Remembering Mr Invisible…

The one and only time I met Scott Walker – who would have celebrated his 77^th birthday recently – was after one of his solo performances in Manchester. We were both very drunk indeed.

But that was the fashionable way to be after midnight all those years ago in the early 1970s.

I was working on the Stockport Advertiser and for some reason Scott had agreed to meet me after his show for a chat.

Big deal for me – believe me!

So, I got to Fagins on Oxford Street unfashionably early and alone. I found myself a table next to the dance floor, lit a cigarette and began downing pints of warm fizzy lager. I felt cool, tall, well-dressed, hair cascading below my ears and making notes in my spiral reporter’s pad.

I was around 20 and people could tell I was a journalist, on my first steps to my journey to being a writer.

Fagins, like all the underground nightclubs across the UK was brash and noisy, deadly smokey. And the beer was rubbish. But it was a step up from the beer kellar.

And Scott Walker was performing there tonight … and I was his guest of honour (in a way, in my mind).

The club went silent, there was the odd obligatory scream of course and a lot of coughing in the fug of fag smoke. The smoke had a spooky affect as it played in the stage light that focussed on Scott’s lonesome barstool and mic stand on the tiny stage.

He barely looked at the audience as he crossed the stage, took his seat and launched into a sonorous, sombre, deeply moving solo version of Johanna (I seem to remember).

I have to say Scott was beautiful. Skinny enough to snap, handsome enough to break anybody’s heart and as romantic as a first kiss.

His career was on the wane already and he’d only been going as a chart topper in the UK for less than a decade.

But he will always be remembered as the voice on some of the most dramatic singles of the era like Make It Easy on Yourself (1965) and The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore performed with the so-called Walker Brothers.

By the time we had a few drinks at the bar after his show, the Walkers Bros were falling stars and Scott said he missed them.

He was drinking heavily, something he had always done. I remember him shouting to me above the hullabaloo and waving in-between signing breasts and bras, beer mats and menus for his fans. In fact I think I signed a few lightly sweaty thighs on his behalf.

We ordered a few beers and chasers and Scott asked for them to be taken to a backstage room where we could talk.

The club was still throbbing in the distance but we chatted in what was little more than a cupboard about his new songs, like the mysterious Montague Terrace in Blue and Big Louis. He was charming and witty but given to long silences that I tried clumsily to fill.

He told me too that he didn’t like live performances, they took too much out of him and, like now, he was physically and emotionally drained.

I never saw him again. And rarely did his fans. He made some comebacks and some very good albums, a television advert and a couple of promotional documentaries. But true his words to me… he proved he wanted to be alone.

To be Mr Invisible.

He went on to be a successful record producer and made the odd – some say very odd – album. And lived a quite life in the UK and Europe.

He died last year aged 76.

I am glad he granted me some time in his company and was so warm and charming.

Here’s my favourite Scott Walker track:

#scottwalker #manchester #oxfordstreet #fagins #rafters #walkerbrothers