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Carl Wallinger, the Welsh singer-songwriter who helped define college radio in the 1980s and ’90s as a member of the Waterboys and founder of World Party, died Sunday at his home in Hastings, England. He was 66 years old.
His daughter, Nancy Zammit, confirmed the death but did not specify the cause of death. Mr. Wallinger suffered a brain aneurysm in 2001, forcing him to take a break from acting for several years.
Following the post-punk, new wave, and new romantic movements of the early 1980s, Mr. Wallinger drew on the classic pop and folk styles of the earlier era with Beatles and Beatles-influenced music and lyrics. It represented something like a throwback. bob dylan.
Although he rejected the label “retro,” on stage he looked like a stylish hippie, with long, stringy hair and tinted round glasses perfect for Woodstock.
Mr. Wallinger was widely admired for his instrumental skills. He primarily played keyboards with the Waterboys, an influential folk-rock band founded by Scottish musician Mike Scott, although he usually plays guitar himself. I did. Despite being right-handed, he played the guitar upside down with his left hand. .
After releasing two albums with the Waterboys, Mr. Wallinger left in 1985 to form World Party. At first, it was a one-man activity. He wrote all the songs and recorded all the parts in the studio. It wasn’t until he started touring that he added members, making it a real band.
His lyrics can be harsh. However, his most famous works, such as “Put the Message in the Box” from his 1990 World Party album Goodbye Jumbo, express a spacey, idealistic worldview. I am.
And if you ask me now
New sounds may come
Old things disappear
See the world from just a grain of sand
Although many of his songs contained environmental messages, in an interview Mr. Wallinger insisted that his work was neither political nor message-driven.
“I always thought it should be about healing and knowing the truth about the world,” he said in a 2022 interview with The Big Takeover magazine. “I’m not left-wing or right-wing. I don’t think anything about that. I just want people to have what they need to survive on this planet.”
Carl Edmund de Vere Wallinger was born on October 19, 1957 in Prestatyn, a town in north Wales, about 40 miles west of Liverpool, England. His father, Julian, was an architect and his mother, Phyllis (Owens) Wallinger, worked at various jobs.
He attended Charterhouse, a prestigious private school in England that also produced Peter Gabriel and many other early members of Genesis. (Mr. Wallinger had missed Mr. Gabriel for several years.)
Aiming to become a musician, he moved to London after graduation and worked for a music publisher, processing royalty checks. He was spending his lunch hours playing the piano in his company’s office, and one day a producer heard his story, let him audition, and signed him to a contract.
In his off time, Mr. Wallinger played in a series of short-lived small bands and worked for several years as music director for London’s “The Rocky Horror Show.”
At Mr. Scott’s invitation, he quit the theater and appeared on the Waterboys’ second album, A Pagan Place (1994). He also participated in the group’s third release, “This Is the Sea”, after which he left the group and began a solo career.
World Party’s first album, Private Revolution (1986), included his first hit, “Ship of Fools,” which reached number 27 on the Billboard Top 40 and number 42 in the UK. reached the rank. Sinead O’Connor provided vocals on two songs, and in return Mr. Wallinger appeared on her own debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, released the following year.
After that, “Goodbye Jumbo” (1990), “Bang! (1993) and Egyptology (1997). World Party toured internationally, including opening for 10,000 Maniacs.
Mr. Wallinger also worked in movies. He served as music director for his 1994 film Reality Bites and contributed songs to the soundtracks of Clueless (1995), The Matchmaker (1997), and Armageddon (1998). did.
However, as the 1990s progressed, he and World Party found themselves sidelined by the darker, shriller sounds of American grunge and the power pop sounds of British bands such as Oasis and Blur. I noticed.
Then his manager died and the label went bankrupt. His brain aneurysm caused him to lose his right peripheral vision.
But luck struck Wallinger. In the mid-1990s, he spent 10 minutes writing a song called “She’s the One” and recorded it for Egyptology. Two years later, Robbie Williams re-recorded it without his permission, and his version reached number one on the British pop charts, earning Mr. Wallinger a windfall of royalties.
“So we didn’t have to sell kids into chemical experiments or anything like that,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2012. “I think I’m a bit of a lucky person.”
Along with his daughter, he is survived by his wife, Susie Zammit; their son, Louis Wallinger; his brother, Tim Wallinger; his sisters, Karen Wallinger and Alison Wallinger; and two grandchildren.
Mr. Wallinger slowly returned to recording and performing after his aneurysm. In 2006, he went on a much-delayed promotional tour for his 2000 album Dumbing Up. He co-produced Peter Gabriel’s 2008 album, Big Blue Ball, and Mr. Gabriel collaborated with various artists. Mr. Wallinger co-wrote and performed on several songs.
In 2012, he released Arkeology, a 70-song five-CD set containing demos, live recordings and alternate versions of many of Mr. Wallinger’s World Party songs.
As he has stated in several interviews, his time away from music coincided with dramatic changes in the industry, particularly the transition to digital production and distribution, which led to his lavish instrumentation and album-focused compositions. The style became anachronistic.
But he also considered himself older and wiser, and seemed content with time moving forward.
In 2013, he told the Canadian newspaper Calgary Herald that he was “lucky in a lot of ways, in a lot of ways.” In fact, more than a happy stone expression on my face. Luckily, it’s one of those things that happens. That’s strange. ”
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