Damon Albarn
I never got to see him perform – but I performed for him. I sang Farmer in the City [at Drifting and Tilting: The Songs of Scott Walker at the Barbican in 2008]. He’s lovely, a gentle sweetheart. He wasn’t a recluse – he’s a very engaging, articulate person, with a great sense of humour. He’s just not conventional; Scott was unorthodox. There’s a sort of richness to his voice that I don’t really think anyone else ever had, and when you met him physically, he was a much smaller frame than his voice, so there was that otherworldliness about him, too.
His records are some of the most important ever, for me. He was also fantastic with words – sometimes quite opaque with them – and I’m really fascinated by that. He opened up the possibilities of the music of Kurt Weill to me, and all that French chanson that he reinterpreted, like Jacques Brel. I discovered so much through him.
I love all of it – Scott 1, 2, 3, 4; the Walker Brothers; the 80s stuff; and I love the bleak, singular records that he made towards the end. His latter albums are always something I would listen to religiously and intently in one sitting. They’re incredible film scores to his imagination, which was clearly slightly mad, but only in the sense of that’s where you get the most striking visions, in that area close to madness. He’s filled the world with some sublime music.
Bill Callahan
I met Scott a couple times, when he curated Meltdown and on the set of a movie he was doing the soundtrack for. He was a gentle man who seemed to live on his own terms and with his head in the dream of his music and other art. I remember his management of Meltdown: people had to remind him that maybe he should say hello to the bands that he invited to play, as if saying “hello” and “thank you” were diminished in import compared to whatever was going to come out of the bands on stage. On the highest levels, I think that’s true and that, I think, is how he lived – with his eyes on the immensity, his head always in the immensity and not wanting to bother with the niceties, necessarily. But when called on to do so, the sweetest guy you’ll meet.
When I met him at Meltdown, he asked for just me to come to his dressing room without my band. Five people at once would be too jarring. He told me, “Tell everyone I enjoyed your set.” You know that state of nervousness where you totally misunderstand what someone means? I thought he was making me a disciple and wanted me to tell the world that he liked my music. So I said, “Oh, I will!” Later I realised he meant to tell the other people in my band.
I’ve always been fascinated by his story – ditching pop fame to make those solo records. It’s the kind of trajectory we can all only wish for – moving closer and closer to the rush of the waterfall until you see every tiny drop of mist as large as the galaxy. He was the definition of uncompromising. with himself, his art, the world.
Neil Hannon, The Divine Comedy
I spent the first 20 years of my life wondering where the music was that I was imagining. It was only when I became aware of Scott Walker that I suddenly thought: there it is! An ad for a Scott Walker best of that came out in 1990 kept coming on the TV, and it started with The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore), and I’d never heard anything like it: so dramatic, dark, just from another world. I sought it out and I never looked back.
I completely devoured Scott 1, 2, 3 and 4; the Nite Flights album in the mid-70s is amazing as well. Climate of Hunter, it’s not my favourite, but there’s some good stuff on it. I wasn’t amazingly into the ultra-bonkers late Scott stuff – but I would kill for his right to do it. Most people who have been massive pop stars spend the rest of their life trying to recapture that, but he didn’t want that at all. He was the quintessential artist, and chased what he heard in what were probably his nightmares.
He influenced me greatly, not least in the style of my singing. Once I’d spent maybe two or three years of my early 20s listening to virtually nothing else, I was never going to be able to sing with my own voice ever again. I naturally find myself doing Scott Walker inflections when I sing, and I don’t mind. I think every singer is a product of the people they loved listening to.
His voice is unusual. It’s definitely baritone; he could sing high, but it would always sound like it was coming from a very deep place. It was almost like the sound was emanating from the back of his neck. It didn’t have a lot of upfront clarity – it was like this voice of the Greek gods. Just one word is all you need, the first word in The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore), which is: “Loneliness … ” The way that it scoops up, sometimes people mistake it for crooning, but it’s so much more than that. It’s hard to describe, because it’s so far out there on its own as a voice.
Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, Iceage
The first song I came across of his was his Brel cover, Jacky. Within an instant, those glaring strings and horns had me, and I was startled by the cockiness of the whole thing. But more so than anything, the tone of his voice – it’s unlike anything else.
Those four Scott records, they’re such classy records in every way, and the voice is amazing in itself. The arrangements have something that is immeasurable – it is crushingly beautifully arranged. But there’s always an undercurrent, like a twisted humour to it, that I picked up on and really spoke to me. He’s not just a crooner, he’s using the croon as a shape for something that is a lot darker than what it might seem at first.
You see that in the later records, of course. They have influenced me in a whole different kind of way. They have such a force to them; they had the ability to make me scared. I felt I had been desensitised by music, and by the time I got in contact with those records, I thought I had lost the ability to scare myself with music. I remember how terrified I was, first listening to The Drift, sitting alone in a car at night in the back seat, with headphones, having just ingested a very strong chocolate with something in it. And just losing it. But it’s good to scare yourself.
