Scott Walker Tribute Song Played by Richard?
- Thread starter Mark-T
- Start date
Portlander
Well-Known Member
Nice clip Mark and thanks. I still feel that Richard sometimes gets a little overwhelmed or surprised when it comes to accepting appreciation from his fans along with praise for his personal achievements. It's almost as if he doesn't feel deserving of the respect he's shown or truly does not realize the positive impact the Carpenters music has had on so many people around the world.
Maybe it's because of all of the negative criticism Karen and Richard received from the so called music hipsters during the early part of their career who were indulged in their self righteous views of what was cool and trending. I will be so elated if the Carpenters finally receive a lifetime achievement award from the Grammy's or even an induction into the R&R HOF while Richard is still around to enjoy it.
He is a class act with a kind soul and I wish him and his family the very best!
Maybe it's because of all of the negative criticism Karen and Richard received from the so called music hipsters during the early part of their career who were indulged in their self righteous views of what was cool and trending. I will be so elated if the Carpenters finally receive a lifetime achievement award from the Grammy's or even an induction into the R&R HOF while Richard is still around to enjoy it.
He is a class act with a kind soul and I wish him and his family the very best!
Another Son
Well-Known Member
I was surprised a number of years ago to discover that The Walker Brothers hadn't been as popular in their original home country, (USA), as they'd been in some other places. "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" is one of those iconic songs that you imagine has been around forever and that seems to have been designed as a pillar for all pop / rock to be crafted upon ever after.
Noel Engel, (aka Scott Walker), had a quartet of solo albums in the late 1960s called Scott Walker 1, 2, 3 and 4 which have been described as baroque pop, experimental, surreal or avant-garde. I have three of them and they are certainly a bit different; interesting releases.
Scott Walker had a string of Top 3 albums in the UK which did not even chart in the US. He had a number of other Top 30 UK albums, besides. With the Walker Brothers, he also had a number of Top 10 albums in the UK, a couple of those going Top 3. The Walker Brothers had seven Top 20 hit singles in the UK, two of those going to Number One.
When I bought the Scott Walker albums years ago, I looked up the Walker Brothers' US chart history, knowing that, surely, 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore' was a smash there and that they must have had countless other big hits. I was amazed to find that even 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore' hadn't gone Top 10 there. They only ever had two moderate hit singles in their home country, (peaking at Numbers 16 and 13), and none of their albums, or Scott's solo albums, appear to have entered the US Top 100.
It's interesting how some artists are never embraced in their homeland but become huge in other countries.
But 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore?' What a song!
Noel Engel, (aka Scott Walker), had a quartet of solo albums in the late 1960s called Scott Walker 1, 2, 3 and 4 which have been described as baroque pop, experimental, surreal or avant-garde. I have three of them and they are certainly a bit different; interesting releases.
Scott Walker had a string of Top 3 albums in the UK which did not even chart in the US. He had a number of other Top 30 UK albums, besides. With the Walker Brothers, he also had a number of Top 10 albums in the UK, a couple of those going Top 3. The Walker Brothers had seven Top 20 hit singles in the UK, two of those going to Number One.
When I bought the Scott Walker albums years ago, I looked up the Walker Brothers' US chart history, knowing that, surely, 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore' was a smash there and that they must have had countless other big hits. I was amazed to find that even 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore' hadn't gone Top 10 there. They only ever had two moderate hit singles in their home country, (peaking at Numbers 16 and 13), and none of their albums, or Scott's solo albums, appear to have entered the US Top 100.
It's interesting how some artists are never embraced in their homeland but become huge in other countries.
But 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore?' What a song!
Another Son
Well-Known Member
Don Malcolm
Well-Known Member
Another song of this type that suffered a similar fate: Ike and Tina's "River Deep, Mountain High" under the aegis of (the infernally controversial) Phil Spector. Huge hit in the UK, but a shocking failure in the US. My sense is that the Spector sound bounced off its own wall (sorry for that pun) in 1966-67 and fell out of favor on the US charts, supplanted by Motown, various strains of psychedelia, blue-eyed soul, blues, etc., as the age of eclecticism took hold at the end of the decade. The more "symphonic" sound found in Spector, the Walker Brothers, etc., did not go out of vogue in the UK at the same time, which explains continuing success by the Walker Brothers (and other artists still working with what we might call "orchestral pop").
And the Carpenters' long afterlife outside the US is another variation of this phenomenon--their ongoing regard in the UK, Japan and other regions around the world demonstrates that there is a semi-loosely aligned "sound" that continues to resonate around the world even if US audiences have set it aside for whatever the "pop cultural machine" was churning out.
Aside from his prominent jazz influences, Richard was clearly also intrigued by the Spector sound during his developmental period, as evidenced by the songwriting and primordial production on Karen's Magic Lamp singles, and "Offering" is kind of a smorgasbord of the many influences he was absorbing in the 1966-68 time frame recast into his own songwriting. Ultimately this all sorted itself out into what he refers to as the "three B's," but there are lingering echoes of those earlier influences, particularly in some key cover songs that he chose to record once he'd determined that Karen would be the focal point for the Carpenters' musical identity. You can hear the last echoes of Spector in "Hurting Each Other," a song first written and recorded in 1965, the height of the Spector era. The arrangement is much clearer and cleaner, of course, but the linkage to that earlier era is unmistakable, particularly in that turnaround into the chorus.
