Thanks to the world of sharities and music blogs, I’ve been introduced to the wonderfully eclectic and plain brilliant world of Harry Nilsson. I’d heard his name bandied about by someone or the other over the years, but I was only familiar with “Without You”, a song that I never liked but now recognize as an unusual song in his oevere.
Born in Brooklyn, Nilsson developed his talent writing songs for the likes of Little Richard, The Monkees and Glen Campbell, but was relatively unknown as an artist. Apparently, it was the Beatles who “discovered” him and encouraged him to take a crack at a solo career. And what a career it was. He may have been forgotten by today’s radio playlists, but his early string records were truly at the top of the pop idiom, most of all in terms of sheer unbelievable quality.
Interested in more?
Go visit The Heat Warps (do a search for Nilsson there) and Never Get Out Of The Boat for the hard evidence - and enjoy! Then go buy his stuff!
My current Nilsson listening: The Point - a psychedelic children’s story.
According to Nilsson:
I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, ‘Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn’t, then there’s a point to it.
Over’n'out,
the man cable