His sensitivity for arrangement, and every aesthetic choice that lies in his albums, are just my idea of perfection. Some artists just become integrated in the core food pyramid of how you look at music. His albums are worlds you can enter. Artists like that, they give you a whole vocabulary and understanding of tone that is an integral part of how you understand music.
There’s always a twist, something slightly out of place. It’s like a completely unironic irony, somewhere in his voice, that you never really know is straight-faced or not. And that creates such a mystery in the music: whenever you dive into it, you never really find answers there. That’s something I try to have in my own music: that it’s not singular. There’s a lot floating around underneath, that you don’t know if it’s soothing or unnerving, or both at the same time.
Greg Dulli, Afghan Whigs
Scott Walker was from my hometown of Hamilton, Ohio. When I first heard the Walker Brothers, I remember being amazed and proud that someone from my little town was on the radio. He became an inspiration. His voice was mysterious, epic and unforgettable. When I became friends with Mark Lanegan, we bonded over our appreciation of his music and later covered Duchess from Scott 4 together in the Gutter Twins. He was a phenomenal singer and Montague Terrace (In Blue) remains one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard.
Cosey Fanni Tutti
I’m immensely shocked and saddened by the death of Scott Walker. I was 14 years old when I first heard his incredible voice as part of the Walker Brothers. He always struck me as rather mysterious and not like the usual 60s pop idol. I guess that mysterious side of him was revealed when he went solo and began to create some of the most remarkable and radical music I’ve heard. He was a true artist, uncompromising, intense, committed and inspirational. Our paths never crossed, but how I wish they had. It would have been an honour to even have had a hint of a chance to collaborate with him in some way. A huge loss.
David Sylvian
Those of us who spent time with Scott clearly encountered the same man, but came away with different interpretations or impressions of him, as he only gave away so much. He appeared to me to be highly complex, neurotic and uncomfortable in his own skin, which created the image of an antisocial man who might have longed to be anything but under different circumstances – he’d sometimes surprise me, turning up in a crowded backstage environment, seemingly at ease, commenting playfully on the performance. He was vulnerable in many respects, but not a pushover. He liked a joke, but wasn’t into small talk. Guarded but intellectually and artistically rigorous, and entirely authentic.
He was in a contractual bind when I met him, and we’d come up with a plan that’d put an end to the predicament. I never truly believed we’d see it through, not that it was unrealistic, but I hadn’t anticipated this might be the outcome of our first meeting and it would’ve meant a good deal of commitment on both our parts. Then there was procrastination on Scott’s part, which meant that at the end of every phone call, letter, or meeting, there was no clearer indication of the content of the proposed album other than a few chord sheets taken from Messiaen along with some requested literary references. About a year after we first met, I was in the midst of recording another album, and Scott called the studio. He was laughing, kidding me: “So you got tired of waiting, huh?” But the good news was that a company had bought him out of his contract with Virgin, and he was now free to pursue his vision unhindered by CEO oversight. That was a blessing for us all due to the quality, the unfettered originality, of the resulting work.
As a vocalist, at the height of his popularity, he was unsurpassable and influenced multiple generations as a result. His later work impacted many of the same artists whilst reaching newly receptive listeners who’d not hold him to the same standards of his earlier work. It was a real rebirthing of the artist that only a few manage to achieve in the world of popular music. The work Scott produced as a young man, and particularly that of his later years, will endure, as it is authentic, heartfelt, and visionary, produced in an environment, a genre of the arts, where such qualities are rarely encouraged or embraced.
Musically and lyrically, he ultimately charted a path that was entirely his own, beyond imitation; a singular path created by a visionary artist. His influence, should others wish to follow, might encourage the path of no compromise, allowing oneself to mature as artist, and trusting the resulting work will find an appreciative audience. “To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail,” as Beckett wrote.
Simon Fisher Turner
On Tilt he opened a sonic door I never knew existed: a massive influence for my Mute solo LPs, in that he followed his instincts and took no prisoners. The silences and spaces he left were broken rules. A genius.
Bob Stanley, Saint Etienne
I knew The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) and My Ship Is Coming in – my mum was a Walker Brothers fan – but my introduction to Scott’s solo music was the Fire Escape in the Sky compilation that Julian Cope put together in 1981. The songs made as much – or little – sense in the pop landscape of 1981 as they had in 1969: they were entirely unique. With Wally Stott’s orchestrations and Scott’s miraculous voice, the songs were transporting: Angels of Ashes, Boychild, The Amorous Humphrey Plugg and Montague Terrace (in Blue) were all about escape from urban and suburban drear, onto trains, into dreams, over the rooftops. If they were grounded at all, it was in a dream-state continental Europe – Copenhagen, Paris, Prague, cinematic and half-imagined – but I had to visit them anyway. Some people wanted to travel to New York because of Lou Reed. I wanted to see Copenhagen because of Scott Walker.
