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Scott Walker R.I.P.
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keith a
9565 posts

Re: Scott Walker R.I.P.
Mar 25, 2019, 21:06
Well we lost one of the true music greats today. Scott Walker's career was probably like no other (though the also recently departed Mark Hollis may have come closest in some respects). Blessed with one of the greatest voices ever and releasing glorious 60's pop singles such as The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore and Make It Easy On Yourself with his fictional Walker 'Brothers', Scott had the world at his feet but fame and fortune weren't enough for him. He wanted to do his own thing resulting in those fabulous solo albums (Scott 1-IV) that mixed Jacque Brel songs with his own increasingly ambitious compositions. These are records that stand amongst the greatest ever as far as I am concerned. After re-uniting with The Walker Brothers and enjoying success again with the classic No Regrets single, he briefly took the band in an altogether more esoteric direction, but silence followed until 1981 when a young Julian Cope stepped in. His curated Fire Escape In The Sky: The Godlike Genius Of Scott Walker on Liverpool's Zoo record label was a truly fabulous compilation that introduced people like me to many of those early solo tracks. Indeed, the importance of this release cannot be under-estimated as it brought Scott to the attention of an entirely new audience and led to him being signed by Virgin and releasing the uncompromising Climate Of Hunter. The releases that followed - Tilt, The Drift, Bish Bosch, etc - became increasingly 'difficult' as Scott just did his own thing. Here was a man who could have been earning a fortune, singing those old sixties hits in Vegas, but instead was seen punching a slab of meat to get the percussive sounds he wanted on what are probably the most out-there recordings a former chart act has ever released. His death today was a real shock - he just seemed like someone who would always be there, popping up when you least expected him. RIP God-like Genius x

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