Sixties heart-throb traded stardom in Walker Brothers for the avant-garde

Scott Walker, who has died aged 76, became one of the most revered singers in the world of rock and pop before heading off into more avantgarde directions and spending the rest of his career avoiding the spotlight.

One of the biggest stars of the 1960s pop scene, who at the height of his success had his own BBC television series, Walker had by the end of the decade become a recluse who spurned all efforts to revitalise a career that had once seemed so rich in promise.

Walker’s fan club membership had at one stage exceeded that of the Beatles. By 1969 he had established himself as a songwriter, broken new ground with three highly original and acclaimed solo albums, sung a handful of film themes and developed a growing reputation as a record producer.

All this followed his phenomenal success as lead singer of the Walker Brothers who, in between unleashing a storm of teen hysteria in the mid-1960s, issued three classic singles and a trilogy of memorable albums.

Above all, Walker will be remembered for a golden baritone that could convey sadness, heartbreak, mystery, yearning and joy in equal measure.

Despite seemingly having the world at his feet, he was never able to build on the triumphs of the 1960s. The hit albums dried up and nervousness eventually put paid to his live performances. (In 1971 he told the BBC: ‘‘I have stage fright to a great degree . . . It becomes a terrible thing for me, a live show’’.)

By the early 1980s, when a new generation of pop stars discovered his earlier work, Walker had become a twilight figure and one of rock’s most enduring legends.

Noel Scott Engel was born in small-town Ohio, the only child of parents who divorced when he was 6. He was always musical, and appeared on a TV talent show before moving to California in 1959 to further his career.

In 1962, he teamed up with John Maus, a former child television star, and the Walker Brothers were born. ‘‘Walker’’ came from the name Maus used on the false identity card with which, being under-age, he gained admittance to Los Angeles clubs. With drummer Gary Leeds, they recorded the Barry Weil/Cynthia Mann song Love Her at RCA Studios. The disc’s dense, Spectoresque emotional feel set the blueprint for what was to follow.

In the studio, Scott was made lead singer, and the Walker Brothers had embarked on an American counter-invasion of England, as both Scott and John were in imminent danger of being drafted to fight in Vietnam. They landed at a snowy Heathrow Airport in February 1965, quickly secured a management deal and saw Love Her become a moderate hit.

The song that propelled the Walker Brothers to superstardom was the Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition Make It Easy On Yourself. It also established the group as pop pin-ups and meant they were constantly forced to move flats to escape the attentions of screaming teenage girls. The adulation reached fever pitch as further hit singles My Ship is Coming In and The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) followed, together with the hit albums Take it Easy With The Walker Brothers, Portrait and Images.

When the group folded in May 1967, Scott Walker vowed to shun the latest musical trends and create the records he wanted to make. The series of albums which followed – Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3 and Scott 4 – were hailed as critical masterpieces, and Walker used his 1969 television series to showcase some of his own compositions.

His obsession with the maverick Belgian songwriter Jacques Brel, and his doom-laden tales of madness, sex and death, were in stark contrast to mainstream British pop and sales plummeted.

After a series of half-hearted experiments with country and western, Walker reformed the Walker Brothers in 1975, an unexpected reunion that yielded the hit single No Regrets. Subsequent albums failed to build on this solitary success, however, and after the commercial failure of the group’s final album, Nite Flights, in 1978, the Walker Brothers disbanded for the final time.

Signed to Virgin in February 1980, Walker saw his earlier work from the 1960s elevated to cult status, but it was not until March 1984 that he ended his self-imposed exile from the recording scene with the release of the critically acclaimed but inevitably poorselling Climate of Hunter.

By 1990, the reappraisal of his solo career, as well as that of the Walker Brothers, had become fashionable and Phonogram responded to increasing demand by releasing the Scott Walker compilation Boy Child as well as After The Lights Go Out, featuring the group’s best moments. In 1993 he recorded Tilt, his first album in 11 years. Bleak and nightmarish, it drew favourable reviews and sold respectably, but failed to persuade Walker to launch a full-blown return.

In 2004 he signed to 4AD Records, one of the more cerebral labels to have come out of the punk and new wave movement, and in 2006 he released The Drift, with dark songs about Mussolini’s mistress, Elvis Presley’s stillborn twin, the September 11 attacks and the Srebrenica massacre.

There were also collaborations with such artists as Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and Natasha Khan. In 2012 he released his 14th solo studio album, the critically acclaimed Bish Bosch, which Walker described as the third in a trilogy along with Tilt and The Drift.

He once reflected: ‘‘I think of myself as a songwriter, but I agree they are maybe not traditional songs. I know what people mean, but what else can you call them?’’

He is survived by his partner Beverley, and by his daughter from his marriage to Mette, which ended in divorce. –

‘‘I think of myself as a songwriter, but I agree they are maybe not traditional songs. I know what people mean, but what else can you call them?’’ Scott Walker on his more experimental music