Bio Full Biography »

b. John Larkin, c.1942, USA. One of the more unlikely success stories of the mid-90s, Scatman John is a side-project for jazz singer and pianist John Larkin. Based in Los Angeles, California, USA, he performed widely at festivals and at piano bars throughout the world. Despite his prolific work in jazz, however, it was within the house music tradition that he eventually became a star. He was discovered by Manfred Zähringer, owner of Danish label Iceberg Records, in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1994. Larkin passed him some tapes of his ‘bebop poetry’ renditions, which impressed the label owner greatly. However, no record label he approached would take seriously the prospect of a 50-year-old jazz pianist improvising scat vocals over a pop dance rhythm. Eventually he found a sympathetic home at BMG Ariola Hamburg under Axel Alexander who paired Larkin with producers Tony Catania and Ingo Kays, with whom he recorded a single, ‘Scatman’. Though sales were slow initially, the single earned repea...