Karl Wallinger Welsh-born musician and composer also played with the Waterboys and worked on Sinéad O’Connor’s debut album singer-songwriter who was best known for World Party, his almost-solo outfit, has died aged 66, it has been announced. Wallinger first came to prominence as the touring keyboard player in The Waterboys although his role grew by the time of 1985’s “This Is The Sea” and Mike Scott has acknowledged his significant contribution in terms of arrangements and his skills as a multi-instrumentalist (Wallinger also co-wrote opener ‘Don’t Bang The Drum’).
Born Karl Edmond de Vere Wallinger in Prestatyn, Wales in 1957, he began his musical career as a keyboard player with various bands, before a job in music publishing and a brief stint as the musical director of The Rocky Horror Show. In 1983, Wallinger joined the Waterboys and played on their first three albums as a multi-instrumentalist, including on the folk-rock band’s biggest hit, “The Whole of the Moon”.
Karl left during the This Is The Sea tour to pursue his own solo career (what would become World Party) and the first album “Private Revolution” was released in 1986. His first album release under the World Party name, was released in 1987.
The second single from that long-player, ‘Ship of Fools’ was a significant success, especially in America where, remarkably, it reached No 27 in the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK, the song underachieved, peaking frustratingly just short of the UK top 40 at No 42.
Neither ‘Put The Message in the Box’ or ‘Way Down Now’ – both superb pop songs – from World Party’s undoubted 1990 masterpiece “Goodbye Jumbo” were a hit, which seems unfathomable now, but Wallinger was probably just too far ahead of the curve with his fusion of sixties songwriting idealism and one-man-band recording techniques.
But “Goodbye Jumbo” is a truly wonderful album. Following him because of the Waterboys connection There was something special about World Party being quite good. Karl Wallinger could write brilliant tunes with great hooks and lyrics, but it was the sound and the production that made everything work so well. ‘Ain’t Gonna Come ‘Til I’m Ready’ is pure perfection; so many tiny sonic details placed, layered and mixed with precision and Karl sings beautifully with that Prince-like falsetto. He could build a song for days, weeks, months with that studio craftsmanship and then write an achingly simple tune like ‘Love Street’ or the piano ballad ‘Sweet Soul Dream’.
Almost a year later, Ensign (part of Chrysalis) issued ‘Thank You World’ as the third and final UK single but any hope that it might give the album a late boost was dashed by it’s failure.
In spring 1993, a couple of years after the “Goodbye Jumbo” campaign ended, World Party returned with their third album “Bang!” and, somewhat against the odds, it was a commercial success! This was all down to the first single, the brilliantly languid and lovely “Is It Like Today?“, which was a hit. ‘Is It Like Today?’ actually only got to No 19, World Party’s “Bang!” entered the UK album charts at No 2 and only “Automatic For The People”, R.E.M.’s follow-up to “Out Of Time“, denied them a number one album.
On reflection, the second single, the funk-rock of ‘Give It All Away’, was perhaps not the song to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining this hard won territory inside the actual pop charts and World Party were back to their old ways of peaking just outside the top 40. It was borderline criminal that the commercially catchy pop of ‘Sooner Or Later’ wasn’t the second single from “Bang!” and by the time the sunny ‘All I Gave’ was released, in the autumn of 1993, the moment was gone.
The wait for the next album, “Egyptology”, seemed very long at the time, but was actually only four years. ‘She’s The One’, which was famously a No 1 hit for Robbie Williams in 1999, features on “Egyptology”, but was only released as a promotional single and at the time with Chrysalis opting for ‘Beautiful Dream’ as the lead track from the album “Egyptology” had its moments, weighed down by solid, if not outstanding numbers.
What we now know as World Party’s last album, “Dumbing Up“, was released on Karl’s own imprint Seaview label in October 2000. One single, ‘Here Comes The Future’, was put out to little fanfare. Not long after this, in early 2001, Wallinger suffered an aneurysm that left him unable to speak and it took almost half a decade for him to be well enough to make a return, albeit only on stage. The next decade featured a series of sporadic tours, normally in America, although World Party did support Steely Dan in Australia in 2007. They played festivals, vineyards and the like and by all accounts had a very pleasant time of it!
Karl was always disinterested in reissues, What Karl did approve, in 2012, which now seems like an amazing gift, was the release of “Arkeology“, a 70-track anthology (“it isn’t a box set” he insisted). This 5CD set contains no studio album tracks which illustrates just how prolific Karl was, even if he seemed reluctant to actually release anything as old B-sides, live cuts and covers,
“Arkeology” included what were new recordings at the time, songs like ‘Everybody’s Falling in Love’ and ‘Photograph’ (finished in 2011). In November 2012, World Party played their first UK show in 12 years at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
The Waterboys lead singer, Mike Scott, paid tribute to Wallinger on Monday in a social media post on X, calling him “one of the finest musicians I’ve ever known”. He added: “Travel on well my old friend.”
Rest in Peace, Karl Wallinger. thanks to sde for the words
The Fat Angel Sings 