A phenomenal, great album on many levels. Scott Walker is one of the handful greats in contemporary music. Which sounds like an overblown statement, but the fact is that he has the combination of intelligence, vocals, compositional skills, and vision that doesn't seem possible in a mere human being. From his career in The Walker Brothers to the classic Scott solo albums, (from "Scott 1" to "Scott 4") to the artful albums of his later career, including his work with Sunn O))) is a remarkable musical (and perhaps) life journey. "Scott Sing Songs From His T.V. Series, an album that Walker doesn't admire much, is in fact, at least in my opinion, just as important as his renowned masterpieces.
The thought of Scott Walker having his own TV music series in the UK is mind-boggling in itself, but if he was following the steps of crooners like Jack Jones (a singer he admired) his selection of these songs on this album are by no means hack work. The core Scott orchestration is in place with the production of John Franz (who did the classic early Scott solo albums) and the arrangements of Peter Knight. Both men worked with Scott at his solo height in the 60s, and this is not a minor project for any of those involved.
The album is a selection of songs that are from stage shows and film themes. I'm not familiar with a lot of the songs, but I do know "The Look of Love by Bacharach and David, "The Impossible Dream," and "Lost in the Stars." None of the songs on this album is Scott phoning in his vocals. I sense he is front and center with the recordings. I don't know if he was ordered by his management or record company to make such an album, but to my ears, this is an extraordinary artist tackling not exactly the Great American Songbook, but covering some old and contemporary songs at that moment and time in his career. Frank Sinatra comes to mind, especially the first track on side one, "Well You Still Be Mine" but perhaps his role model on this particular cut was Jack Jones. Jones I feel was an underrated singer and was often thought of as a middle-of-the-road artist, but I suspect he had more depth than that. And Scott recognized his talent, but I feel he took that inspiration and moved it into another plane or landscape.
His version of the great Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson song "Lost in the Stars" is exquisite. For me, I think of Scott as making sound sculptures. The melodies are important, and maybe even the words are even more essential, but the way he performs his songs I can see it being a visual interpretation of his sounds. I think his later work is very much in the sculpture mode, but I think he had this idea ever since The Walker Brothers and it just became more profound in his early solo albums. Although "Scott Sings Songs" seems to be a work that is not part of his overall big picture, I feel it is part of the bridge between his early and later years. To remove this album from his catalog is like removing "Rubber Soul" and not seeing the jump from "Beatles for Sale" to "Revolver." This is an essential album by a major artist. It swings hard (in that Jack Jones/Sinatra mode) but also the ballads are crooned so perfectly that he puts others of his generation to shame. At this time, Scott Walker was very much a songwriter. So, in the sense of Bowie's "Pin-Ups" or Bryan Ferry's "These Foolish Things" this is a work that is commenting on the nature of popular music, and re-thinking it as not as a business plan, but more as of an artist. Scott Walker rules.
