OBITUARY
Karl Wallinger, the multi-talented singer-songwriter famed for his work with World Party and The Waterboys, died on 10 March at the age of 66. Leading the tributes on social media was The Waterboys frontman, Mike Scott, who wrote: “Travel on well my old friend. You are one of the finest musicians I’ve ever known.”
Born in Prestatyn in North Wales, Wallinger showed musical promise from an early age and was an avid listener of The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and The Kinks. Classically trained to play the piano and oboe as a youngster, he developed his musical skills at Charterhouse public school in Surrey after gaining a scholarship from Eton College.
After heading to London to pursue a career in music, he was briefly the musical director of the The Rocky Horror Picture Show, before joining The Waterboys in 1983.
Hired to play keyboards, he debuted on the band’s second album A Pagan Place in 1984. Impressed by his multi-instrumental and production skills in the studio, Mike Scott utilised Wallinger’s talents to great effect on the band’s landmark third LP, This Is The Sea, featuring the hit single The Whole Of The Moon.
Aware that his own creative ambitions would inevitably conflict with that of Scott’s, Wallinger decided to leave the band in 1985 and concentrate on his own music career.
Working as World Party, he scored Top 40 hits with Put The Message In The Box, Is It Like Today? All I Gave and Beautiful Dream, and released five studio LPs including Bang!, which reached No.2 on the UK Albums Chart in 1993.
In 1997, She’s The One, from World Party’s fourth release Egyptology, won an Ivor Novello Award and, two years later, Robbie Williams’ cover version would top the UK Singles Chart.
Wallinger suffered a brain aneurysm that nearly claimed his life in 2001. Forced to stop performing for five years after undergoing surgery, he later returned to touring when he’d relearned how to speak and play instruments.
Talking with theartsdesk.com in 2012, he revealed how he wanted to make good use of his time and that he’d become more “philosophical about the nature of existence”. He added: “What makes you happy can be really simplified, because just being around is pretty good after that kind of thing. It makes you more down to earth in a way,
