I bought Scott 3 today, and it is genuinely mindblowing. Probably one of the most invigorating albums I have ever heard.
The question is, where do I go from here? Do I go back to Scott 1 and work my way towards the more experimental stuff, or are there any specific later/earlier albums that are essential listening before I delve further into his back catalogue?
I have just
started digging through the Walker Brothers again. Horribly twee in parts, but you really can't argue with songs like Make It Easy On Yourself.
scott 1 and scott 4
are the masterpieces
and then you get to try your hand at the later reinventions
Scott 3
is the underrated masterpiece. On certain days, it is as good, if not better, than Scott 4.
And I'd say Scott 2 is more of a masterpiece than Scott 1. Jackie, Plastic Palace People, The Girl From The Streets = AAA material
3, 4, TILT, Nite Flights, Walker Bros Best Of, bits of Drift...
and then get 30 CENTURY MAN on dvd and you're all set.
The Drift
Most frightening record of all time.
^
True fact. Brilliant though.
This is what I shall do, then
Thanks for the recommendations!
start with Tilt
then Scotts 1-4 then The Drift.
It's what I did.
Start with
Michel Legrand, Henry Mancini, Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, Mark Murphy, The Righteous Brothers, Jack Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. Add a dash of Jacques Brel's lyrical style (via Mort Shuman) and you will be all set to put The Walker Bros and Scott Walker's first batch of solo LPs into some sort of context. There are plenty of other reference points, but these all seem to inform his initial approach rather well.
It's important to understand and appreciate the world of '60s MOR pop music which he firmly resided in at the time (not to mention his early classical and literary pretensions). There's no point trying to separate him from the tradition which produced his best-known work (as so many snobs are eager to).
i've got scott 4
it's alright, yeah. can't really claim to be a big fan of that kind of music. songs about the seventh seal are always fun, though.
That song is kind of silly
He did it much better with the Bergman-esque narrative of Farmer in the City.
Walker was always more into Brel and Mozart
than Tony Bennett and Bacharach. And I think that the songs he wrote reflect that. Scott 3 is almost classical in feel, with some French Chanson in there too. Definitely not 60's MOR pop. It's not snobbery, it's just a fact. Of course his covers on the other hand, apart from the Brel ones, are very much MOR but need to be judged on their individual merits. Best Of Both Worlds, for example, is amazing.
I've never discussed
this with Scott, so I can't say definitively whether or not he was more into Brel and Mozart than anyone else. Certainly Brel was a huge influence on walker, but not sufficient enough to persuade him to alter his general approach to recording.
For the most part, his mid to late '60s 'sound', choice of covers and arrangements belong to the world of people like (amongst many others) Mark Murphy, Billy Eckstine (jazz vocal),Tony Bennett (big orchestral production/song choices), Michel Legrand (baroque orchestration/song choices/European Musical Theatre), Henry Mancini (arrangements/song choices) and a little soul and folk balladry courtesy of Jerry Butler and Tim Hardin, for example. Only an idiot would say that Brel and Walker sound similar. Walker's sound is a product of an MOR pop approach that he managed to incorporate his own imaginitive and perceptive lyrics into. Scott 1-4 are not avant-garde recordings - they are pop albums that are the work of an imaginitive, talented and extremely knowledgeable group of individuals who were heavily and unashamedly influenced by leaders in their field. Even by Scott 4, the MOR stylings are fully in evidence.
Most of Scott's output at the time sounds 'classical' in arrangement. But no more than the popular baroque-influenced orchestral output of countless other contemporary songwriters and arrangers at the time (Michel Legrand being the ultimate example). Peter Knight, Reg Guest and Angela Morley were all doing the rounds with other MOR performers. The fact that more rockin' drums and acoustic/electric guitars started creeping in by 3 and 4 was hardly groundbreaking in 1969.
'Best of Both Worlds' was a hit for Lulu, which says it all, really!
I must be an idiot then
but of course some Walker stuff sounds like Brel. The carousel sound on Copenhagen, the Girls On The Streets is probably the closest to an Brel homage he came to writing. Certainly non of the MOR stuff you mention is as dark as Scott could get, whereas Brel could...songs like Orly, Ces Gens La, Je Suis Un Soir D'ete. Scott may have had MOR arrangers but that's not where his heart lay. I think songs like Big Louise, Angels Of Ashes and Boychild are testament to this and anyone hearing those should not be surprised by the stuff he is doing today, although, obviously since losing faith in his songwriting for most of the 70s, it took him longer than it may have to get there. But, true, Scott 4 does have songs like World's Strongest Man, which are definitely lighter sounding. I've never thought of Scott 1-4 as avant garde and I've never heard anyone call them that either.
I'm exagerrating to make a point
but I think the way people talk about these albums you'd think he was doing something out of the ordinary in musical terms. Which he wasn't. It's his lyrics that are unusual.
