Graham Reid | | 1 min read
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.
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