A Taste Of Honey August 7 2014
Harry Nilsson 1941- 1994 (pictured centre).“His songs moved like no other pop tunes of the time,floating along on waves of wordplay and melodic intervals before,finally,caressing your funny bone or stabbing you in the heart(or both)”.Alyn Shipton,author of Nilsson : The Life of A Singer Songwriter published in 2013.
Harry is best known to the masses for his two Grammy winning performances of songs he did not write – “Without You” written by Tom Evans and Pete Ham of Badfinger and “Everybody’s Talkin'” written by Fred Neil.
He worked in a bank until in 1966 he signed with RCA Records and the Monkees had a hit with Harry’s composition “Cuddly Toy”-he then finally felt secure enough to become a full-time musician.His own compositions such as “One”,” I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City”,”Coconut” showed his immense talent as a songwriter and his sense of humour is evidenced in “Mr Richards Favourite Song”.
He showed a huge disregard for commercialism which is evidenced by his album ‘Nilsson Sings Newman’ where he devoted the entire album to Randy Newman’s songs and while commercially disappointing provided momentum to Newman’s career.
This attitude is further evidenced by his actions following the most successful album of his career ‘Nilsson Schmilsson’ with primo producer Richard Perry,when he performed a selection of the Great American Songbook standards written by the likes of Harold Arlen & ‘Yip’ Harburg (pic.left), Irving Berlin (pic.right), Sylvia Fine, Gus Kahn, Oscar Hammerstein & Jerome Kern and many others.This album entitled ‘A Little Touch of Schmilsson In The Night’ was recorded well before standards albums became popular again and the arrangements are by Sinatra arranger Gordon Jenkins.This album is regarded as the finest example of Nilsson’s virtuosic singing and is featured in its entirety today on the show.
He had a longtime friendship with John Lennon that became better known for heavy drinking as opposed to musical collaboration and he was profoundly affected by his friends death in 1980.
He also was friends with Keith Moon who died in Harry’s London flat.
Harry was involved in several production projects and musical projects none of which were commercially successful.
Harry produced 18 studio albums,curated several retrospectives of his career,was a well loved musician,singer,songwriter and creator who died after finishing the vocal tracks for one last album that has still to be released.
On July 30 2013 A definitive 17CD boxed set was released that spans his entire career.
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