The Walker Brothers: no regrets
NO REGRETS
They were not brothers and they did not share a surname but for a brief snapshot in Sixties’ music history, The Walker Brothers rivalled The Beatles for UK chart supremacy.
The Californian trio were hailed as America’s answer to our homegrown mop-tops, and with the highly distinctive baritone voice of Scott Walker and the heavily orchestrated recordings of hits such as Make It Easy On Yourself and The Sun ‘Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, Walkermania was not far behind Beatlemania.
ThE ‘bROThERs’ aRE bORn
Scott Walker (real name Noel Scott Engel) had grown up influenced by technically proficient singers such as Jack Jones and Tony Bennett when he became a session musician in LA and joined forces with John Maus and Gary Leeds.
Originally championed by singer and TV host Eddie Fisher, Scott had appeared on Fisher's popular TV series and had recorded several songs – one of which was called Misery – that saw him briefly marketed as a teen idol. The label didn’t suit the young Scott and he
turned his back on it when he arrived in Los Angeles. By now Scott had changed both his taste and direction. He was a self-confessed natural enemy of the Californian surfer and a big fan of European cinema. In between attending art school and furthering his interests in cinema and literature, Scott played bass guitar and was good enough to get session work in Los Angeles, although still a teenager.
In the early Sixties he met guitarist and singer John Maus, who was already using the stage name John Walker as a fake ID to allow him to perform in clubs while still under age.
At first they formed a new band, Judy and the Gents, backing John’s sister Judy Maus. In early 1964, Scott and John began working together as the Walker Brothers, later linking up with drummer Gary Leeds.
Gary persuaded them to leave LA as a trio and try their musical luck in England where they were snapped up by a record producer shortly after arriving in the UK. The band's second single, Love Her, made a small impression in the Top 20 in June 1965. The next 18 months saw the ‘Brothers’ storm to chart success in the UK. The follow-up single, Make
It Easy On Yourself, a Burt Bacharach/ Hal David ballad, was given a sweeping orchestral makeover and this approach reaped rich rewards, as the single charted at No.1 in the UK and eventually sold more than one million copies worldwide.
With all three lads attracting a lot of female fans, the adulation in Britain became frenzied, although in the USA, where they rarely performed, only Make It Easy on Yourself and The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore entered the Top 20.
In 1966, the Walker Brothers took The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore to No.1. It was a reworking of a song originally recorded by Frankie Valli and was to became infamous as it was playing on the jukebox when East End
gangster Ronnie Kray burst into The Blind Beggar pub and shot dead George Cornell. The refrain was stuck on repeat after a richoteting bullet hit the jukebox. While the fans swarmed around heartthrob Scott Walker, the adulation did not suit the serious musician who would often quote Sartre in interviews. The band's UK fan club is said to have grown larger than The Beatles'. However, the pressure of Scott’s burgeoning stardom had sent him into a spiralling depression, while creative tensions were hampering the band's output by 1967. The following year the boys decided to call it a day but, after a six year hiatus, during which all three 'brothers' released solo albums – only Scott finding success – at least critically if not commercially.
ThE BREl EffEcT
Scott Walker revered the dark lyrics of Jacques Brel, and recorded nine songs by the Belgian singer in the late Sixties, after going solo.
Brel's songs created scenes of raw and sexual drama and degradation. My Death was one of three Brel songs on Scott Walker's debut solo album. The beauty of its arrangement and Scott’s sonorous voice belies the song's morbid overtones.
It was an interesting turn in the former teen idol’s career path and today the album still has a cult following from fans from all walks of life and was a big influence on the work of David Bowie. The four ‘Scott’ albums of the late Sixties are the work that cemented his critical reputation, but they also lost him his commercial teen audience and his failure triggered an emotional and artistic crisis from which he took years to recover. After the commercial failure came a series of middle-of-the-road albums made while he was struggling with alcohol and drug problems. At Scott Walker's request, most of his albums from the wilderness years have never been reissued.
The Walker Brothers reunited in 1974, and the following year released their version of Tom Rush's No Regrets, which was Scott's only bona fide commercial success from this decade and the band’s fourth Top 10 single.
Scott Walker continues to record sporadically, showcasing a penchant for the more avant-garde.
Gary and John Walker collaborated on a memoir of the band, The Walker Brothers: No Regrets – Our Story, in 2009.
John, meanwhile, returned to writing and performing in 2000, releasing four albums between then and his death from liver cancer in 2011.