Scott Walker, R.I.P.

Scott Walker, a member of the 1960's rock group The Walker Brothers who went on to a successful solo career in Britain before embarking upon avant-garde music, has passed away. A cause of death has not been released. He was 76.


The Walker Brothers were not named Walker nor were they brothers. But Noah Engel (Scott Walker), John Maus (John Walker) and Gary Leeds (Gary Walker) represented something of a reverse British invasion as an American group making it big in the UK and during parts of 1965-1966 had a popularity which rivaled that of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Their biggest hit was "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" which charted on both sides of the Atlantic.

By 1967, Walker embarked upon a solo career recording Scott 1, Scott 2, Scott 3 and Scott 4 through 1970. These solo efforts had lush orchestral arrangements with a foreboding darkness beneath the surface. Walker was heavily influenced by Belgian singer Jacques Brel as demonstrated with "Jackie" while his own material would become prominent in later solo efforts as evidenced with "Angels of Ashes".

The Walker Brothers would reunite during the mid-1970's and took on a more folk-country rock style and would have a Top 10 hit in 1975 with a cover of Tom Rush's "No Regrets".

Walker began his change in musical direction in 1978 on the Walker Brothers' final album Nite Flites contributing several decidedly avant garde songs such as "The Electrician". Over the next forty years, Walker would release four solo albums - Climate of the Hunter (1984), Tilt (1995) The Drift (2006) and Bisch Bosch (2012) which would delve further into these experimentations which were often minimalist in nature. This stylistic change was described in The Guardian as "Andy Williams reinventing himself as Stockhausen." If you're not sure what I mean, here's Walker making a rare TV appearance on Jools Holland performing "Rosary" from Tilt.

Walker often worked on film scores in between his infrequent solo albums. His last work was composing the music for the soundtrack of the 2018 film Vox Lux starring Natalie Portman.


Scott Walker is one of the few musical artists of the 1960's who did not remain in that decade. It isn't that his contemporaries didn't try. Walker not only went down a different road, he had to build it from scratch. I leave you with Scott Walker in his own words from 2006 during an interview with the BBC's The Culture Show. R.I.P.