Agnes Obel
Scott Walker was one of the greatest. He made me understand the vast possibilities that lie within music production and songwriting as a way to enter an alternative universe of your own making, and how this approach can reach beyond not just music genres, but also emotions and states of mind that otherwise lie outside language. For me, his music is like a journey, deeply particular and personal, often obscuring the lines between a dream and a nightmare, and thereby connected to a collective experience that we all know, consciously or unconsciously. Over his career, he transcended every popular format of the time, making his music and songs about something else, something much bigger.
Simon Raymonde, Bella Union; organiser, Scott Walker proms
I began talking to his lovely manager, Charles, several years ago, and then when the BBC Proms opportunity came up, the idea I’d had of this dream concert began to take shape. All the classic songs, with those sumptuous arrangements, would be performed live for the first time – sadly not with Scott singing, but with some of today’s great talents like John Grant and Susanne Sundfør.
Scott was so supportive of this, which I wasn’t initially sure he would be. I’d always admired his seeming total lack of nostalgia for the past and to hear his encouraging words throughout (“please ensure the orchestra is really powerful, it has to be powerful”) kept us on track. Charles warned me that Scott may well not attend the concert and I was fully prepared for that, having heard so many people talk of his reclusiveness over the years. But when I was sitting nervously awaiting the start, I heard whispers that he was there.
The show was over in a blur, and seconds later I found myself backstage hugging a beaming Scott Walker. He absolutely loved it and I couldn’t have been happier at that moment. He stayed hours drinking and chatting in the bar. It was one of the most wonderful things to have been involved with, mostly because I knew he had truly loved it. As Scott was so fiercely ambitious and groundbreaking, I perhaps hadn’t imagined he would embrace the past so joyfully. To have had his trust and ultimately his thanks to pull it off, will live with me for ever.
This really hurts. Scott’s impact on me, and my father before me, was huge. Dad wrote the arrangements for the big Walker Brothers hits The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) and Make It Easy on Yourself. The solo records that followed connected with me so deeply throughout the 80s and 90s and still barely a week goes by when Scott is not in my thoughts or on my record player.
Seb Rochford, Polar Bear
Scott Walker is one of the most intensely original visionaries to ever have lived. Every moment on his later albums would have my ears and spirit on alert; the extremities and contrasts within the elements of each song are unlike anything I’ve heard. Whenever I bought one of his albums, sometimes I would let it sit on my table for weeks or months, just staring at me, waiting for the right moment to be played. I knew these were no ordinary albums, and that I didn’t know where I’d be on the other side of playing it. I loved this ceremony.
Brady Corbet, Vox Lux director
I cared for him immensely and will, as I always have, cherish his entire body of work. Not only did he have the voice of an angel, his poetry and composition existed on some higher plane of creativity; it inspired a great creative courage in me and left an indelible mark on my life and projects.
All of my love and warmth are with his daughter, granddaughter, and partner, as well as the few close friends who I know were like family to him, especially his longtime managers, Cathy and Charles. I am certain that he will be remembered as one of the greatest composers and songwriters of our time. We will all miss him so much.
Gazelle Twin
I worship the minimalist feralness on Bish Bosch, and the perfectly sculpted hell on Tilt. I worship that voice that so many have sought to imitate, including me. We’ve lost a god.
Dinos Chapman
His was the only fan letter I ever wrote. I discovered him late. He made me feel OK about being an elderly musician.
Gillian Moore, Southbank Centre director of music
In 2006, I was artistic director of the London Sinfonietta. We were approached by Scott Walker’s management because he was interested in writing a score for a contemporary dance piece. Walker’s voice – his full baritone on the Walker Brothers The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore and Make it Easy on Yourself – was a madeleine that could transport me in an instant back to my 1960s childhood. But I also knew that he’d gone on to do other things, that he was a composer and that albums such as Tilt showed an experimental bent. With the help of my colleague Julia Carruthers, head of dance at the Southbank Centre, where Walker had curated the Meltdown festival in 2000, we enlisted the choreographer Rafael Bonachela and Candoco Dance Company, which is made up of disabled and non-disabled dancers. Walker’s score was titled And Who Shall Go to the Ball? When it arrived, it surpassed all our expectations: dark and twisted with wailing, clustery strings and percussion, atonal jabs, thick dissonances. This was frightening music. Bonachela and Candoco responded with an equally dark and uncompromising choreography. I noticed recently that And Who Shall Go the Ball? made it on to the GCSE curriculum. I’m surprised it was allowed.
