Scott Walker (singer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scott Walker
Scott Walker on the cover of one of his compilation albums.
Scott Walker on the cover of one of his compilation albums.
Background information
Birth name Noel Scott Engel
Also known as Scott Walker
Born 9 January 1943
Hamilton, Ohio, USA.
Genre(s) Contemporary/Avant-garde, Pop music, Rock, Country, 60's Beat Music
Instrument(s) Guitar, Electric bass, Keyboard, Vocals
Years active 1958 - Present
Label(s) 4AD
Associated
acts		 The Walker Brothers
Website Scott Walker @ 4AD

Scott Walker is the stage name of the American singer-songwriter (born Noel Scott Engel, 9 January 1943, in Hamilton, Ohio). He was named after his father. Walker has long resided in England.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Originally championed by Eddie Fisher in the late 1950s, Scott appeared several times under his real name on Fisher's TV series as a teen idol type in the vein of Fabian or Frankie Avalon. The music and lyrics were standard teen fare and he displayed an immature but curious confidence in inhabiting these light tunes with an impersonality verging on the clinically anodyne.

Walker was among the first to adopt the electric bass guitar, mastering it to a proficiency to win regular session work in Los Angeles studios while still in his teens. This experience may explain the prodigious recording talent evident only a few years later in London.

[edit] The Walker Brothers Era

After playing in many bands he eventually joined with John Maus then Gary Leeds to form The Walker Brothers in Los Angeles in 1964. Leeds had recently toured the UK with P.J.Proby and was the catalyst to their relocation to London.

The Walker Brothers arrived in London in early 1965 and attained worldwide popularity with pop ballads. Their first single Pretty Girls Everywhere, with John Maus as lead singer, crept into the charts. It was only when Love Her, the B side with Scott's deeper baritone in the lead, was picked up for radio play that they made any real chart impact and executives at their UK record label, Philips, noticed the rangy émigré Americans.

The Walker Brothers next release, Make it Easy on Yourself, was a Bacharach/David ballad that swept to No. 1 in the UK charts on release in August 1965. When their second No. 1, The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore shot to the top in early 1966 their popularity and fan base is said to have exceeded The Beatles in the UK and Europe. As lead singer, Scott attained pop star status.

But life at the top was precarious. Finding suitable material was always a problem. The Walkers' 60s sound is unique, mixing Spectorish "wall of sound" techniques with fluid symphonic orchestrations featuring Britain's top musicians and arrangers. Scott Walker claimed authorship of this sound in recent interviews.

Many of their earlier numbers have a driving beat, but by the third album, Images, ballads predominate. John's (Maus) musical influence clearly wanes by the third album, despite featuring in a fine solo of the standard Blueberry Hill and one original composition. His spirited harmonising on tracks Everything Under the Sun, Stand By Me and Just Say Goodbye, boosts them to levels rarely heard on pop recordings. It was Scott Walker's artistic momentum driving the group now, but his artistic growth was also driving it apart.

Artistic differences and the stresses stemming from overwhelming pop idolatry led to the break-up of The Walker Brothers in 1967, although they reunited briefly for a tour of Japan the following year. On their return to the UK, Scott concentrated on producing a solo album for the tour's musical director and guitarist Terry Smith. The Walker Bros. last two singles, Stay With Me Baby and Walking in the Rain, struck fans and critics as retro, dated choices, harking back to earlier pop. Both failed to reach the top ten and Scott would later profess this as the trigger to the split. Noteworthy then, is the fact that producer Johnny Franz and John Walker wanted to release the driving and upbeat Everything Under the Sun as the single from Images. Looking back, Scott confessed that he put his foot down, and scored another miss.

