Images
The Walker Brothers
Released: March 3, 1967. Label: Philips
Images is the third UK album by The Walker Brothers. It comprises cover versions of contemporary songs, two originals by band member John Maus, and three Scott Engel originals, Orpheus, Experience and Genevieve.
The album features three English translations of European songs: Once Upon A Summertime, Johnny Mercer’s version of the French song La Valse De Lilas (The Waltz Of The Lilac) by Michel Legrand, Eddie Barclay and Eddy Marnay; I Will Wait For You, Norman Gimbel’s version of the French song Je Ne Pourrai Jamais Vivre Sans Toi (I Could Never Live Without You) by Michel Legrand and Jacques Demy; and It Makes No Difference Now, Norman Newell’s version of Iller Pattacini and Mogol’s Italian song, Occhi Innamorati ([Eyes In Love).
Contemporary songs in English also feature: blues and rock and roll standard Blueberry Hill, Ben E King’s Stand By Me and Petula Clark’s Just Say Goodbye. The album opens with the first recording of Bob Crewe and Gary Knight’s Everything Under The Sun, previously demoed by Ike and Tina Turner, and later recorded by The Ronettes.
The album was produced by John Franz, with musical arrangements by Reg Guest, and brief liner notes by DJ Alan Freeman. “There’s always been a suggestion of the mysterious and the unknown whenever I’ve listened to the Walker Brothers,” he writes.
Images spent three weeks at no. 6 in the UK charts and 15 weeks in the top 40.
Track Listing
Everything Under the Sun
(Bob Crewe, Gary Knight) 4:15Once Upon a Summertime
(Michel Legrand, Johnny Mercer, Eddy Marnay) 3:49Experience
(Scott Engel) 2:53Blueberry Hill
(Al Lewis, Vincent Rose, Larry Stock) 3:25Orpheus
(Scott Engel) 3:24Stand by Me
(Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller) 3:27I Wanna Know
(John Maus) 2:28I Will Wait for You (Theme from Les Parapluies de Cherbourg)
(Michel Legrand, lyrics: Jacques Demy; English lyrics: Norman Gimbel) 3:38It Makes No Difference Now
(Iller Pattacini; English lyrics: Mike Newell) 2:37I Can't Let It Happen to You
(John Maus) 3:11Genevieve
(Scott Engel) 2:49Just Say Goodbye
(Petula Clark, Pierre Delanoë, Tony Hatch) 3:33
Credits
Producer - John Franz
Arranged By - Reg Guest
Drums, Vocals - Gary Walker
Guitar, Vocals - John Walker
Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards - Scott Walker
Interview
Melody Maker, 13 May 1967
by Nick Jones
Scott said:
“After seeing our last Palladium performance I think I really got things into perspective and made up my mind to quit the group. It’s a nasty feeling watching a show like that. I was so embarrassed. Not only that, I was so full of shame for myself and the rest of the group. It was the last straw, I was disgusted.”
“You see when you’re in a group you have to take other people’s advice, you have to listen to them, and adopt what they say as group policy. But that’s the last time I ever listen to anyone!
“I want to be free. I know everyone knows that Scott Walker’s a difficult person to work with and only works when he wants — when he’s ready. Well, that’s right! I’m not singing until I’m ready.”
“That way it will be good. I’m in no panic and I know I’m going to work better when I feel like working. I must come out with a top weight professional act.
“I feel I’ve got one up on a lot of people in that I’m not going to work just for the sake of it. I will work when I really want to.
“I had to work with the Walker Brothers because I was with two other guys who needed the bread and one of them had a family to support and so on. Money isn’t important to me. I don’t have to work just for the money.
“The pressures were nearly always outside the group rather than within. People were always asking us if we were going to split, egging us on, as though they wanted us to. Things were OK really until the Australian tour. Then things began to brew-up within the group as well.
“We smoothed it out and it wasn’t until the British tour that everything came on again and that was it. I guess the tour was about the own-up. But then I’d been thinking about leaving anyway.
“Well, I’m cutting an LP before a single because an album will give me more room to develop a new kind of style. It’s probably taking a risk and it’s uncommercial and difficult to understand but it’s the feeler. I’m writing my own odd abstract stuff. Like surrealistic songs done in orchestral movement — I find it has an effect on people who know — I don’t want the Tom Jones scene.”
“I’ll be skint if the LP doesn’t work — but I won’t switch back to the old commercial scene. Never. It’s all the way with me now. I want it to be first class all the way too. Money isn’t my god — maybe later — but not now. As soon as I’m singing in Ronnie Scott’s club I won’t have to do anything else!
“I’m starting work on a television show too — not a series just a one shot. A sort of one man thing, with a big orchestra, 35 or 40 men, and of course I’d like to do concerts with the same orchestra but that’s difficult.”
Interview
Rave, February 1967
by Mike Grant
“Scott Walker the pin-up face just doesn’t exist,” he told me. “The face being shown on millions of TV screens with make-up and make-believe doesn’t exist either. You know me — now look at me — do I look like a teenage idol?”
Like a true journalist I lied and answered “No”.
“Sometimes” he said, “I get a mental picture of myself coming out of a sweet shop and someone will recognise me and I know just what they are thinking. They’re thinking, ‘Is THAT Scott Walker?’ — because that’s exactly what I would think.”
“I get the fans on the doorbell all night long,” said Scott. “I tell them to go away and see the Small Faces. I’m not who they think I am. They say that they love me and I say ‘If you loved me you would not bug me!’ I never asked for adulation — I don’t need it. I would prefer respect for my person and my work.”
“The real satisfaction in writing something you believe in,” he said “is when someone writes or says to you that they have got something personal out of a lyric. If I can reach people with what I write, if I can just get through to a few, then I’ll be happy.”
“All these beautiful pictures that are taken of me and the image built up by clever journalists and photographers means I have to try and live up to them at least in public!
“Time is really all important,” said Scott, “but I only get fragments of time. Just as I’m beginning to readjust myself I get pulled away for some kind of a gig. You can’t write under those conditions.”
“One of the reasons that we don’t do interviews together is because there are such conflicting opinions between the three of us,” said Scott. “I can’t get on John’s scene and he can’t see mine. The only person adaptable enough to contain an interview with all three of us present is Gary.”
The Walker Brothers, Finsbury Park Astoria in London. 31st March 1967