Iuf Nilsson

Harry Nilsson worked at a bank and wrote songs on the side, mostly jingles and pop tunes in the mid-1960s. Under contract with RCA, his first record was a flop, but it yielded hits for The Monkees and Three Dog Night. In the late 1960s Nilsson was everywhere: pal to the Beatles (especially John and Ringo); singer of "Everybody's Talkin'," the theme to the movie Midnight Cowboy (1969); singer of the theme to the TV show The Courtship of Eddie's Father; composer of the soundtrack to the animated movie The Point (with its hit single "Me and My Arrow"); and singer of the number one hit, "Without You." …

The relationship between Harry Nilsson and John Lennon is legendary. They were notorious booze hounds and carousers, getting kicked out of clubs for misbehavior and generally terrorizing L.A. during Lennon's "lost weekend" of 1974. They wanted to make an album together – hell, anyone working at such a peak would – and the result was Pussy Cats, a Nilsson album produced by Lennon. Almost immediately, Nilsson got sick, resulting in a ruptured vocal cord. Not wanting Lennon to stop the sessions, Nilsson never told his friend, stubbornly working his way through the sessions until he lost his voice entirely. These are the sessions that make up Pussy Cats, an utterly bewildering record that's more baffling than entertaining. Like many superstar projects of its time, this is studded with contributions from friends and studio musicians, all intent on having a good time in the studio – which usually means hammering out rock & roll oldies.