Waterboys keyboardist founded World Party
• Karl Wallinger, the multi-instrumentalist and solo force behind the band World Party and former member of The Waterboys, has died.
Wallinger, 66, died Sunday, his publicist said. No cause of death was announced.
Wallinger had worked as musical director for a production of The Rocky Horror Show in London’s West End when he was recruited on keyboards for The Waterboys in 1983, playing synthesizer and singing backup vocals on their most commercially successful song, The Whole of the Moon.
Waterboys founder Mike Scott called him “one of the finest musicians I’ve ever known” in a post Monday on X, formerly Twitter. “Travel on well my old friend,” he said.
Creative differences with Scott led Wallinger to go his own way in 1985 to start World Party, where he created a sound infused with influences of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Sly Stone.
“It just became obvious that it wasn’t going to go anywhere than where it’s gone,” Wallinger told Penny Black Music in 2022. “(Mike Scott) was controlling, and that was it, he wasn’t into doing anything together.”
World Party was better received critically than commercially and despite landing several tunes on the pop music charts, it was more embraced by alternative radio.
Ship of Fools reached No. 5 on Billboard’s mainstream rock chart in the U.S. in 1987. Way Down Now, went to No. 1 on the Billboard alternative chart in the U.S. in 1990. Wallinger’s song She’s the One became a No. 1 single for Robbie Williams in 1999.
Wallinger worked on Sinead O’connor’s debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, and she lent her vocals to his second album, Goodbye Jumbo, which was nominated for a Grammy for best alternative music performance. Q Magazine named Jumbo is 1990 album of the year.
Wallinger was one of many artists who recorded with Peter Gabriel for his Big Blue Ball album.
“Karl was overflowing with wonderful musical ideas that blew us all away, all delivered with terrible jokes that had us laughing uncontrollably all day and night,” Gabriel said. “He was such a gifted, natural writer and player, it was a tap that he could turn on at will, effortlessly.”
In 2001, Wallinger had a brain aneurysm and spent years learning how to speak again and play instruments. He returned to touring five years later but never released any more albums.