Waterboys founder Mike Scott called him “one of the finest musicians I’ve ever known” in a post Monday on X, formerly Twitter. “Travel on well my old friend,» he said.
Karl Wallinger, the multi-instrumentalist and solo force behind the band World Party and former member of The Waterboys, has died.
Wallinger, 66, passed away Sunday, his publicist said. No cause of death was announced.
Wallinger had worked as musical director for a production of “The Rocky Horror Show” in London’s West End when he was recruited on keyboards for The Waterboys in 1983, playing synthesizer and singing backup vocals on their most commercially successful song, “The Whole of the Moon.”
Waterboys founder Mike Scott called him “one of the finest musicians I’ve ever known” in a post Monday on X, formerly Twitter. “Travel on well my old friend,» he said.
Creative differences with Scott led Wallinger to go his own way in 1985 to start World Party, where he created a sound infused with influences of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Sly Stone.
“It just became obvious that it wasn’t going to go anywhere than where it’s gone,” Wallinger told Penny Black Music in 2022 interview. “(Mike Scott) was controlling, and that was it, he wasn’t into doing anything together.”
World Party was better received critically than commercially and despite landing several tunes on the pop music charts, it was more embraced by alternative radio.
