276 Goodbye Walker Brothers - No Regrets

Chart  entered : 10  January  1976

Chart  peak : 7

And  so  we  move  into  1976  and  as  you  might  expect , being  on  the  cusp  of  punk  means  there  are  a  few  more  departures  to  chronicle. Whatever  was  bubbling  under  the  surface    at  the  time  the  charts  in  1976  were  pretty  grim ; take  Abba's  trinity  out  of  the  list  of  number  ones  and  you'll  see  what  I  mean.

It's  a  bona  fide   goodbye  post - none  of  these  guys  troubled  the  chart  again - but  it's  also  the  start  of  a  story  to  which  new  chapters  are  added  every  year, especially  since  the  download  era  began.  The  Walker  Brothers  are  the  first  group  to  split  up, reunite  and  find  success  again. And  of  course  this  post  will  also  be  tracing  the  most  unique  career  arc  in  pop  music.

But  let's  start  at  the  beginning. The  Brothers'  commercial  fortunes  quickly  declined  after" The  Sun  Ain't  Gonna  Shine  Anymore"  vacated  the  top  spot  and  none  of  their  last  three  singles   made  the  top  20  though  this  was  partly  due  to  work  permit  issues  forcing  them  to  leave  the  UK  for  part  of  1967 . This  was  matched  by  declining  personal  relationships  within  the  group  and  all  three  had  charted  with  solo  releases  before  the  group  officially  broke  up  after  a  tour of  Japan  early  in  1968. Gary  formed  a  new  group  Gary  Walker  and  the  Rain  which  included  future   Badfinger  guitarist  Joey  Molland  and  had  some  success  in  Japan  but  disbanded  in  1969. John  released  an  album  in  1969  and  a  string  of  singles  which  were  ignored. Scott  remained  a  star  for  the  rest  of  the  sixties  with  hit  albums  and  singles  and  in  1969 his  own  TV  show  but  a  decision  to  release  his  fourth  ( not  counting  a  compilation  of  covers  performed  on  the  show )  under  his real  name  - despite  being  titled  "Scott  4" - backfired  when  it  failed  to  chart. As  the  new  decade  dawned, and  despite  taking  British  citizenship  in  1970,  his  commercial  fortunes  fell  off  a  cliff. After  the  failure  of  his  next  LP  "Til  The  Band  Comes  In"  he  stopped  writing  and  recorded  four  middle  of  the  road  covers  albums  which  are  usually  airbrushed  out  of  his  c.v. and  pleased  no  one,  least  of  all  himself.

By  1974  with  all  three  members  at  a  low  ebb, a  reunion  seemed  the  best  option  available . They  got  a  deal  with  GTO  Records  and  released  the  album  "No  Regrets"  in  1975. Every  song  was  a  cover  and  Gary's  participation  was  limited  to  shaking  a  few  maracas. It  stays  firmly  within  the  field  of  country  and  mellow  pop  and  is  rather  bland  at  times  but  the  Scott-sung  version  of  Janis  Ian's  "Lover's  Lullaby"  and  the  achingly  sad  "Lovers"  sung  by  John  are  highlights.

The  real  gem  though  is  the  title  track. The  song  was  written  by  country/ folk  singer  Tom  Rush  who  recorded it  twice  and  it's  the  orchestrated  revision  in  1974  that  informs  the  Walker  Brothers'  version   which  is  pretty  similar  in  arrangement  though  it  has  a  beefier  guitar  solo. The  song  swings  between  aching  loneliness  at  a  lover's  departure  in  the  verses  and  defiant  stoicism   in  the  chorus  leaving  the  listener  to  choose  which  is  the  singer's  real  emotion. With  Scott's  booming  baritone  to  the  fore  there's  a  bias  towards  the  former. It  was  a  good  song  choice  enabling  the  Brothers  to  remind  listeners  of  their  past  without  sounding  too  retro. It  did  nothing  in  the  States  but  was  a  hit  in  Ireland  and  the  Low  Countries  and  helped  the  album  to  number  49  here.

