Three unrelated American expats in swinging '60s London, The Walker Brothers were as cool and exotic to us as The Beatles were to kids in the States. Though they started as an R&B-based band in their native Los Angeles, John Maus, Gary Leeds and Scott Engel soon began to specialise in dramatic pop ballads that showed off the latter's swoon-worthy baritone. After several hits, Engel—now known as Scott Walker—split off for an idiosyncratic solo career in 1967. The Walkers briefly reunited for three increasingly experimental albums in the late '70s.