Scatman John
John Dickface Larkin, (March 13, 1942 — December 3, 1999), better known as Scatman John, was a famous stuttering jazz musician who invented a unique fusion of scat singing and disco, best known for his 1994 hit "Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)". As he liked to say, this was a process of "turning my biggest problem into my biggest asset." He received 14 golds and 18 platinums for his albums and singles. He was also the recipient of the Annie Glenn Award for his outstanding service to the stuttering community, and was also inducted to the National Stuttering Association's Hall of Fame. He died of lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles, California at the age of 57.
Early days
Born in El Monte, California, he suffered from a severe stutter "since [he] started talking", which led to an emotionally traumatic childhood. Even at the peak of his success in 1995, journalists reported that during interviews he "hardly finishes a sentence without repeating the phrase at least six or seven times". At age 12 he began to learn piano, and was introduced to the art of scat singing at 14 through records by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, amongst others. The piano provided him with a means of artistic expression to compensate for his speech difficulties. He remarked in a 1996 interview that "playing piano gave me a way to speak... I hid behind the piano because I was scared of talking."
He became a professional jazz pianist in the 1970s and '80s, playing many gigs in jazz clubs around Los Angeles. In 1986, he released the self-titled album John Larkin on the Transition label, copies of which are now extremely scarce. He claimed to have "hundreds of them lying around in [his] closet at home". Around this time alcoholism and drug addiction were also beginning to take a hold of his life. When fellow musician and friend Joe Farrell, who also had a drug problem, died in 1986, Larkin decided to beat his habits. He eventually did so, largely with the help of his new wife Judy, also a recovering alcoholic. "You have talent", she told him. "I'm going to make something out of you".
Birth of "Scatman John"
In 1990, he moved to Berlin, Germany in order to further his career. Appreciative of the jazz culture of the city, he continued playing gigs as a jazz pianist on cruise ships and in bars and clubs around Germany. It was here he made the decision to add singing to his act for the first time, inspired by the standing ovation he received for his rendition of the song "On the Sunny Side of the Street" at the end of an instrumental set. Around this time, his agent Manfred Zahringer suggested that he combine his scat-singing with modern techno music and hip hop sounds, an idea of which Larkin was skeptical but BMG Hamburg were receptive to.
Larkin was mainly scared that listeners would realise he stuttered, so Judy suggested that he talk about it directly in his music. Working with dance producers Ingo Kays and Tony Catania, he recorded the first single, "Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)", a song intended to inspire children who stuttered to overcome adversity. He adopted the new name and persona of Scatman John.
International success
In 1995, at age 52, he became a worldwide star. Sales of his debut single were slow at first, but the song gradually took off to massive proportions, reaching #1 in nearly every country it was released in and selling over 6 million copies worldwide. "Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)" remains his biggest-selling and most well-known song to date and remained in the UK Top 10 for many weeks. He later followed up with the song "Scatman's World" entering the UK Singles chart #10, which met lesser but still notable success, selling a million copies and charting highly throughout Europe.
Following the success of these two singles, he released his debut album, also entitled Scatman's World. It sold three million copies and smashed the world record for being sold in more countries than any other album. He began a promotional and concert tour of Europe and Asia. "At an appearance I did in Spain, the kids screamed for five minutes straight, I couldn't start the song," he once recounted. While conducting promotional interviews for the album, he became so fluent that one journalist remarked that he hadn't heard Larkin stutter once and asked if he was merely using the stuttering community "as a gimmick to further [his] career". He was shocked to find himself for the first time ashamed of his fluency rather than his stutter.
Post-"Scatman's World"
The second Scatman John album, Everybody Jam!, was released in 1996. While nowhere as successful on an international level as his debut, the album and accompanying single took off in Japan, the country in which he would see success on a larger scale than anywhere else in the world. He was so popular there that Japanese toy stores sold dolls of his likeness and he appeared on phone cards and Coca Cola cans. The Japanese version of Everybody Jam! included a total of five bonus tracks, including the hit singles there "Su Su Su Super キ・レ・イ" and "Pripri Scat", which were commissioned by Japanese companies for commercials for cosmetics and pudding respectively. The Ultraman franchise even jumped on the Scatman bandwagon, releasing a single entitled "Scatultraman", the cover art of which featured the Ultraman characters in a hat and moustache.
Final years
In 1999, he released his third and final album as Scatman John, Take Your Time. It was later revealed that he had been battling ill health since late 1998. He continued work on the album despite being told to take it easy from his substantial workload. He was later diagnosed with lung cancer and soon went into intensive treatment. He maintained a positive attitude throughout, declaring that "whatever God wants is fine by me... I've had the very best life. I have tasted beauty." He died in his Los Angeles home on December 3, 1999.
In a 1996 interview, he commented that "I hope that the kids, while they sing along to my songs or dance to it, feel that life is not that bad at all. Even for just a minute."
Discography
[*] = Japan-only releases
Albums
- John Larkin (1986) - Not released commercially
- Scatman's World (1995) #2 Japan (40 weeks), #104 UK
- Everybody Jam! (1996) #17 Japan
- Take Your Time (1999)
- Listen to the Scatman (2001)
- The Best of Scatman John' [*] (2002)
Singles
- "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" (1994) #1 Scandinavia, #1 Belgium, #2 Netherlands, #1 Switzerland, #1 Austria, #1 Italy, #1 Spain, #1 Turkey, #1 France, #36 Japan, #1 Germany, #1 Ireland, #3 UK, #7 Australia, #60 US, #10 US Dance
- "Scatman's World" (1995) #10 UK, #45 Japan, #1 France, #1 Germany, #3 Netherlands, #1 Spain.
- "Song of Scatland" (1995) #46 Germany, #39 France
- "Only You" [*] (1995)
- "Scat Paradise" (EP) [*] (1995) #45 Japan
- "Su Su Su Super キ・レ・イ" [*] (1996) #16 Japan
- "Pripri Scat" (3") [*] (1996) #28 Japan
- "Everybody Jam! (1996) #46 Germany, #44 US Dance
- "Let It Go" (1997)
- "Scatmambo" (1998)
- "The Chickadee Song" (1999)
- "Take Your Time" (1999)
- "I Love Samba" [*](1999)
- "Ichi, Ni, San... Go!" (1999)
Other
- "Life is Fantastic" (1995 single by Army of Lovers featuring mixes by Scatman John)
- "Megamix '96" (1996 single released in France, a rarity)
- "Queen Dance Traxx 1" (1997 compilation including "The Invisible Man")
- "Steal the Base" (1999 song included on soundtrack to Major League: Back to the Minors)