In Europe, he found greater acceptance of jazz, which inspired enough confidence that he incorporated singing into his act. This, I thought, was as good as it could get.” “My feelings were … ‘Success at Last’ … I was so grateful to have actually had the opportunity to make a living as a musician. “After several months of going through the usual trials and tribulations of moving to another country and overcoming culture shock, Judy and I managed to secure an agent and I began to get booked into a European hotel circuit and I was well on my way to becoming the best hotel pianist I could be,” Larkin said in a statement posted on a fan website. Well into middle age at this point, he decided to give his career one last push and moved to Berlin. He successfully worked as a musician for decades, playing piano bars and festivals, until he finally released a self-titled album under his birth name at the age of 42.īy this point, Larkin had fallen into a time worn-pattern of drug and alcohol abuse, but had cleaned up by 1990. Larkin gravitated toward jazz piano and first learned about the scat style of singing listening to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. But that pain, I hope, has made me into the good person that I try to be.”Įarly in his life, music became a nonverbal source of creative expression. I ran after them, and the rage was so strong I would have killed them if my father hadn’t stopped me. I waited until the next day when they had forgotten about it. I remember one instance where some neighborhood kids … mock my stuttering at the top of their voices. “As a child, I had to fight a few times,” Larkin said in a 1995 interview with Advance for Speech Pathologists and Audiologists Magazine. The boy that would become the Scatman had a hard time growing up.īorn John Paul Larkin in El Monte, California in 1942, he developed a stutter early in his life that made communicating with others very difficult. How a struggle with stuttering defined the life and career of Scatman John How? Today’s Tedium explains the story of Scatman John, perhaps the most unlikely pop star of all time.

Who sold millions of records globally in a style of music that hadn’t been popular in generations-scatting. One of those honorees stands out a little more than most: He was a small-scale jazz singer who, by sheer perseverance, had an unexpected pop culture breakthrough in the ’90s. They also have a Hall of Fame, honoring those that have contributed to the community or overcame their own challenges. The association holds an annual conference ( taking place in Dallas this year) and sponsors various outreach programs for those dealing with a stutter.

The National Stuttering Association was founded in 1977 to teach the general public about one of America’s more common speech impediments. Today in Tedium: On the 14th floor of a midtown Manhattan office building, an organization works diligently to help raise awareness of stuttering. Our good pal Andrew Egan is back with an awesome tale about a guy who kicked adversity’s ass.

The skat man