page_title: The Walker Brothers
section_title: Success in the UK
hierarchical_section_title: The Walker Brothers / History / Success in the UK
caption_attribution_description: English: Trade ad for The Walker Brothers's single "Make It Easy on Yourself" (from left to right: Scott, Gary and John Walker). To better adapt it to his respective Wikipedia article, the ad was cropped and cleaned in a graphics editing program. The original can be viewed at the source below.
context_page_description: The Walker Brothers were an American pop group of the 1960s and 1970s that included Noel Scott Engel, John Walker and Gary Leeds. After moving to Britain in 1965, they had a number of top ten albums and singles there, including the No. 1 chart hits "Make It Easy on Yourself" and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine", both of which also made the US top 20 and Canadian top 2. In between the two was the lesser US hit "My Ship is Coming In", which was another major hit in Britain, where it reached No.3 in the charts. The trio split up in 1968, but reunited in the mid-to-late-1970s and scored a final top 10 UK hit with "No Regrets".
  Formed in 1964, they adopted the 'Walker Brothers' name as a show business touch even though the members were all unrelated — "simply because we liked it." They provided a unique counterpoint to the British Invasion by achieving much more success in the United Kingdom than in their home country, a period when the popularity of British bands such as The Beatles dominated the U.S. charts.
context_section_description: When they landed in England, record producer Johnny Franz was keen to sign them up. In a short time, Walker and Engel had secured a recording contract with Philips Records, an affiliate of Mercury, and had played several venues around the UK, with Leeds as drummer. Along with the group's relocation came a change in image, abandoning matching suits and pompadours in favor of the mop top haircuts and casual attire typical of British pop stars. Their first single, "Pretty Girls Everywhere," had little success, but radio stations picked up on the follow-up "Love Her" with Engel's baritone vocals, and it made the Top 20 in the UK Singles Chart in June 1965. The song had originally been recorded by The Everly Brothers and released as B-side to their single "The Girl Who Sang The Blues" in 1963.
  Philips then recorded and released the group's version of "Make It Easy on Yourself," a Burt Bacharach and Hal David ballad previously recorded by Jerry Butler. It was sung by Engel (by now called Scott Walker), arranged by Ivor Raymonde and produced by Johnny Franz, with a full orchestra augmented by session musicians. Session musicians on the record included Alan Parker and Big Jim Sullivan.
  By August 1965, "Make It Easy on Yourself" had entered the UK Top 10, eventually reaching the top of the record chart. Later in the year, it also reached No. 16 in the US Billboard Hot 100. The track sold 250,000 copies in the UK, and over one million copies globally, achieving gold disc status.
  The number 3 UK hit "My Ship Is Coming In", originally recorded in 1965 by soul singer Jimmy Radcliffe, followed. Then in March 1966, The Walker Brothers hit No. 1 for the second time in six months with "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore." Their popularity in the UK – particularly that of Scott – reached a new high, especially among teenage girls, and their fan club in that country was said to have been larger than The Beatles.' "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" also made the US Top 20, but had less success in the US.
  The Walker Brothers continued to have chart hits in the UK in 1966 and 1967, with Scott taking a more prominent role in their song choices and arrangements, but with diminishing commercial success. They also had to leave the UK for six months in 1967 because of work permit problems. As pop music moved on, the Walker Brothers began to sound dated. By the end of 1967, the pressures of stardom, internal tensions and 'artistic differences' began to weaken the group. After a UK tour in April 1967, which also featured Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, and Engelbert Humperdinck, followed by a tour of Japan in 1968, the group officially disbanded.
caption: The group in 1965
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