What I meant is that Walker's singing sounds nothing like Brel. Francois Rauber's arrangements are far less slick than Walker's team of arrangers anyway (and less akin to the work of American and British equivalents). The carousel gag certainly seems to be a nod towards Brel, but it hardly makes these songs equivalent. The influence is there, but these songs don't sound like Brel to my ears. The closest to an 'homage' is surely to be found in the lyrics, not the arrangements (which he didn't do).
How can you claim to know where Scott's heart lay? He regularly praised songwriters like Legrand and Mancini and was a huge fan of jazz singers and great vocalists like Tony Bennett and Mark Murphy.
The songs you mention may indicate a move towards his latest work in lyrical terms, but again - the orchestral arrangements are not unlike what Roy Budd or John Barry were doing on soundtracks or what Sinatra, Streisand, Matt Monro or Engelbert were singing along to!
Well
I can't know for sure where his heart lay. But I do know he says that he would have reached the music he is doing now earlier if he had not stopped writing songs in early 70s. And this suggests that songs like Boychild and Angels Of Ashes were signs of the way he was going. Sure, they're not avant-garde, and you may have heard arrangements like them before, but I really cannot imagine Sinatra or Streisand singing them, and I don't just mean the lyrics. Personally I hear an austerity in them that is very striking.
If not just the lyrics, what?
The arrangements? They are great and beautiful arrangements but not unusual for the time particularly when compared to French and Italian pop orchestrations and soundtracks. The tunes are strong and definitely European in flavour, boasting a great deal of diversity, but the arrangements (and thus the presentation) is invariably theatrical or filmic. Walker's vocals are stunning, but again - his primary approach is from a tradition of musical theatre, jazz and popular vocalists that clearly and definitely includes Sinatra, Streisand, Bennet et al and is all the better for it.
I'm not sure why people have such difficulty recognising this in his vocals and arrangements.
The fact that he got Esther Ofarim in to do vocals on 'Long About Now' suggests to me that he probably dug Babs but couldn't afford her!
I've had this debate before and people rarely concede that Scott Walker (arguably up until Nite Flights) can be regarded as part of a decidedly MOR tradition of highly polished popular music (which to my mind is no criticism). That was very clearly the field in which he worked and enjoyed working for a long time. He was unique in this field and extremely creative, but very definitely part of it.
Of course he came from this tradition
but to me one just has to compare his non-Brel covers to hos own compositions and there is something extra and wonderful there, more gravitas to them, and again I don't just mean lyrics. I can't necessarily describe to you exactly what it is but then it's music so that doesn't matter. Can you give me another song from the time that is similar to, say, Boychild or Big Louise? That's not a rhetorical question....you have a greater knowledge of 60's orchestral music than I do.
I bought Scott 4
the other day, my first delve into Scott Walker territory. I think it will take a few more listens. Seems promising though..
'The Seventh Seal' is a pretty bad song.
Chronological
I'd actually start with the Walker Brothers albums and listen in sequence. It's really enlightening to see how the man evolved from boy-band member to genius, to useless drunk (if you can actually find any of those 70's solo albums!) back to genius again. And then beyond, into something that resembles music, but is actually something else entirely.
Nite Flights, the last Walkers album is ESSENTIAL though. Interesting that nobody's mentioned Climate Of Hunter, which although a bit too obviously 80's in terms of production sometimes, is blindingly good.
Nonsense
The Seventh Seal is a great song.
Spot
On.
It's a cracker.
Oh, and pointless pop fact #345632:
The guitar solo on Track three from Climate of Hunter was by Phil Palmer who also did the guitar solo on Take That's Back For Good.
I'll shutup now. :)
It's just the lyrics..
to try and distil the Seventh Seal into some kind of linear narrative is a tall order, I just don't think it really works.
It is rather stilted
BUT an interesting idea and great fun! Good old theatrical excess over an arrangement worthy of James Last himself!
to think
that fucking clown from the monkees and his droog are name-dropping the master walker makes my blood boil
Master Walker
has said he is a fan of "that fucking clown from the monkees"
i've only got
The Drift and Tilt, but they're great.
Julian Cope
Did a really great compilation called 'fire Escape in the Sky' in the 80s. Get hold of that if you can - it's got Plastic Palace People and some Scott 4 tracks like Boy Child and Montague Terrace in Blue. I got it from a church sale. I seem to get quite lucky with Walker Brothers best offs at car boot sales too!
It's boot fair season soon - I say trawl the bootfairs - a certain generation of people quite like getting rid of their 60s and 80s vinyl!
It means a lot to me to read
comments from admirers of Scott - I've been a fan for about ten years now, and have recently wondered - He's got the voice, the looks, the talent, the intelligence - does any other artist come close to that?
Just get The Drift.
Sit in your room; put record on crushingly loud; turn lights off; listen to end; have personality permanently altered.