Scott Walker: The First Solo Run - Interpretations

The proper foundation required to understand the Scott Walker story is to know that he was known originally as an interpretive singer, in the manner of Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett. The category most often mentioned about the period from 1967-1978 is "MOR," middle of the road--old ladies' music.

This song, "Through a Long and Sleepless Night," from Scott, is a good example.

This style, string-heavy balladry, was Walker's bread and butter until his late-70s reinvention, but that's not the reason that his first solo run is so highly regarded. The albums, Scotts 1-3 and his sixth 'Til the Band Comes In, are peppered with interpretive covers. What's attracted cultists, however, are his originals and his discovery of a songwriting model.

That's not to say that the works by other songwriters aren't sometimes interesting. "Angelica" is a fine showing of Walker's baritone. "The Big Hurt" has a hyperactive arrangement. But mostly they stand as a contrast to Walker's solo work and his interpretations of Jacques Brel.

Brel deserves a post of his own but, as a non-Francophone, I couldn't do him justice. Suffice it to say that he was a leading singer-songwriter in France from the end of WWII to the early 70s and his songwriting is stereotypically French, focused on sex, death, passion, misery and doom. In other words, right up Walker's alley.

Here's a Brel original, translated into English as "Next:"

Just as Brel was retiring from the stage, he was discovered, separately, by songwriters Mort Shuman and 60s-kitsch-icon Rod McKuen. It's Shuman's translations that dominate Walker's interpretive work. Here's his version of "Next:"

In the first part of Walker's story, I said that his work with The Walker Brothers was bombastic rather than dramatic. With Brel's work, Walker was able to find songs in which there is no difference between the two:

It's easy to see how important Brel's work was to Walker. Just as his original songs with his band seemed to be take-offs of their covers, the Scott albums show Walker writing in the Brel vein. By Scott 3, Walker had grown more confident in his own songwriting--all but three of the songs were originals, while the rest were Brel covers.

With Scott 4, all of the tracks were written by Walker. Considered the masterpiece of the era, it was the beginning of the end for the brilliance of his first solo run.

But more about that later. Since this walk through Scott's work is more a set of my personal favorites than a collection of critical highlights, I'll end with the Brel song I like the best, "Jackie:"