Scott Walker (singer)

Noel Scott Engel (January 9, 1943 – March 22, 2019), better known by his stage name Scott Walker, was an American-British singer-songwriter, composer, and record producer. Walker was known for his emotive baritone voice and his unorthodox career path, which took him from being a teen pop icon in the 1960s to an avant-garde musician from the 1990s to his death. Walker was most successful in the United Kingdom, where he achieved fame as a member of pop trio the Walker Brothers, who scored several hit singles during the mid-1960s, including two number-one hits on the UK singles chart with "Make It Easy on Yourself" (1965) and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" (1966). He lived in the UK from 1965 onwards, and became a UK citizen in 1970. After the Walker Brothers split in 1967, he began a solo career with the album Scott later that year. Strongly inspired by Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel, Walker moved toward an increasingly challenging musical and lyrical style on the late 1960s baroque pop albums Scott 2 (1968), which reached number one in the UK; Scott 3 (1969); and Scott 4 (1969). After Scott 4 and its follow-up 'Til the Band Comes In (1970) failed commercially, Walker released a number of MOR covers albums, which he later disowned, to appease record companies. He reunited with the Walker Brothers in the mid-1970s. They achieved a top-ten single with "No Regrets" in 1975, while their final album, Nite Flights (1978), marked the beginning of Walker's move towards the avant-garde. During the 1980s, Walker released only one album, Climate of Hunter (1984). Its follow-up, Tilt (1995), saw his work now fully immersed in a dark and avant-garde musical and lyrical idiom. Walker progressed this style through The Drift (2006); Bish Bosch (2012); and Soused (2014), a...