Jack Scott: The Way I Walk (1959)

 |   |  1 min read

Jack Scott: The Way I Walk (1959)

With his sullen and sneering good looks -- he might have been a truck driver in Memphis like the pre-fame Elvis or a member of the Clash -- Jack Scott was briefly a big star, and at the time in the late Fifties one of the biggest to come out of Detroit where he grew up (after being born in Canada).

Scott clocked up hit after hit in the late Fifties (half of the 12 songs on his debut album were chart hits as singles, he had 19 songs on the US top 100 in 41 months) and he even gave Elvis a run for his money as he shifted between rockabilly and ballads. And unlike Elvis, Scott wrote his own songs.

Unfortunately after the Beatles came along his sound seemed instantly dated, but even in the few years before he was wavering away from the chart action.

The Way I Walk wasn't one of his biggest hits but it has proved among the more durable for its sultry swagger and sense of self-assurance and menace.

It was covered by Robert Gordon and was a longtime favourite song for the Cramps who also covered it (This is taken from the collection The Cramps Jukebox).

Appropriately, Gordon's version appeared in the film Natural Born Killers. It was that kind of song.

Jack Scott is 82 at this time of writing and a much respected, if little known, star of the rock'n'roll era.

Because that's the way he walks.

For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory use the RSS feed for daily updates, and check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

Clem Tholet: Rhodesians Never Die (1973)

Clem Tholet: Rhodesians Never Die (1973)

Aside from songs about dance crazes, the most immediately redundant songs in popular music are those which attach themselves to a political cause. Times change quickly and today's patriotic or... > Read more

Allen Ginsberg: Green Automobile (1953)

Allen Ginsberg: Green Automobile (1953)

Although there is a decent reading of this poem on the Ginsberg box set Holy Soul Jelly Roll; Poems and Songs 1949 - 1993, this rather poorly captured version is much more affecting and, in its... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

BRIAN ENO AND THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE: Obscure but not oblique

BRIAN ENO AND THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE: Obscure but not oblique

By happy chance recently I pulled out a vinyl album which has changed my listening habits for these past weeks. It was released 30 years ago but has always struck me as timeless: it is Brian... > Read more

Black Uhuru: As the World Turns (digital outlets)

Black Uhuru: As the World Turns (digital outlets)

In the late Seventies and early Eighties Black Uhuru out of Jamaica were one of the most important and convincing reggae outfits on the planet, delivering righteous albums on Island Records and... > Read more