In Memoriam-Karl Wallinger

[purchase Best in Show, a World Party greatest hits compilation]

We’re back again for some In Memoriam posts, honoring some of those from the music world we lost in 2024.  How many posts?  We’ll see....

Back in 2014, in my early-ish days writing here, I wrote about the first CD that I ever bought, World Party’s debut, Ship of Fools, in 1987.  I didn’t even have a CD player at that time, but saw the disc at a used record store, and because I had already heard some of it on the radio, I bought it.  The CD player came shortly after that, and I’m still buying them (I’m an old guy, and like to own my music, and yes, I do download music, too.)  The video above is of the hit song from that album, “Ship of Fools.”

Karl Wallinger was born in Wales in 1957, exhibited his musical talent at an early age.  He was a Beatles fanatic, but not to the exclusion of other music, and ended up with a musical scholarship to Charterhouse (the alma mater of, essentially, the original lineup of Genesis and their first manager/producer Jonathan King, as well as Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant, and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, and many other notable Brits, dating back to its founding in 1611).  After deciding that the life of a classical musician was not for him, Wallinger moved into rock music, forming a band with two guys who went off to be in the Alarm, and doing studio work. 

Answering an ad for a guitarist for The Waterboys, Wallinger convinced Mike Scott that the band really needed a keyboard player, and he joined first as a sideman, before his skill on numerous instruments, and his production talents, led to his joining the band full time for This Is The Sea, and helping to shape “The Whole of the Moon,” probably the Waterboys’ best known song. 

The growing rivalry and infighting between Scott and Wallinger resulted in Wallinger leaving to work on his own material, eventually recording as World Party.  As he later said, World Party consisted of “me and whoever is playing with me at any given time.”  Most of his albums were recorded with Wallinger playing the bulk of the instruments and singing, with guests, including Sinead O’Connor, contributing as needed.

It is hard to listen to World Party without hearing the Beatles’ influences, but he was far from a one trick pony, and his music included other influences ranging from folk to funk and psychedelia, often with lyrics with environmental or anti-war messaging.  World Party’s first three studio albums were critical and commercial successes, with the second, Goodbye, Jumbo, considered by most to be their best work.  But the band’s next two albums were less popular.  During this period, Wallinger also worked with other musicians and on soundtracks.

In 2001, Wallinger suffered a brain aneurysm, which affected his vision and prevented him from working for about five years.  During this inactivity, he was supported, in great part, by royalties from a popular cover of his song, “She’s The One,” by Robbie Williams.  Despite that, Wallinger was pissed off that he wasn’t informed about the cover, and that Williams often introduced the song as one of the best he’d ever written.  In fact, Williams has apparently only rarely publicly admitted that his version is a cover.

Wallinger was able to return to touring in 2006 but never released another studio album of new material.  In 2008, the album Big Blue Ball, a project that Wallinger worked on with fellow “Old Carthusian” (that’s what they are called), Peter Gabriel was released.  It was based on recording sessions from 1991, 1992 and 1995 and Gabriel recalled that working with Wallinger was “the most creative and fun week I have ever had in the studio.” In 2012, Wallinger released Arkeology, a five-CD compilation that included rarities and covers of Beatles songs. 

On March 10, 2024, Wallinger died of a stroke at his home in Hastings, at the age of 66, survived by his wife, sculptor Suzie Zamit, son Louis Wallinger and daughter Nancy Zamit, as well as two grandchildren.