John Walker, one of the founders of 1960s group the Walker Brothers has died, his spokesman confirmed today.
Walker, 67, passed away at his Los Angeles home after a battle with liver cancer.
A statement on his website read: ‘It is with our deepest sadness to report that Mr. John Walker passed away in his Los Angeles area home on May 7, 2011’. Born John Maus, Walker played a pivotal role in the band which scored huge commercial success in the 1960s and 1970s with songs such as Make It Easy On Yourself and The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Any More).
The band was formed in 1964, when the three unrelated musicians Scott Engel, Maus and Gary Leeds adopted the Walker Brothers name.
They had earned great reputed in the U.S. – famously becoming a six-nights-a-week hit at at Gazzari’s Club in Hollywood – by the time John was 21, but it wasn’t until the trio took up an invitation to fly to the UK that their career exploded.
The ‘Brothers’ flew to London in February 1964 and embarked in earnest on a career that would eventually see them sell more than 23million records. Their first UK hit single was 1965’s Love Her, which reached number 20, but their breakthrough came with their third release, Make It Easy on Yourself, which provided the band with their first number one. A string of major hits followed with My Ship Is Coming In reaching number 3 before, in 1966, they scored a second UK number one with the song for which they are perhaps best know, The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore.
They released three albums and 10 singles before officially splitting in 1968.
All three continued to release solo records, before reforming in 1974, releasing the comeback album No Regrets a year later. Two more albums followed – Lines (1976) and Nite Flights (1978) – before the band, according to John Walker, ‘just drifted apart’.