He was the bestselling poet in American history. What happened?
Was never a fan - and hadn’t thought of him for decades - but there is no doubt that at the time he was big.
Just one paragraph that opened my eyes …
In the mid-1960s McKuen discovered the Belgian singer Jacques Brel and his fellow chansonniers, performers in the story-song tradition who were popular in the cabarets of Europe but hadn’t yet made inroads in the U.S. market. McKuen translated and sang a number of Brel’s songs, and fully rewrote Brel’s song “Le Moribond” as “Seasons in the Sun,” which was recorded by the Kingston Trio. (It would later be a No. 1 hit for the singer Terry Jacks.)
… in my mind, Scott Walker and more recently Marc Almond were the two ‘Walker Channelers’. Never had any idea that Rod was another.