Surprisingly  there  was  no  follow-up  single; perhaps  GTO  were  too  busy  handling  the  success of   the  subjects  of  the  next   two  posts. Instead  "Lines"  came  out  as  the  trailer  single  for  the  album  of  the  same  name  in  September  1976. The  song  was  written  by  Jerry  Fuller  and  is  a  slow  mournful  , beautifully  orchestrated  piano ballad,  ironically  all  about  regret,; a  man  breaks  free  of  his  commitments  but  finds  only  an  abject  emptiness  and  who  better  to  convey  that  than  Scott  Walker  ?  Alas  it  was  too  slow  and  sombre  for  the  Radio  One  playlist. The  album  was  very  patchy. Ninety-per  cent  of  it  is  covers, the  only  original  being  the  flimsy  rocker  "One  Day" written  by  John. The  best  track  is  another  melancholy  ballad  sung  by  Scott  "Inside  Of  You"  written  by  Tom  Jans  but  hearing  Scott's  voice  on  lightweight  fare  such  as  "Brand  New  Tennessee  Waltz  "  is  sad  in  a  different  way. The  follow  up  single  , a  version  of  Boz  Scaggs's  "We're  All  Alone "  is  OK  but  I  prefer  the  Rita  Coolidge  version.

The  album  didn't  sell  and  the  band  were  more  or  less  back  to  square  one.  By  the  time  of  their  next  album,  "Nite  Flights"  in  1978 ,  they  knew  that  GTO  was  almost  kaput  and  wouldn't  be  able  to  promote  it  effectively.  They  decided  to  ditch  the  covers  and  go  out  hopefully  on  a  high  with  their  own  material. There  are  four  tracks   each  for  Scott  and  John , separated  by  two  from  Gary  who'd  been  a  passenger  up  to  now. From  the  word  go  "Nite  Flights"  is  a  very  different  beast  to  its  predecessors , inspired  by  Bowie's  Heroes   which  Scott  had  brought  to  the  studio. "Shut  Out"  has  the  same  air  of  dry-throated  menace  as  Chris  Rea's  Tennis  a  couple  of  years  later  and  "Fat  Mama  Kick"   is  sparse, tuneless  and  impenetrable. "Nite  Flights"  is  more  accessible  synth  pop,  clearly  influenced  by  Heroes  and  seems  to  be  about  escaping  defectors. Then  there's  "The  Electrician",  - a  bonkers  choice  for  the  final  group  single  which  would  have  been  the  decade's  O  Superman  if  it  had  succeeded -  a  deathly  slow  dirge  about  a  South  American  torturer,  perhaps  inspired  by  Sheila  Cassidy's  ordeal  on  the  parrilla  three  years  earlier   which  Scott  moans  in  his  new  hoarse and  diseased  singing  voice  before  it  breaks  into  a  pretty  orchestral  interlude, the  dying  victim's  expectation  of  relief   or  Scott's  own  farewell  to  the  group's  signature  sound. Those  are  Scott's  four  songs  and  in  what  follows  you  get  a  sense  of  the  Apostles  after  the  Ascension ; Gary  and  John's  erstwhile  colleague  has  gone  somewhere  they  can't  possibly  follow. They  do  try  with  "Death  of  Romance"  ( Gary ) and  "Disciples  of  Death " ( John )  but  remain  earthbound . Gary's  songs  are  the  more  interesting  perhaps  because  more  open  to  Scott's  suggestions  while   John's  are  grounded  by  a  generic  mid-seventies  pop  rock  sound   and,  were  it  not  for  the  provocative  lyrics,  could  pass  for  Cliff  Richard  circa  Devil  Woman.

And  that  was  it  for  the  Walker  Brothers. CBS  bailed  out  GTO  to  Scott's  dismay  as  he'd  had  difficulty  escaping  his  previous  contract  with  them. He  also  didn't  want  to  perform  live  any  more  so  there  was  little  prospect   of  interesting  another  label .  John  took  the  decisive  step  in  breaking  up  the  group  by  returning  to  San  Diego  but  no  one  protested.

Gary  married  his  girlfriend  Barbara  and  left  the  music  business  altogether. He  became  a  self-employed  model  maker.

He  planned  to  record  as  a  duo  with  his  new  wife  Brandy  and  recorded  some  masters  with  Scott  producing. Unfortunately  labels  told  him  to  drop  her  as  lead  singer  and  she  insisted  they  have  no  more  dealings  with  the  music  business.

