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  1. 2023/4 Albums Thing 400 - Scott Walker “ ’Til The Band Comes In”

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    So as we reach the last of Scott Walker’s (largely) original material albums that I own, maybe a brief summary of Scott’s journey is called for as we haven’t really done that…a former heart-throb idol breaks up his pop group (The Walker Brothers) then sets about releasing four albums (Scott and Scott’s 2-4 if you weren’t paying attention) of challenging baroque pop, album by album placing greater importance and focus on his own songs. When the fourth of these records (Scott 4, the first to feature only his songs) fails to chart, he disappers into a land of cover versions, country & western and MOR before returning as a songwriter in 1978 and spending the next three decades releasing infrequent but increasingly challenging (some might say unlistenable) records. That is, he disappeared into a land of cover versions etc., except in December of 1970, leaving us with “ ’Til the Band Comes In”.

    “Scott 4” had been a commercial disappointment. As a result Scott had to make some concessions to management and record company for this album. He reverted to his stage name, Scott Walker, rather than his real name, Scott Engel as “Scott 4” had been credited. Also, alongside his 10 original songs which start the album, it finishes on 5 MOR standards and pop songs, including “Stormy”, “What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life” and the utterly terrible “Reuben James”, at the record company’s insistence. If they were trying to recast him as an MOR crooner they had judged him completely wrong and this is the last we’ll speak of those 5 songs.

    Scott wrote the songs for what would become his 6th album while on holiday in Greece in September 1970. The recordings were made by November and the album released in December. It received something of a thumping from the critics of the day and as a result was left to die by the wayside. It was unavailable for 25 years until it was re-assessed by latter day critics and finally re-issued in 1996.

    The opening 10 songs represent a loose concept based around the residents of a single tenement block (remember “Montague Terrace (In Blue)” back on “Scott” ?). It starts well with the “Prologue” segueing into the bouncy “Little Things (That Keep Us Together)", one of Scott’s livelier originals. "Thanks For Chicago Mr. James” is archetypal Scott Walker (it's VERY Walker Brothers), a lush orchestrated arrangement swells to a big chorus with Scott’s baritone sounding supremely confident throughout. “Long About Now” was written by Walker but is sung by Israeli singer Esther Ofarim, one of the folk duo Esther & Abi Ofarim. My particular favourite is the last of Scott’s 10 songs, the lush ballad “The War Is Over (Sleepers)”, the war referred to actually being the previous night.

    Following “‘Til The Band Comes In” Scott Walker didn’t make another album of original material until 1978’s “Nite Flights” with the Walker Brothers”. It never quite reaches the heights of his first 4 “Scott #” albums and there are some trite and throwaway songs included. But if you concentrate only on Scott’s 10 original songs and in particular “Little Things (That Keep Us Together)”, "Thanks For Chicago Mr. James” and the sublime “The War Is Over (Sleepers)” Scott delivered an album that sits comfortably alongside those earlier records.

    The War Is Over (Sleepers) - https://youtu.be/70Uhwkpr88I?si=Q3eVjhct6Igcw_ms

  2. 2023/4 Albums Thing 399 - Scott Engel (Walker) “Scott 4”

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    “Scott 4” was released in November 1969, his 3rd album release of the year, but this time under his own name of Scott Engel, although my (re-issue) copy is credited to Scott Walker (tut-tut specialist re-issue label 4 Men With Beards). It was his first album that failed to chart but is still a marvellous record. This time Scott wrote all the songs and any collection of material as good as “The Seventh Seal”, “Boy Child”, "Hero of the War" and "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)" is just fine with me. 

    With these songs Scott was reaching for deeper themes in his writing. As an example, "The Seventh Seal”, is based on the story of Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film of the same name in which a medieval knight plays chess with Death to delay the inevitable consequence of meeting him during the Black Death plague of the 14th century…nothing heavy about that huh. In a similarly trivial fashion the wonderful “The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)" is concerned with the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the combined forces of Soviet Russia, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria in order to halt Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberal reforms and strengthen the Czech Communist party…phew, it’s a good job it’s a bloody great song after all that !

    “Angels & Ashes” (Engel translates from German as angel) is a beautiful ballad based on plucked Spanish guitar and a sweeping orchestral arrangement with spiritual lyrics. “Boy Child” highlights Scott’s incredible voice with the dreamstate orchestration supporting lyrics like “Through mirrors dark and blessed with cracks, Through forgotten courtyards, Where you used to search for youth, Old gets a new life”.

    The first two songs on Side 2 address war. “Hero Of The War” while being one of the more poppy and upbeat songs is a scathing depiction “Mrs. Reilly get his medals, Hand them 'round to everyone, Show his gun to all the children in the street, It's too bad he can't shake hands or move his feet”. We already met “The Old Man's Back Again…” but the lyric “I seen a woman standing in the snow, she was silent as she watched them take her man” bears repeating while that shit is still happening in too many places in the world.

    This is the only one of Scott’s albums on which he wrote all the songs. The fact that his lyrics were obviously so much more ambitious and the arrangements more intricate, added to that decision to release the record as Scott Engel rather than Walker may have caused its poor sales. “Scott 4” is a wonderful record and is another touted by fans as his best. His voice is strong throughout  and the songs balance intricacy and melody while in places hinting at some of the more atonal music Scott would make in later years.

    The Seventh Seal - https://youtu.be/oNY6UiN_RG0?si=g3TNDQObViEP4UnH

  3. 2023/4 Albums Thing 398 - Scott Walker “Sings Songs From His TV Series”

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    Scott would have made a very good crooner of standards or Broadway show singer. He had a beautifully smooth baritone voice with a wonderful natural vibrato. Someone at the BBC obviously thought along those lines as he was given his own TV show, the imaginatively titled “Scott”. There were two 1968 specials and the series ran in the spring of 1969 with this album being released later that year. On the show he introduced guests including O.C. Smith, Salena Jones, Jackie Trent, Tony Hatch, John Williams, Gene Pitney and others.

    The album consists of performances of ballads and big band standards that he performed on the show. They are however studio re-recordings of some of the music performed on the show, there are no original live recordings from the show on the record. The album has never been re-issued, mainly because Scott himself didn’t like it. He  described this period and his early 1970’s recordings (albums “The Moviegoer” and “Any Day Now”) as his “wilderness years”.

    The album is a pretty cynical attempt by the BBC (with the collusion, I would expect, of his management) to present Scott to an older audience as a supper club crooner, a younger, hipper Tony Bennett or Christie, but Scott was a much more adventurous artist than that as one listen to any of his solo albums compared to this will reveal. This isn’t prime Scott Walker but as I love his voice I’m happy to have this.

    The Look Of Love - https://youtu.be/gp6h19pUJm0?si=gkp3D5v4a3IqWoc1