Zahringer took the idea to BMG/RCA Records in Hamburg, Germany they sent Larkin to a recording company and “out pops “Scatman John.” The first single was I am the Scatman. "Sure, I'll try anything," Larkin told him. "Don't kill me, but why don't we try scat-rap?" Zahringer asked. Then one day his agent called and said he had an idea. Larkin said his agent tried for a year and a half to put him on a jazz record, but a crowded market made it difficult. In the same interview, Larkin said it was his wife Judy who handed a tape of some of his best scatting work to his new agent, Manfred Zahringer. There, they met other performers in the jazz community, and found an agent to promote Larkin’s work. In 1990, he travelled to Europe with his wife, Judy McHugh Larkin, daughter of American composer James Francis "Jimmy" McHugh.
In a 1995 interview with Advance for Speech Pathologists and Audiologists Magazine, Larkin explained how his unique style of singing was born. He would later concede to The LA Times that he "hid behind piano because I was scared to speak." He didn’t add singing to his act until 1984 he was performing on a cruise ship, and the applause to his scatting encouraged him to incorporate it into other performances. Larkin began his career playing piano in jazz clubs around Southern California. According to The Los Angeles Times, he found solace in jazz music, when he heard a recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing scat on "How High the Moon." Like many others, he initially struggled on his way to fame, but Scatman John ultimately achieved success because of, and not in spite of, his stutter.īorn in El Monte, CA, Larkin struggled with stuttering from an early age. John Paul Larkin, better known by his stage name Scatman John, was an American jazz pianist, songwriter and performer known for his unique “scat-rap” style of singing.
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