Scott  was  invisible  until  1981  when  ardent  fan  Julian  Cope  curating  a  new  compilation  of  his  solo  work  "Fire  Escape  To  The  Sky : The  Godlike  Genius  of  Scott  Walker  "  . which  sold  well  enough  to  interest  Virgin  in  signing  Scott . He  returned  with  the  album  "Climate  of  Hunter". Peter  Walsh , fresh  from  working  with  Simple  Minds, was  brought  in  to  produce  and  gives  it  an  unmistakably  eighties  sheen.  It's  not  avant-garde  as  such  and  is  never  unlistenable  but  it's  never  very  accessible  either. Scott's  refusal  to  write  a  chorus  and  his  dense , impenetrable  but  very  obviously  bleak  lyrics  mean  there  are  no  conventional  songs  except  for  the  funereally  slow  blues  ballad  "Blanket  Roll  Blues"  that  closes  the  album. Half  the  tracks  don't  even  have  names . "Track  Three"  was  released  as  a  single  probably  because  it  has  a  recognisable  rock  rhythm  and  a  harmony  vocal  from  a  baffled  Billy  Ocean  but  it's  really  no  more  commercial  than  its  siblings.  The  LP  reached  number  60.  To  promote  it  Scott  gave  an  interview  to  the  NME  where  he  made  his  now  famous  admission  that  he  liked  watching  people  playing  darts  in  the  pub.  Scott  started  work  on  a  follow  up  but  the  sessions  were  quickly  aborted  when  he fell  out  with  producer  Daniel  Laanois. Virgin  decided  he  wasn't  worth  the  trouble  and  dropped  him.

In  1986  John  signed  up  for  Dave  Dee's  "Monster  Rock'n' Roll  Show"  and  completed  the  tour  despite  drinking   heavily  at  the  time.  He  then  moved  to  San  Diego  and  started  building  his  own  studio  while  working  in  electrical  engineering

In  1992  a  new  compilation  of  Walkers  Brothers  and  early  Scott  solo  material " No  Regrets "  sold  well   and  reached  number  4  in  the  UK.  The  following  year  Scott  collaborated  on  a  single  "Man  From  Reno"  with  guitarist  Goran  Bregovic  for  a  French  film  Toxic  Affair .  He  wrote  the  lyrics  and  sang  it and  while  not  being  obviously  commercial  it's  not  obtuse  either. It's  his  last  single  to  date.

The  success  of  the compilation  prompted  Fontana  to  sign  him  up  for  a  new  album  and  "Tilt"  was  the  result. The  first  track  "Farmer  In  the  City"  is  actually  quite  palatable  apart  from  the  over-theatrical  vocal  but  thereafter  it's  hard  work . There  are  some  brief  melodic  passages  but  they're  never  sustained  for  a  whole  song  and  the  album  is  a  very  long  56 minutes. Nevertheless  it  charted  at  number  27  in  the  UK.

He  was  not  allowed  to  disappear  so  completely  again. In  1996  he  recorded  a  straight  and  pretty  cover  of  Dylan's  "I  Threw  It  All  Away "  for  the  soundtrack  of  a  film  called  To  Have And  To  Hold. In  1998  he  recorded  David  Arnold's  jazz  ballad  "Only  Myself  To  Blame"  for  the  soundtrack  to  The  World  Is  Not  Enough . The  following  year  he  produced  the  soundtrack  to  an  arty  French  film  about  incest  Pola  X   and  contributed  two  sombre  but  accessible  instrumental  pieces.

Also  in  1999  John  finally  completed  his  studio  to  his  satisfaction  and  put  out  a  CD  "You"  but  found  it  hard  to get  anyone  to  distribute  it  properly. That  was  no  great  loss  ; there's  a  modern  production  sheen  but  otherwise  John  sounds  like  he's  stuck  in  the  mid-seventies  churning  out  wispy-voiced  soft  rock  of  no  interest  to  anybody.

In  2000  Scott  agreed  to  be  the  celebrity  curator  of  London's  annual  Meltdown  festival  and contributed  music  to  a  dance  troupe's  performance. This  led  to  an  invitation  to  produce  the last  Pulp  album "We  Love  Life" . The  track  "Bad  Cover  Version"  actually  contains  a  slighting reference  to  Scott's  early  seventies  work  written  before  his  involvement; Jarvis  Cocker   recounts  that  he  didn't  react  if  he  noticed  at  all. In  2004  he  signed a  new  deal  with  4AD.

That  same  year  John  returned  to  the  UK  to  join  the  Silver  Sixties  Tour  then  stepped  out  on  the  nostalgia  circuit  on  his  account. The  following  year Gary  joined  him  on  stage  at  a  gig  in  Hastings  and  afterwards  made  a  low-key  return  to  performing  himself  with  a  singer  Mike  Powell  who  could  impersonate  Scott.

