Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
The Walker Brothers
Images
(Philips, 1967)
The swansong of America's British chart crashers, too square for the freaks and too loose for the straights.
There have been some great incongruous support acts across the ages - Bad Manners supporting Echo and The Bunnymen at the Electric Ballroom in 1979, for example - but the bill for the Walker Brothers' farewell UK jaunt in April 1967 is a classic; joining the faux siblings at the nation's Granadas, Gaumonts and Odeons were Englebert Humperdinck, Cat Stevens and Jimi Hendrix. Images, the last album Scott, John and Gary made in the '60s is also something of a contrast to the increasingly psychedelic times. Released just as they were on the way out - singles were charting ever-lower, while work permit hassles had obliged them to quit Britain for six months - it's a curious mix of material to appease their mental teen fanbase, MOR-minded mums and dads and even those wanting real substance to their pop entertainment. Immaculately realised by the three-tunes-in-four-hours studio hands, ably orchestrated by chain smoking producer Johnny Franz and arranger Reg Guest, the Scott-sung cover of Michel Legrand's Once Upon A Summertime has that mix of half-cut lachrymosity and super-lush soundworld that would have gone down a storm at the Batley Variety Club. It's followed by Scott's Experience - a fantastical, careering waltz through the central European bierkeller of his mind - and John Walker's lazy, heat hazed saunter through Blueberry Hill. These gear changes persist throughout; Scott's extraordinary Orpheus and Genevieve (a dry run of sorts for Always Coming Back To You on his first solo LP) also stand out, while equally as good is I Can't Let It Happen To You, a cool, swinging-London-at-rest song of empathy written and sung by John, the essential harmonist who sadly died on Saturday.
Ian Harrison
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 10/05/2011
Further Listening
The Walker Brothers - Portrait (Philips, 1966)
Scott Walker - Scott (Philips, 1967)
Dusty Springfield - Where Am I Going? (Philips, 1967)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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-
Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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RIP John
Posted by The Amorous Humphrey Plugg at 1:53 PM GMT 10/05/2011 Report Abuse
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Too square for the freaks? I think even among the 60s avant-garde ("a French expression meaning crap" according to John Lennon) there was an appreciation of well-crafted pop.
I dug 'em & I'm still the hippest cat in town!
Posted by John Scott at 7:38 AM GMT 11/05/2011 Report Abuse
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RE: John Scott
I think by the release of Images, Scott was already listening to his Brel records and was making moves to move as far away from his pop roots as possible. 3 years later he would disapear completly with the wonderful and perhaps the greatest ever solo lp ever made Scott 4.
To think by 1996 he would leave popular music all together and move to god knows were with Tilt and later Drift. and by all accounts in 2012 he will return with who knows what???????????. thanks to 4AD for giving him to be the freedom to do what the f%%k he likes.
50 years in the music business and still going strong - thanks
Posted by stimcitytigers at 5:45 PM GMT 09/12/2011 Report Abuse
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The Walkers benefited - despite occasional lapses - as much from their own talented as well as that from those around them...the songwriters, arrangers and producers who provided the lush and accomplished canvases upon which they could do their thing. But while the singles were - and remain - sensational and enduring period pieces, the LPs, I felt, suggested a lack of direction and focus, as they dealt their winning hand with those big Phil Spector-esque-style tunes, then dipped into some hip-shaking, groove-making tune they'd played in their start-up days in the California clubs. I still love their music...Them and Dusty...alongside the studio work of Cream, Hendrix's 'Axis: Bold as Love', the Small Faces, the Move, the Beatles...The Walkers were - and should be remembered - as a class act that blessed us with a small but valuable treasure of enduring music.
Posted by Wayne Blanchard at 3:18 PM GMT 11/02/2012 Report Abuse
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The Walkers benefited - despite occasional lapses - as much from their own talent as well as that from those around them...the songwriters, arrangers and producers who provided the lush and accomplished canvases upon which they could do their thing. But while the singles were - and remain - sensational and enduring period pieces, the LPs, I felt, suggested a lack of direction and focus, as they dealt their winning hand with those big Phil Spector-esque-style tunes, then dipped into some hip-shaking, groove-making tune they'd played in their start-up days in the California clubs. I still love their music...Them and Dusty...alongside the studio work of Cream, Hendrix's 'Axis: Bold as Love', the Small Faces, the Move, the Beatles...The Walkers were - and should be remembered - as a class act that blessed us with a small but valuable treasure of enduring music.
Posted by Anonymous at 3:20 PM GMT 11/02/2012 Report Abuse
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