Nilsson

A trawl through the wonderful career of the hugely underrated Harry Nilsson takes a chronological look at his back catalogue. Pretty much every classic you would ever need is here - Everybody's Talkin', Me and My Arrow, Without Her, Without You, One… the list goes on. Naturally there is a concentration on Harry's most successful work Nilsson Schmilsson with all but one track of the entire album included. There are some delightful hidden classics too with hard to find tracks included, but perhaps too little concentration on his later career. Nevertheless, this is a superb retrospective.

First album of new material in nearly 40 years—features contributions from Jimmy Webb, Van Dyke Parks, Jim Keltner, and Harry’s son, Kiefo Nilsson.

German soprano Dorothea Herbert submerged herself into the quietness we’ve all encountered during the COVID lockdowns. Society became to a full stop, an of course tragic time but also one that offered introspection. Die stille Stadt gives musical expression to that and became an album with a radiating program consisting of music by the unfortunately still underrated Alma Mahler, two breathtaking song cycles by Erich Korngold (including the famous aria ‘Glück, das mir verblieb’ from Die tote Stadt), completed by a selection of very powerful and illustrative songs by Franz Schreker.

Harry Nilsson had a hit, a Grammy, and critical success, yet he still didn't have a genuine blockbuster to his name when it came time to finally deliver a full-fledged follow-up to Nilsson Sings Newman, so he decided it was time to make that unabashed, mainstream pop/rock album. Hiring Barbra Streisand producer Richard Perry as a collaborator, Nilsson made a streamlined, slightly domesticated, unashamed set of mature pop/rock, with a slight twist. This is an album, after all, that begins by pining for the reckless days of youth, then segues into a snapshot of suburban disconnectedness before winding through a salute to and covers of old R&B tunes ("Early in the Morning" and "Let the Good Times Roll," respectively), druggie humor ("Coconut"), and surging hard rock ("Jump Into the Fire")…

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." …