"The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More"

The Walker Brothers - "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More" (1966)

From actual brothers who didn't advertise it yesterday, to a trio who weren't related, marketed as brothers today.



This trio did have something in common with Sparks from yesterday. They were a LA group that came to England to find fame. They differ in that instead of playing genre defying originals, all of The Walker Brothers' chart success came on the backs of others, recording songs that hadn't quite been hits for other artists and most of them recently. This might be the closest between original and Walker Brothers cover, taking only seven months between release dates.

Written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio who were hit writing machines for Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, this song wasn't a big hit for that band, but it charted in the second 100 in the summer of 1965. The original is thin and sparse production wise, acoustic guitar and tambourine to start, then gradually swells to the full string and bells and piano that we would expect from a mid sixties pop act. The Walker Brothers' cover adds some trumpet that as the book points out are distinctly mariachi style. Other than that, they speed it up and that sounds much better for sure. But besides speed and some new trumpet licks, I swear the studio musicians are playing the same charts that were used for the original. The chimes come in at the same time, the piano, the tambourine, it's just a really straight ahead cover. So while I do appreciate the fact that these three guys do have some really nice voices, I just can't see how they justify calling this one of the 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die.