[edit] Scott Walker's Emerging Solo Work

Scott (1967)
Enlarge
Scott (1967)

Scott Walker shed the Walker Brothers mantle cleanly and began a solo career in a style learly glimpsed in Images, the Walker's last album. To this he added a provocative mixture of risqué recordings of Jacques Brel songs, ably translated by Mort Shuman. These combined a literary quality, foreign to the English speaking pop scene, with vivid orchestrations. Jackie celebrated a jaundiced view of the life of a popular singer and fame while at the same time capturing its driving verve. The BBC banned the song because "queers", "phoney virgins" and "bordellos" featured in its striking lyrics. Nonetheless, it made it to the pop charts. Nine of these intense chanson art songs feature on the first three solo Walker albums and remain the standout cover versions of Brel classics in English almost 40 years later.

Walker's own original songs of this period are a late, last flowering of a dark Romanticism tinged with Surrealism and Existential angst. They are influenced by Brel and in some inchoate way, the writing of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus and early twentieth century European thought, poetry, art and music (despite the fact that by then Existentialism was waning as a philosophical and literary fashion). Walker explored European musical roots while paradoxically expressing his own American experience and alienation. He was also inching to a new maturity as a recording artist. This would bear incredible fruit with his marvellous country recordings in the early seventies.

Scott 2 (1968)
Enlarge
Scott 2 (1968)

As the Walker Brothers phenomenon had rolled on, Scott had thrown himself into intense study of contemporary and classical music, even living in a monastery to learn Gregorian chant. His own songs gradually course into Lieder and classical musical modes and appear, at least on the surface, more musically developed than that virile Belgian, Brel, who formed his deceptively direct style in Paris's post war boites and cabarets. Sung in a voice reminiscent of Jack Jones or with power of a hip Frank Sinatra, each song is treated uniquely without any house style evident. The breadth of subject and musical means used to deliver them remain impressive, while the power of Walker's delivery probably discouraged cover versions.

Scott Walker's early solo career was extremely successful in Britain; his first three albums, titled Scott (1967), Scott 2 (1968) and Scott 3 (1969) all sold in large numbers, Scott 2 topping the British charts. There were also early indications that this concentrated attention was not conducive to his emotional well being. He became reclusive and somewhat distanced from his audience. During this time, he combined his earlier teen appeal with a darker, more idiosyncratic approach hinted at in songs like Orpheus on the Images album. Scott drove a fine line between classic ballads, his own poetic compositions and great Brel covers, all delivered inimitably.

Scott 3 (1969)
Enlarge
Scott 3 (1969)

At the peak of this fame in 1969, he had his own British TV series, Scott, featuring solo Walker performances of ballads, big band standards and introductions of his own and Brel compositions. In recent interviews he admits that a self-indulgent complacency crept into his choice of material and his reliance on slow tempos by his third album.

When Walker released his fourth solo LP, Scott 4, his first made up entirely of his own material, an artistic Rubicon was crossed. The ballads and Brel were gone and the Walker sound pared down. It brings to a close a very intense period for the still young singer and songwriter. References to topics like the figure of death in a song version of Ingmar Bergman's famous film, The Seventh Seal, or to Sartre's analysis of Stalinism in The Old Man's Back Again, also make this a significant work of art for those willing to listen.

Unfortunately, many did not, it failed to chart and was deleted soon after. Walker had left the pop buying public behind. Perhaps, it was confused by the lack of similarity between the lone romantic image of the Scott TV shows and the bare, demystified approach of Scott 4, where Walker shed even his "lonely" persona. The songs are nakedly about death, contemporary politics - the end of the Prague Spring and Soviet repression, the Vietnam War (still raging) - and personal redemption through love.

Some have speculated that because it was originally released under his birth name, Noel Scott Engel, this contributed to its chart failure. This is an odd rationalization given its title. The failings perhaps would better be laid at the door of poor management. Walker was a large and difficult artist and at 26, in the process of peeling another skin.

