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  1. 2023/4 Albums Thing 396 - Scott Walker “Scott 2”

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    Many regard “Scott 2” as Walker’s classic album, and I’m not going to pour water on that assertion, I just might not wholeheartedly support it, while also not being able to offer one other record that I would tag as his “best”. It is definitely a very, very good record and does act as home to my absolute favourite of Scott’s songs. I find that I like bits and pieces from all Scott’s albums up until 1970 and don’t really have an opinion one way or t’other on which is better than another.

    “Scott 2” holds another three songs written by Jacques Brel. Scott contributes 4 originals this time and there is another from Tim Hardin alongside Henry Mancini and Bacharach and David.

    One of those original songs is my very, very favourite of Scott Walker’s songs, “The Amorous Humphrey Plugg”. It comes on like the theme tune from a glamorous 60’s film. But in the lyrics Humphrey leads a pretty mundane life by day, looking after the kids and watching the telly. But by night he escapes into the city, to a club, possibly a brothel, where the hostesses Ann and Corinna entice him in and keep him there. I can’t make out if Scott is singing about a place in Channing Way or if those hostesses have an enchanting way. Whatever it is the lyrics are beautiful

    “Oh to die of kisses, Ecstasies and charms

    Pavements of poets will write that I died in nine angel's arms

    And they all were smiling, Still seductive as sin…”

    By the end of the song you have been seduced by Humphrey’s story, our own worries forgotten for a time in this beautiful song. Two of Scott’s other self penned songs have reached Walker classic status too. “The Girls From The Streets” and “Plastic Palace People” are both big, lush torch songs with the former definitely paying back some of that debt to Jacques Brel with its accordions tumbling into the chorus and the latter again giving the feeling it should be part of a film score. 

    Brel’s contributions are the breathless song of adoration “Jackie”, the extremely French, even when sung in English, “The Girls And The Dogs” and the seemingly inappropriate “Next” which tells of losing your virginity in a mobile Army brothel complete with a fresh dose of the clap. It was also recorded by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and sits much more comfortably with them than it does with Scott.

    It must be my folks love of the old crooners that draws me to Scott Walker. To my ears he’s every bit as good a singer as many of those 50’s heart throbs pre-rock ’n’ roll. His songs are somewhat more involved however. He was also a big influence on both Bowie and Julian Cope, two of my very favourite artists. 

    The Amorous Humphrey Plugg - https://youtu.be/JFXuMljSY7g?si=z8mYsOp48bXxZk6q

  2. 2023/4 Albums Thing 395 - Scott Walker “Scott”

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    I first came across the name Scott Walker when, in 1981, Julian Cope was responsible for curating the compilation album “Fire Escape In The Sky: The Godlike Genius Of Scott Walker” for Liverpool’s Zoo Records. I didn’t rush out and buy it but made a mental note, as a committed Cope fan, to check Mr Walker out at some time in the future. What I didn’t realise was that I was already a fan via his recordings with 60’s heart throbs The Walker Brothers. I just hadn’t put it together that the Walker that was the voice of “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More” and “Make It Easy On Yourself” was Scott.

    I eventually got around to following up on Cope’s compilation in the 90’s when I purchased the CD compilation “Boy Child 1967-70” and I was immediately enthralled. I started buying Scott’s individual albums, re-issues at first but have managed to replace a couple of them with originals and “Scott” is one of them.

    There was plenty I was already familiar with here. David Bowie had recorded versions of “My Death” and “Amsterdam”, both songs being (clumsy) translations of songs written by the famed Belgian Chanson singer Jacques Brel. American songwriter Mort Shuman (“Viva Las Vegas”) was responsible for those translations for a musical revue titled “Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris” but lost a lot of the beauty of Brel’s original French in this translations. For example in converting “La Mort” to “My Death” Brel’s original (in French of course) “Death waits behind the leaves, Of the tree that will make my coffin” becomes Shuman’s nonsensical “My death waits among the leaves, In magicians mysterious sleeves”…whatever, Scott sings them both wonderfully. Jacques Brel was a huge influence on Walker and his first three solo albums each contain 3 of Brel’s songs.

