of the War” in 2019 would get lynched.
I’m not sure that’s true. Apart from omitting to tell us whether this veteran is living in a shop doorway, it’s a narrative plenty of people would be familiar with.
Pretty damning that 50 years later the patronising description of all returning servicemen as “heroes” is as prevalent as ever.
I reckon a lot of ex service and their families can relate even today. Yes, it’s a very cynical lyric, set to lovely music. Do you think he uses the gun on himself at the end or does he surrender to an empty life under his mother’s care?
You should watch the slightly histrionic but nonetheless valuable Born on the Fourth of July if you want an illustration if this song’s content.
The “boys coming back home from absolute hell only to be treated like shit” narrative was still pretty new in 1969.
One Scott album that has sunk without trace was the one released in-between “Scott 3” (March 69) and “Scott 4” (November 69), namely “Scott Walker Sings Songs from his TV Series.”
Contrary to the unheralded genius narrative, it too, just like “Scott,” “2” and “3,” made the Top 10.
I have never heard this record, and, to my knowledge, it has never had a CD release.
Could this make it the highest profile/most successful LP not to have had a CD release?
The TV album is excellent and I have no idea why it hasn’t been rereleased. Scott can’t have suppressed it because he never showed the slightest interest in his back catalogue, apparently not even to the extent of physically owning the records. There is also still some WBs material unreleased on CD.
Scott 2 was a number one album. Scott 3, I think, number 3. Perhaps he took his name off Scott 4 because he was sick of having hits.
Scott DID suppress it, along with the covers albums he made in the early seventies – he simply didn’t like them and didn’t want them out there.
Hm. Maybe that’s why Til The Band Comes In, with its infamous second side, didn’t come out on CD until 1996 – several years after Scott 1-4.
One of the best things that happened to Scott’s catalogue was Fontana getting hold of the Philips stuff – their reissues of the original albums were uniformly excellent, and the Boy Child, No Regrets and After the Lights Go Out CDs were the best compos on their theme you could imagine.
And then they bankrolled Tilt. Top work.
Fontana was a label of the Philips group.
Launched in 1956 by their French branch as a variety label and then in the UK in 1958, initially to release recordings from Epic outside of the US. In ’64 Philips’ American affiliate Mercury launched it in the USA, initially for international recordings.
It was sold off in 2013 to INgrooves digital distribution and marketing, becoming completely independent.
Manfred Mann were on Fontana during the interesting D’Abo period as I recall.
In my day they put out the “Roland Rat” era Pere Ubu albums, the first three by the Lilac Time, Seeds of Love and the hit Was (Not Was) album What Up Dog. Quite a roster.
Fontana also gave a home to James when they bought out their Rough Trade contract, and then scored a biggun with Sit Down
2/3 of it appeared on the “Classics & Collectibles” double CD https://www.amazon.co.uk/Classics-Collectibles-Scott-Walker/dp/B0009WWEEO/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=scott+walker+classics&qid=1553945015&s=gateway&sr=8-2 and “The Look of Love” has appeared on “The Collection”, https://www.discogs.com/Scott-Walker-The-Collection/master/936273 but 3 tracks remain unreleased on CD.
I believe he did block a few of the 70s albums being released on CD which had been on the release schedules (The Moviegoer & Any Day Now), so that may be the case here – a bit too MOR for him perhaps? Regardless, it’s pretty good.
Any Day Now was released on a twofer with either Stretch or We Had It All in the UK in about 1997. Selections from all of these have appeared on various compos, most notably the excellent Five Easy Pieces box set.
Philips loved the “Scott” debut album cover picture so much that they used it on a further three albums in the UK alone , including the original Sings Jacques Brel. This has to be some kind of record.
You may be right about Any Day Now, but i’ve never seen and can’t find any CD listing for it – it was released on a different label (Philips) to Stretch & We Had it All, which were CBS releases. Stretch & We Had It All did have a twofer release together in ’97 though: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stretch-Had-All-Scott-Walker/dp/B0000011PD/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=stretch+we+had&qid=1553961212&s=gateway&sr=8-1
And yes, selections from all the solo albums have been released on comps previously, but those 3 albums remain elusive in their complete form on CD.
Oho! Clarity! Ta.
In the mid 90s I bought an enjoyable compo called A Very Special Collection for about a fiver – the content ranged across Stretch, We Had it All, Any Day Now and the three 70s Walker Brothers albums. Shutout was the proverbial sore thumb.
Thanks for all that. Education is power!
Got that one too – on Pickwick (remember when Pickwick had stuff like the Abba catalogue?) – filled in a few gaps in my collection.
Obviously didn’t listen to it but Tony Blackburn really cut into the enigma and mystery that is Scott Walker this morning –
“Joanna,” “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore” and “Make It Easy On Yourself.”
He really goes the extra mile. It’s what makes Radio 2 the station it is.
It was only the Sixties remit that stopped him from playing Epizootics.
I won’t quite say ‘to my shame’, perhaps more ‘to my shock’, I’ve only just found out about Scott’s death through logging on here. Anyway, I can’t add any more to what’s already been said but…wow.