Scott 4 (1969)
Enlarge
Scott 4 (1969)

The result was his 1970 follow-up, Till The Band Comes In, a dynamic and socially attuned collection of songs viscerally slicing a scalpel through what Walker saw as an increasingly alienated society. However, Scott's signature songs of personal anguish are singularly absent. This was a development too far and too soon for his fan base and the record failed to chart. Walker and pop were travelling in different directions and no one appeared to be steering the ship.

As a result, Walker spiralled into a different direction, leaving his own fraught compositions behind. The early 70s saw him revert to cover versions of popular film tunes and a development perhaps few would have predicted unless they had been listening closely to a couple of songs on Scott 4, a serious flirtation with the country and western scene. These songs are delivered with a depth and conviction investing them with the aura of original compositions. Despite Walker regarding these as his lost years as an artist, they yielded 4 solo albums—The Moviegoer (1972), Any Day Now (1973), Stretch (1973), and We Had It All (1974)—featuring no original material whatsoever.

The performances, however display a rare humanity and new artistic maturity in conveying a broad spectrum of experiences, lives and characters. Some claim they border on genius. One African/American session musician opined in awe that Walker could sing Three Blind Mice and make it into a profound work of art,[citation needed] a claim later repeated by Marc Almond in the sleeve notes of his compilation of Walker's songs, boy child. In retrospect, the choice of material now appears as a deliberate antidote to Walker's own more complex original compositions. Walker says he lost confidence in his composing at this time. Despite this new found maturity as a recording artist, Scott's time at the top of the pops was almost over.

[edit] Walker Brothers Reunite

Perhaps for mutual protection, the Walker Brothers "who never were", as one writer had earlier described them, reunited in 1975 to produce three standout albums. Their first single, No Regrets, climbed to No. 7 on the British charts. This Tom Rush ballad was delivered in a magisterial tone that sums up both an ended love affair and an era.

Follow up singles, Lines and others from the second album of the same title failed to impress the then punk-crazed pop world. Music was out and noise and bad behaviour were in, but not necessarily linked to musical talent. Walker regards Lines as the best single the Walkers released. Its seamless harmonising and soaring melody are recorded with a spare purity that makes it special, but choice of material and downbeat tone were possible contributing factors to its chart failure. Walker is not necessarily good at selecting commercial releases- the artist sometimes gets in the way of the showman. A recent Walkers compilation reveals he left one of his greatest "country" covers- Til I gain Control Again - off the Lines LP. This lilting gem has hit written all over it.

In the wake of this icy reception and with the imminent demise of their record label the dam broke for Scott Walker. Having nothing to lose the Walkers collaborated on an album of original material that was in stark contrast to the country flavoured tunes of the first two albums. It was edgy and sharp but went completely unheeded till musical acolytes rediscovered it. The Walkers were back on the contemporary pulse but with no record label. Personal issues intervened for John and they split once more, a move he says he now regrets.

Nite Flights captured the bleak post-modern world in a nutshell, celebrating the death of romance, as one of Gary's songs terms it. It is, in any case, the precursor of all that what was to come from Scott Walker till today.

[edit] Return to Solo Works

Tilt (1995)
Enlarge
Tilt (1995)

Known for being private and reclusive, Walker's recording activity has been steady but sporadic since the late 1970s. He has released just three startlingly original albums since 1980: 1984's Climate of Hunter, the darker and more powerful Tilt in 1995 and the critically acclaimed The Drift in 2006, where this development may be carried to its ultimate conclusion.

Critics have been slow to come to terms with these recordings; however, their seriousness and originality are gradually filtering through various cultural, social and political strata. One of the most thoughtful expositions of Tilt appeared some years later on the World Socialist website. Almost universal critical acclaim for The Drift placed it as high as No*2 on the Metacritics chart on release in June 2006. It was still listed at No*12 at the end of September 2006.