    “The Big Hurt”, which Scott takes on as a mid tempo Bossa Nova, I knew from a version by Susan Farrar which was big on the Northern Soul scene. Most of the songs are written by others, another by Brel, the military stomp of “Mathilde”, “Angelica” by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Tim Hardin, Dory Previn and others. The only thing that is seemingly out of place is Tim Hardin’s “The Lady Came From Baltimore” which breaks out the guitars in favour of the orchestra and comes across as some weird folk/country hybrid that sounds just like one of Hardin’s better known songs “Black Sheep Boy”.

    The real highlights of “Scott” are the 3 Scott Walker (or Scott Engel, as he writes under his real name) originals. After Brel’s “Mathilde” and its almost miltary French style opening “Montague Terrace (In Blue)” smooths things out. It is a recognised Scott Walker classic with shimmering bells ringing through a tale of living in a wretched apartment (a scenario Scott will return to in future for (almost) an entire album) but by the chorus the singer is dreaming of escaping to the idyllic Montague Terrace backed by swelling strings and horns. Scott’s voice is superb throughout. Julian Cope opened that compilation album with “Such A Small Love” which means he must have thought it would grab you from the off. Eerie strings support Scott’s gentle vocal, he’s really showing off his vibrato, until the songs blossoms into a horn backed chorus. “Always Coming Back To You” is the closing song on “Fire Escape In The Sky…” and there’s a cinematic theme tune in the making about its tinkling Harpsichord.

    “Scott” presented the singer as a more serious artist than the beat group/soul style he and the Walker Brothers delivered. He got the chance to showcase Jacques Brel to his audience (Walker described Brel as “the most significant singer-songwriter in the world”) and to record his own songs. It may not be for everyone but on a Sunday morning with a good cup of coffee…it’s heaven to me.

    Montague Terrace (In Blue) - https://youtu.be/okWihNm-4wg?si=bpuv_YDkDp8AtwZb

  3. 2023/4 Albums Thing 394 - Visage “Visage”

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    Visage were essentially a Post Punk supergroup put together for New Romantic kingpin Steve Strange to "sing" in front of. Look at the line up, Midge Ure and Rusty Egan (Rich Kids), Dave Formula, Barry Adamson and John McGeoch (Magazine), Billy Currie (Ultravox!). That band, fronted by John Foxx or Howard Devoto, could really have done some damage. Sadly they were fronted by Steve Strange a man who made a superb clothes horse and club promoter but was not much of anything as a singer.

    That’s not to say I don’t like this album, I absolutely do, but while it’s highs are great, its lows are very low. Let’s start with the highs, everyone knows “Fade To Grey” right ? One of the great singles of that early synth-pop era. “Visage” was another single from this album and is also great, Strange mostly talks through the verses and his limited voice is backed up by others on the chorus. My favourite track on here is “The Dancer”, an instrumental written by Ure and Egan, led by crunching guitars and a wailing saxophone courtesy of John McGeoch.

    The lows, well, whoever thought “Tar” was a good idea, never mind a good idea as the albums lead single needs a good pummelling. It is a bloody awful song about the dangers of smoking (sample lyric “Taking one out of the packet, It’s just a force of habit”) with a chorus that consists of the earth shattering lyric “Low tar, High tar”, errrrrr…OK !

    Visage begat the 2nd line-up of Ultravox as this is where Midge Ure met Billy Currie and received his invitation to replace John Foxx. Steve Strange was allowed to make 2 more albums (it was the 80’s, your ability to wear an outrageous outfit was as important as any musical ability you may, or in this case may not, have had !) before Visage faded to grey.

    The Dancer - https://youtu.be/hw9IH9YdP4k?si=xO8uzQyH3k7FWikT