Sings Jacques Brel

Performer: Scott Walker
Distributor: MSI Music Distribution

Notes: This CD compiles nine covers of songs written by Belgian composer Jacques Brel, taken from three albums by American singer Scott Walker. Tracks include "Mathilde", "Amsterdam", and "Jackie". French songwriter Jacques Brel is to Scott Walker roughly as Woody Guthrie is to Bob Dylan. At a formative point in Walker's career, his sensibility was crucially informed by Brel. So much so that he recorded nine Brel compositions on his first three albums. This collection shines a spotlight on that part of Walker's musical makeup by putting all of those tracks together in one place. Walker's deep, rich voice bears more than enough high-dramatic quality to pull of the extreme emotional range of Brel's songs, from the drunken depravity of "Amsterdam" (Walker's version bests David Bowie's) to the desperate romanticism of "If You Go Away" and the uncompromising portrait of sexual violence, "Next." SINGS JACQUES BREL makes a strong case for Walker as (at the very least) the premier American interpreter of Brel.

Noel Scott Engel, better known as Scott Walker, was born in the US, but found fame in the UK as a member of the Walker Brothers, who became teen pop idols in England in the 1960s. After the group's demise, Walker's darker, artier side eventually came to the fore, and he began a quirky solo career that encompassed Jacques Brel covers, moody, saloon-singer crooning, and avant-garde tendencies. He became the quintessential cult figure, inscrutable and highly influential, though after the '70s his works were few and far between.

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