By Amanda (‘Scott Walker Fan’) Hallay
Photographs: © Chris Walter
Everybody’s heard of Scott Walker. More Sartre than Sinatra, this existential crooner is someone who it’s ‘cool’ to like. I don’t like him because it makes me ‘cool’ (I’m ‘cool’ enough already). I like Scott Walker because I honestly don’t believe there has ever been a male vocalist to equal him. His rich, masterful voice and incredible, intelligent phrasing sets him apart from absolutely everyone else. Without any whimsy, he can break your heart with a key change, his understanding of the power of a lyric (and lyrics mattered to Scott) a credit to his intelligence as a man and gift as an artist.
Scott Walker and I have a lot in common. When I used to do a lot of recording, I had the opportunity of hearing my voice slowed down so that I sounded like a boy. That boy was Scott Walker. It was a very bizarre experience, yet not an unpleasant one. (On ‘normal speed’ I sound like Petula Clark, which is not so ‘cool’.) However, I could not hope to achieve rock n’ roll stardom with a slowed-down voice (and nobody wants someone who sounds like Pet Clark). Yet it has always been a comfort to know that – had I been born a boy – I would have sung like Scott Walker.
In fact, I’d like to think that – had I been born a boy – I would have been Scott Walker.
Scott Walker and I have other things in common, most significantly, the fact that we were both born in Ohio - and got out of Ohio as soon as we could, both of us relocating to Terra Anglerra, where we made our homes and lived for the rest of our lives (except that I also lived in France. This is a ‘detail’, and should in no way deter from the Walker-Hallay parallels.) Scott joined ‘60s ‘boy band’ The Walker Brothers with two fellow Americans, the group finding management, publishing and (ultimately) fame in Swinging England. The music of The Walker Brothers was better than it’s often given credit. The Female of the Species, Mrs Murphy and (most famously) The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore are powerful tasters of the genius to come. It was whilst fronting The Walker Brothers that bassist Scott first began recording his own composition, and the little known Turn Out The Moon and You’re All Around Me are intriguing indicators to Scott’s leaning towards the ‘darker side’ of love.
The late Sixties saw the break-up of The Walker Brothers, and for Scott, this meant an unbridled artistic freedom with which he explored (via his seminal series of albums, Scott to Scott 4) a ‘different’ kind of pop. His was not the disjointed psychedelia of the late Beatles, nor was it the fruity ‘bubble gum’ of Dave Dee or Herman’s Hermits. Scott did something entirely different, entirely his own. Inspired by the work of French composer Jacques Brel (whom Walker covered with tremendous success), Scott’s solo albums explored a dark, sad, lonely world inhabited by old ladies, rent boys, prostitutes and war cripples. Love was a dangerous emotion; twisted, macabre, isolating, Scott’s heart-break voice imbued with the tragic banality of human connections. “Such a small love – Such a little tear – You would laugh out loud – If you could see us here.”
Scott's seminal series of self-penned albums.
A 'must have' for all your
'I-Wanna-Feel-Sad-Tonight' cravings.
Walker’s œuvre was either highly personal or strangely detached; he could sing of his pathetic little affair at Montague Terrace, and then lend the same conviction to The Old Man’s Back Again, a song about Stalin’s regime. Two Old Men is bitter-sweet quotidian, whilst Hero of the War takes a caustic look at both Vietnam and Northern Ireland. There is nothing Walker overlooks in his quest to paint a picture of the world he sees around him – and the world he sees around him is a sad little world full of tellies and spinsters, bedsits and brothels.
Scott Walker disappeared at some point in the early Seventies. Rumours abounded as to ‘what ever happened to’ the man who David Bowie, Julian Cope and Marc Almond cited as their strongest influence. The truth eventually came from Scott himself. He’d simply been at home in Hampstead, the rumours of his decline into alcoholism somewhat exaggerated. Reappearing in the late ‘90s to launch his powerful comeback album, Tilt, Scott seemed as friendly and unaffected as a Walker Brother, his attractive Trans-Atlantic dialect the perfect marriage of ‘West meets West Ham.’
Scott has a new album out soon, and although loneliness was a cloak he wore, it’s wonderful to see that he’s back action and giving the people what they want.
And what we want is SCOTT WALKER!
This beautiful man truly will “die in nine angels’ arms.”
