Scott Walker

Scott Walker was both a pop idol and one of the most polarizing experimental rock singers of all time, a suave baritone who first made his mark as a crooner before ending his career by producing albums marked by crushing dissonance and density. He was born Noel Scott Engel in Hamilton, Ohio, in 1943, into a family that moved often before settling in Los Angeles, where he became obsessed with music and began playing bass. By 1964 he was part of the Walker Brothers—a trio with no actual brothers, although they all adopted the surname—and moved to London at the height of the British Invasion. Initially the group was fronted by guitarist John Maus, but most of the group’s chart hits were sung by Scott. Stifled by the responsibility of generating material for the group, Scott went solo in 1967—a year before the Brothers disbanded—launching a series of recordings closer to the chanson of Belgian artist Jacques Brel than the Beatles. His first couple of albums found chart success, but by the 1970s interest in his music had waned, and his recordings of the era were mostly about fulfilling contractual obligations, almost exclusively featuring covers. Walker updated his sound and found renewed relevance with his 1984 album Climate of Hunter, his first in a decade, but it was on his final four albums, beginning with Tilt in 1995, that he mastered a dark, harrowing sound, ensuring his lasting reputation. He almost never performed during this period, but became wildly celebrated as an influence among visceral, unyielding experimental rock acts. His final album, 2014’s Soused, was a collaboration with doom-metal deities Sunn O))). Walker died of cancer in 2019, aged 76.