The Walker Brothers
 They
weren't British, they weren't brothers and their real names weren't
Walker, but Californians Scott Engel, John Maus (a one-time child actor)
and Gary Leeds were briefly huge stars in England, and small ones in
their native USA, at the peak of the British
Invasion.
Engel and Maus were playing together in Hollywood in 1964 when
drummer Leeds suggested they form a trio and try to make it in
England.
He had earlier toured the UK as drummer with P
J Proby and felt that the Walkers could prosper in such an
environment - and they did . . . with surprising swiftness.
In March 1965 their first single - Pretty Girls Everywhere -
emerged on the Philips label. The record flopped, but in June, Love
Her (a Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil number) put The Walker Brothers into
the Top Twenty for the first time.
They appeared on the Thank
Your Lucky Stars TV show, were mobbed in best teen idol
tradition, and when their next single, Burt Bacharach and Hal David's
Make It Easy On Yourself came out in August, it went straight to
Number 1.
The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore repeated the feat the
following year, and the group also had UK hits with My Ship Is
Coming In, (Baby) You Don't Have To Tell Me, Another
Tear Falls and others.
For a few months they experienced frenzied adulation almost on the
level of The Beatles and Rolling
Stones, though in America (where they rarely performed), only Make
It Easy On Yourself and The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
entered the Top 20.
While The Walker Brothers looked the part of British Invaders with
their shaggy mop tops, they were in fact far more pop than rock - and
they didn't play on most of their records.
With producer Johnny Franz and veteran British arrangers like Ivor
Raymonde - who also worked with Dusty
Springfield - they favoured orchestrated ballads in a studied
attempt to emulate the success of The Righteous Brothers (who also
weren't really brothers).
Although two more singles - (Baby) You Don't Have To Tell Me
and Bacharach and David's Another Tear Falls - made the Top
Twenty, there were signs that the three Americans might be heading their
separate ways.
Gary had been recording as a solo act - notching up mini-hits with You
Don't Love Me and Twinkie Lee - while relations between
Scott and John were becoming strained.
In April 1967, some months after a comparative flop with Stay
With Me Baby, the Walkers played what proved to be their last
British gig - at the Granada, Tooting. Scott then stated his intention
of leaving, claiming that he couldn't take the pressures any more.
Later, in the dressing room, a despondent John Maus told the press,
"If Scott quits then that's it as far as I'm concerned. He is
the Walker Brothers. I just don't know him any more. I've known the
guy for four years and now I can't even talk to him".
By the time the next Walkers single - Walking In The Rain -
came out, there was no group to promote it.
Scott and John had moved into the recording studios for sessions that
would produce solo hits in Jackie and Annabella respectively,
while Gary, after a seven-month lay-off, eventually began working with a
group called Rain.
Scott went on to release a series of British Top 10 solo albums but
ultimately nobody knew what to do with him. One of his later albums
had a quote from Albert Camus (a French Algerian author, philosopher and
journalist) on its sleeve, contained songs about Stalin and Satan,
and didn't sell shit.
A few years later Scott was back on the Batley Variety trail, singing
for his supper.
The Walker Brothers reunited for a while in 1975 which produced a
final British hit (No Regrets) but generally disappointing
music.
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