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 and record producer who resided in England. Walker was known for his emotive voice and his unorthodox stylistic 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's success was largely in the United Kingdom, where he achieved fame as a member of pop trio the Walker Brothers, who scored several hit singles, including two number ones, during the mid-1960s, while his first four solo albums reached the top ten during the later part of the decade, with the second, Scott 2, reaching number one in 1968. He lived in the UK from 1965 onward 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 late 1960s baroque pop albums such as Scott 3 and Scott 4 (both 1969). After sales of his ambitious solo work started to decrease, he put out a number of MOR covers albums, all of which he later disowned, to appease record companies. He reunited with the Walker Brothers in the mid-1970s. The reformed band achieved a top ten single with "No Regrets" in 1975, while their last album Nite Flights (1978) marked the beginning of Walker taking his music in a more avant-garde direction. After a few years hiatus, Walker revived his solo career in the mid-1980s, progressing his work further towards the avant-garde; of this period in his career, The Guardian said "imagine Andy Williams reinventing himself as Stockhausen". Walker's 1960s recordings were highly regarded by the 1980s UK underground music scene, and gained a cult following.