Scott: Scott Walker Sings Songs from his T.V. Series is the fourth solo album by American artist Scott Walker. It was released in June 1969 and reached number seven[2] on the UK Albums Chart, his last album to make the top 10. No singles were released from the album, though some editions include Walker's top-twenty single "Lights of Cincinnati". The album does not include original compositions by Walker and consists of performances of ballads and big band standards. The album has since been deleted and has not been reissued.
The album is an accompaniment to his BBC TV series Scott. It features studio re-recordings of a selection of music performed on the show and does not feature any original live recordings from the TV show.
The continued unavailability of Scott: Scott Walker Sings Songs from his T.V. Series is believed to be due to Walker's dissatisfaction with the album and his albums from the early to mid-1970s, all of which were made up entirely of cover versions and which he describes in the documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man as his "wilderness years". Walker blocked CD re-releases of T.V. Series, The Moviegoer (1972) and Any Day Now (1973), while Stretch (1973) and We Had It All (1974) were re-released on CD in 1997 by an independent label without Walker's own approval.[3]
In spite of the album's deletion, most of the tracks were included on two Scott Walker compilation CDs issued in the 2000s, the budget-priced The Collection in 2004 and Classics & Collectibles in 2005. "I Have Dreamed," "Country Girl," "When the World Was Young," "Someone to Light Up My Life," "The Impossible Dream," "If She Walked Into My Life," "Who (Will Take My Place)" and "Lost in the Stars" are included on Classics & Collectibles, while "The Look of Love" is included on The Collection. "Will You Still Be Mine," "The Song Is You" and "Only the Young" remain unavailable.
Gordon Coxhill of New Musical Express wrote, "This LP, totally different from anything he's ever done before, is just as creative, just as professional and perhaps more entertaining than his previous works."[1] A less positive review from the staff of Melody Maker stated that Walker "lacks the magic of the big league male singers" and that "he cannot be faulted on his choice of material — he handles some magnificent modern songs — but his slightly nasal singing palls before the record is over."[5]
Richie Unterberger, writing retrospectively for AllMusic, reviewed the album positively, remarking that Walker sings the heavily orchestrated and middle of the road material extremely well throughout. Despite this, he felt the album was not very representative of what Walker was usually recording at the time, and was certainly not his best work of the period. He concluded that the album was a curiosity that's far less enduring than Walker's other albums of the late '60s and early '70s, only recommended to completist fans of the singer.[4]
