Not The Best Of...
Occasional Albums Thing 059 - Scott Walker “The Best Of…”
By the start of the 1980’s, aside from oldies radio replays of his hits with the Walker Brothers, Scott Walker was pretty much a forgotten man, particularly as a solo artist. After his 1970 album “Til The Band Comes In” his next album was “The Moviegoer”, a collection of movie themes, and it didn’t get much better after that. He pretty much stopped making solo records entirely after 1974’s “We Had It All”.
Scott, though, still had his fans. The likes of David Bowie, Marc Almond and Julian Cope would occasionally drop his name in interviews or cover his songs. In 1981 Cope was driven to compile and release, on Liverpool’s famed Zoo Records, a collection of what he regarded as the best bits of solo Scott Walker humbly titled “Fire Escape In The Sky: The Godlike Genius Of Scott Walker”. The relative success of that release and the raising of Scott’s profile as a result is what, I presume, prompted his record company, Philips Records, to release this “Best Of…” a year later in 1982.
It’s an odd collection considering everything they had at their disposal. It would appear that absolutely no expense was spent on the artwork/packaging as it looks like a budget Music For Pleasure comp. The front cover appears to be another shot from the same session that the “Til The Band Comes In” cover came from and the back recycles bits from the cover of “Scott 2”. Whereas Cope’s collection draws all it’s tracks from Scott’s imperious first 5 solo albums (Scott 1-4 and “Til The Band Comes In”) this Philips collection is more of a random grab bag.
There are 3 tracks from “Scott” (The wonderful “Montague Terrace (In Blue)”, “When Joanna Loved Me” and Tim Hardin’s “The Lady Came From Baltimore”), only one from arguably his best solo album “Scott 2” (Jacques Brel’s “Jackie”) and one from “Scott 3” (his equally wonderful English language version of another Jacques Brel song, originally titled “Ne Me Quitte Pas”, now translated as “If You Go Away”). Bizarrely, to my mind, there are 3 songs from the album “Scott Walker Sings Songs From His TV Series”, a mish-mash of old standards and show tunes he performed on his BBC series “Scott” (which he hated and described as part of his “wilderness years”). While “Will You Still Be Mine” is OK, “If She Walked Into My Life Today” and “The Impossible Dream” are utterly forgettable. Like other singers at the time with great voices (Lulu, Tom Jones both at Decca Records) Philips were attempting to turn Scott into a cabaret club singer. He would have been great at it, but he was way too good for that.
The rest of this record features a Walker Brothers track from their 1967 album “Images” (“I Will Wait For You”), and a trio of songs that appeared as singles that I didn’t already have, the beautiful “Joanna” from 1968 (written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent for those who remember the 70’s talent show “New Faces), “Lights Of Cincinatti” 1969, and finally the 1973 single “The Me I Never Knew”.
If you’re unfamiliar with Scott Walker solo, then although this is titled “The Best Of…” it really isn’t and may not be your best starting point. If you ever see a copy of Cope’s “…Godlike Genius…” collection grab it, it’s superb, alternately there is a 90’s comp titled “Boy Child” that is really good. If you find this cheap enough it’s worth a punt and it will at least introduce you to Scott’s stunning voice, a warm Baritone with an incredible natural vibrato.
Scott resumed solo recordings in 1984 with the album “Climate Of Hunter” and went on to make some seriously challenging music, that I’m still working on getting my head around, up until his passing in 2019. I’ll say it loud for everyone to hear, Scott Walker was one of the UK’s great unsung musical giants...not bad for an American !
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