In tangent developments in 1993 Walker co-wrote and co-performed (with Goran Bregović) a single Man From Reno c/w Indecent Sacrifice for the soundtrack of the film Toxic Affair. 1996 saw him record the song I Threw It All Away under the direction of Nick Cave to be included in the soundtrack for the film To Have And To Hold. In 1999, he sang the David Arnold song Only Myself To Blame, included on the soundtrack of the Bond film The World Is Not Enough. The same year saw him write and produce the soundtrack for the Léos Carax film Pola X, which has been released as an album. The following year, Walker wrote and produced two songs for Ute Lemper. He went on to produce the Britpop band Pulp's 2001 album We Love Life.

Walker is a strong continuing influence on other artists, in particular Marc Almond, Billy MacKenzie of the Associates, the Divine Comedy/Neil Hannon, and cult performer Glyn Styler. 2000 saw him curate the London South Bank Centre's annual summer live music festival, Meltdown, which has a tradition of celebrity curators. He did not perform at Meltdown himself, but wrote the music for The Richard Alston Dance Project item Thimblerigging.

The Drift (2006)
Enlarge
The Drift (2006)

In October 2003, Walker was given an award for his contribution to music by the British music magazine Q. This was presented to him by Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, and he received a standing ovation at the presentation. This award had only been presented twice before, the first to Phil Spector, and second to Brian Eno. The following month saw the release of a retrospective box set, 5 Easy Pieces, comprising five themed discs spanning Walker's work with The Walker Brothers, his solo career (including film soundtrack work), and the two pieces composed for Ute Lemper.

British independent label 4AD Records signed Walker in early 2004 and his first album in 11 years, The Drift, was released on 8th May 2006 to rapturous reviews. All critics have noted the apocalyptic power of Walker’s recording. In recent interviews he appears far more at ease with media attention. He stated he wishes to produce albums more frequently and hinted playfully at other significant changes in material if and when it suits him. One should expect the unexpected from Scott Walker.

In June of 2006 MOJO Magazine and Radio honoured Scott with The MOJO Icon Award: "Voted for by MOJO readers and Mojo4music users, the recipient of this award has enjoyed a spectacular career on a global scale". It was presented by Phil Alexander.

The documentary film, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, was completed in 2006 by New York film director Stephen Kijak (Cinemania and Never Met Picasso). Interviews were recorded with David Bowie (executive producer of the film), Radiohead, Sting, Gavin Friday and many musicians associated with Walker over the years. The World Premiere of Scott Walker: 30 Century Man took place on Tuesday, October 31st as part of the 50th London Film Festival.

Ironically, the mocking phrase from the opening track of The Drift: “You could easily picture this in the current top ten…”, proved prophetic. When The Independent released its list of the "Ten must-see films" at the 50th London Film Festival, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, was among them.

In October 2006 Walker released Darkness, part of a CD compilation of the Margate Exodus project, a contemporary re-telling of the Book of Exodus, the story of Moses and his search for the promised land. Ten international singer-songwriters were commissioned by Artangel in the UK to write and record a song inspired by one of the ten biblical plagues. Scott Walker’s evocation of Darkness appears as the ninth. Stephen Kijak's brief critical comment is: "I’ve just heard Scott’s DARKNESS. More like a blast of BLINDING LIGHT. Another progression. Breathtaking. This is no Drift b-side, have not heard the likes of this from him before."

[edit] Discography

[edit] The Walker Brothers

  • Take It Easy with the Walker Brothers (1965)
  • Portrait (1966)
  • Images (1967)
  • No Regrets (1975)
  • Lines (1976)
  • Nite Flights (1977)

[edit] Solo

[edit] Selected compilations

[edit] As producer

[edit] Quotation

"I've become the Orson Welles of the record industry. People want to take me to lunch, but nobody wants to finance the picture...I keep hoping that when I make a record, I'll be asked to make another one. I keep hoping that if I can make a series of three records, then I can progress and do different things each time. But when I have to get it up once every 10 years... it's a tough way to work." —in an interview for The Independent, April 1995

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../s/c/o/Scott_Walker_%28singer%29_ad54.html"