The Walker Brothers by John Walker

Author:John Walker [John and Gary Walker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781843589785
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2011-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Later that summer, Kathy and I took a holiday in Marbella, Spain, and stayed in the famous Don Pepe hotel for a fortnight. We ran into Lulu and her manager, Marion, in the village, and all had dinner together. Lulu and Kathy became quite good friends.

Then it was back to work. The group went to Sweden for a concert and television show, then on to Holland, Switzerland and Germany. Back in the UK we recorded an EP called I Need You, after the title track, with Reg Guest as the musical arranger. Unlike Ivor Raymonde, who basically followed the arrangements of the original tracks and beefed them up a bit, Reg was far more imaginative, creating tailored arrangements to enhance our recordings in every way possible, always taking what Scott and I did into consideration. In this way, Reg enhanced the quality of our records and performances. He and I became quite good friends. He always made sure that I got what I wanted, understood my vocal intentions right off the bat, and wrote his arrangements accordingly, to complement my style. There are some erroneous quotes, attributed to Reg, that suggest that Gary and I were merely ‘passengers’, ‘playing second fiddle to Scott’; that we were becoming ‘increasingly tetchy’, with our ‘insecurity manifesting itself in the studio’; and that we were ‘as manufactured a group as The Monkees’, along with other demeaning and completely false statements depicting rivalries and snubs between us. The fact is that all of us had a very professional and respectful relationship with each other, which was maintained over the years.

On 8 July 1966, our new single, ‘(Baby) You Don’t Have to Tell Me’/‘My Love Is Growing’ was released, along with the EP I Need You. The single reached only Number 13. You are always disappointed when you record something you think is good and the public doesn’t agree. I think we both gave a really good performance with this song, but that all the key changes made it hard to remember. Unlike ‘The Sun …’ and ‘Make It Easy …’, ‘(Baby) You Don’t Have to Tell Me’ was not immediately easy to sing along with, so I guess it just got lost. The choice of songs was always democratic, but I can’t remember who suggested ‘(Baby) You Don’t Have to Tell Me’. Scott had more pull because he had John Franz’s ear. I told Scott and Johnny that the track ‘I Need You’ could be a stronger piece of material for a single if we redid the vocals and lifted mine out of the track more, which would have made for a dynamic recording. But it didn’t happen. Johnny was already starting to distract Scott away from The Walker Brothers with material and ideas intended to showcase his talent. I thought – and still think – that ‘I Need You’ was wasted on an EP, but Philips was hoping that it would go into the singles charts.

The other three tracks on the EP were ‘Young

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.