The  man  himself  returned  in  2006  with  "The  Drift". Looking  at  the  lyrics  in  isolation  suggests  it  might  be  more  accessible  than  its  predecessors; they're  more  direct  and  give  some  clue  as  to  what  the  song  might  be  about  ( you  don't  want  to  know )  but  musically  it's   just  out  there, the  sole  relief  the  brief  snatches of  song  from  guest  vocalist  Vanessa Contenay-Quinones  on  the  attritional  12 minutes  of  "Clara"  inspired  by  the  maltreated  corpse  of  Mussolini's  mistress.  The  track  also  features  the  infamous  raw  meat  percussion  packages. Otherwise  it's  over  an  hour  of  scrapes,   screeches  and  drones   and  the  ageing  sepulchral  howl  of  Scott  himself. Worst  of  all  is  penultimate  track  "The  Escape"  which  offers  the  vaguest  hint  of  a  melody  before  treating  you  to  a  nightmare  Donald  Duck impersonation. I  listened  to  it  - for  the  first  and  probably  last  time  - on  Spotify  and  was  hoping  the  ad  breaks  would  last  longer.  I  suppose  it  takes  some  sort  of  genius  to  produce  a  piece  of  art   so  unremittingly  horrible  and  it  certainly  got  good  reviews. It  reached  number  51 in  the  charts.

To  promote  the  album  Scott  agreed  to  take  part  in  the  documentary  film  30  Century  Man  ( though  it  came  out  the  following  year   and  was   screened  in  edited  form  on  the  BBC  seemingly  the  other  week  but  actually  nearly  8  years  ago )  in  which  the  reclusive  and  amazingly  youthful -looking   star  turned  out  to  be  a  candid  and  good-humoured  interviewee.

Also  in  2007  John  put  out  his  last  CDs  "Just  For  You"  a  colourless  AOR  collection  that  has  some  value  as  a  comedown  if  you've  just  toiled  through  "The  Drift" but  little  other  use   and  a  Christmas  collection.  Scott  put  out  an   instrumental  album  of  some  music  he'd  put  together  for  a  dance  troupe  entitled  "And  Who  Shall  Go  To  The  Ball"  put  only  in  a  limited  pressing.

In  2009  Gary  and  John  co-wrote  "The  Walker  Brothers : No  Regrets - Our  Story"  which  is  very  readable  but  not  entirely  reliable. John  mentions  meeting  Carl  Wilson  in  2005, seven  years  after  the  latter's  death. Scott  didn't  participate  but  isn't  on  record  as  criticising  it  either.

In  May  2011  John  succumbed  to  liver  cancer. Whether  it  was  that  unwelcome  reminder  of  time's  onward  march  or  his  bank  balance  that  prompted  him  to  work  faster , Scott  released  "Bisch  Bosch"  in  2012  , another  punishing  73  minutes  ( one  track  lasts  21  minutes ) although  generally  it's  more  diffuse  and  less  harrowing  than  "The  Drift". It  didn't  chart  and  there  were  signs  of  some  critical  resistance  with  The  Observer's  Kitty  Lester  restricting  it  to   two  stars . Perhaps  the  documentary's  revelation  of  his  urbane  normality  alienated  that  part  of  his  audience  that  demands  the  artist  "means  it " ( though  Scott  would  have  to  be  a  serial  killer  to  pass  that  test ).

Just  a  few  months  ago  he  released  "Soused" , a  collaboration  with  American drone  metallers  Sunn-O which  is  more  economical  at  43  minutes  long. It  might  be  shorter  but  no  easier  with  Scott  still  saturating  the  lyrics  with  scatological  references, avoiding  melody  like  the  plague   and  leading  his  new  cohorts  into  the  abyss. Sunn-O  make  the  sound  less  brittle  with  their  omnipresent  drones   but  otherwise  it  seems  more  his  album  than  theirs. It  did  have  a  week  in  the  charts  at  number  30. The  Telegraph's  Neil  McCormick  eviscerated  it  with  a  one  star  review. Perhaps  Scott  deserved  it; there's  a  fine  line  between  experimentation  and  self-indulgence  and  singing  about  spraying  shit  onto  people  in  "Fetish"  suggests  he  can't  take  his  shock  tactics  any  further. Perhaps  pop's  loosest  thread  has  finally  been  nailed  down.