Scott Walker (1943-2019)

A sad thing about growing older is that your heroes die off one by one and you are too cynical or set in your ways to replace them.

Scott Walker had always been there, as far as I am concerned, because I cannot remember a time when I did not know the great Walker Brothers singles Make it Easy on Yourself and The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore) and his golden voice.

Later I discovered his peerless solo career in the late Sixties, when his albums mixed Jacques Brel songs with his own compositions.

Before all that he had been a teen sensation in the US under his real name of Scott Engel and after the last of those solo albums, Scott 4, had bombed he had a period as a crooner, recording film soundtracks and the like.

Later in his career, refusing to allow his voice to trap him in that role, he became an avant-garde experimentalist.

Farmer in the City is more approachable than much of his work from this period, but it is how I shall remember him tonight.