Scott Walker. (RIP March 2019)

also i don't recall scott doing much press around the time of tilt (when i first discovered him), so his relative accessibility to journalists and others in the 21st century came as a pleasant surprise, as did the fact that he was a totally unpretentious and mellow dude. i gues when i first heard his music i expected him to be like an antonin artaud type or something...

xp Oooh I would love it if you could track down the link, or I'll try to

I rate Angela's work as highly as Nelson Riddle or Mary Lou Williams, she wrote effortlessly

I do remember a Scott walker cover issue of the Wire I think around the time of tilt.

I have that issue under the bed somewhere

good wank material?

sorry, that was disrepectful in a RIP thread.

listening to "You're All Around Me" right now, hadn't locked on the Roy Orbison debt before

xp
That issue had an interview with the same journalist as the 1984 interview linked upthread. It's here: https://web.archive.org/web/20130405163815/https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/interviews/scott-walker_tilting-at-windmills

xpost

that's (orbison) a reference pt i hadn't thought of!

SW himself in the '60s declared himself influenced by jack jones, a name that mostly conjures up the word "huh?" now. but you can kind of hear it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EAELtJgD6A

i think walker's singing on the early records is more bombastic in the orbison mold and lacks the conversational intimacy of sinatra, who he is sometimes compared to. sinatra never wrote something like "big louise," though.

Sinatra didn't write, period.

do you intend "bombastic" as description or criticism? Orbison's choice of approach on "It's Over," "Running Scared," "In Dreams" is appropriate to the songs he wrote.

that's my point!

xpost

description, not criticism. i adore orbison and sW!

I remember Jack Jones popping up on aging WW2-generation-friendly TV variety shows in the '60s and '70s. His dad Allan was the boring musical relief in the Marx Brothers' two best MGM movies.

With that record I mentioned I hear Orbison in the arrangement just as much.

yeah jack jones was one of those slightly younger guys who seemed to appeal to the greatest generation, like maybe bobby darin.

The Jones of "Jolson and Jones" references Jack Jones's dad Allan. It shares lyrics with Jones's Donkey Serenade

!!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GD6qtc2_AQA/maxresdefault.jpg

and Jack Jones did the Love Boat theme

that song has the most musical use of a donkey's braying since the opening of au hasard balthazar.

xpost lol

alternate universe where scott walker sings the love boat theme

Jack Jones also had the lead role The Comeback, a slasher flick directed by British sleaze merchant Pete Walker - Jones definitely sounds quite Scott-like at about the 47s mark in this trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhdFiw-tOCU

Some talk of Jack/Allan Jones in this Scott interview: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/scott-walker-not-easy-on-himself-6101790.html

jones kinda has a face made for radio tbh

“You’re all around me” is a great tune. It actually gets stuck in my head constantly even though I haven’t listened to it in years. I like the part where he thinks about the pigeon.

not that anyone needs reminding but this is an extraordinary song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIJzTWk6bSw

i can't seem to find the link but there's a radio show from a few years ago, where jarvis cocker interviews scott for over an hour about those early records (which SW didn't often talk about) and they talk about his arrangers quite a bit. worth a listen or two.

I believe the interview has now been repeated on 6music, so will now be on the BBC player

Jarvis: "I've got a recording of an interview you gave a few years ago, can I play a bit of it to you?"

Possibly the only person who could get that one OK'ed by Scott

I love how Scott had Jarvis add "The second side of 'Til The Band Comes In" to the list of substandard things in Bad Cover Version

He didn't - Jarvis wrote it before Scott was on the project, he claims that Scott never noticed it - certainly never said owt.

I think Jack Jones was more popular in the UK than the US.

xp is there a quote on that somewhere? Sure I remember otherwise, though quite likely some sort of false memory

http://i65.tinypic.com/2nbbqcm.jpg

Thanks, even better story.

Well, there you go.

What book is that, btw?

Excellent!

Weird thing is The War Is Over (Sleepers) is on Side 2 and that's one he wrote himself (and it's ace!) so he's got his facts a bit skew whiff.

yeah, the album sort-of finishes it's theme about two-thirds of the way through, and adds a few (not al that terrible) covers at the end.

Then again, so does Scott 3.

The book is Truth And Beauty - The Story Of Pulp by Mark Sturdy, it's an exhaustive book which covers their entire lifespan up until the hiatus.

You can hear a whistle in Scott’s speaking voice on that Jarvis i/v, presumably as a result of busting his teeth from his most recent cycling accident.

nice to hear that interview and him speak at length. early on listening to it I began imagining there could be a creature-comforts-style animation to accompany it.

You can hear a whistle in Scott’s speaking voice on that Jarvis i/v, presumably as a result of busting his teeth from his most recent cycling accident.

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, March 26, 2019 2:58 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not a result of one of his many bar fights?

he always had a slight lisp, did he not. gives his voice some of its alluring character imo.

Lemon bloody cola!

Goddamn this stuff is so good. I intentionally avoid overplaying things I love, to keep them a bit fresh. Listening to "Bolivia '95" on headphones right now, I still hear things that surprise me.

a repeat for jarvis' Late Junction mixtape

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0003rrv

The Electrician
Blanket Roll Blues
Clara
The Plague
Farmer in the City
Opening
It's Raining Today

and here's Scott talking with Jarvis - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000417w

(same as youtube link, i think)

Scott's favourite films:

http://bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/scott-walker-s-favourite-films

and related, an hour of soundtrack work

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/84934

I like how so much of Scott's stuff is a reference to pre-60s societal and cultural ephemera - stuff I know very little about in all honesty